Week 7 - On The Road Again

After a 3 weeks absence playing "Pimp my Marina" at Shawl Bay, we are back. I wasn't quite sure what day it was, so until then, we will be going by the week.

Firstly, its been a fruitful 3 weeks at Shawl Bay. The marina is now spanky clean and is on its way to being first rate! Please take your shoes off when exiting your boat and using the docks there! We have managed to clock around 30 hours on the power washer, drain 18 gallons of paint (and break in Lorne's new paint compressor), and use up all brushes and rollers that were in the paint supply tote and last but not least, we have drained and replenished all of Mike's Beer Supply!

We met some very nice hard working people (Jean & Olav, Kim and Anders and Crew)and had some good laughs and great food. I will be breaking out the weekend side trips we did from there with photos and all and also starting updates on the Arrival of Sambuca and our Son CJ. This will be very entertaining as I outline their first 6 days of catching up to us. I beleive the words "Perfect Storm" will be used frequently in their travels up the coast. We are heading to Blunden Harbour in Queen Charlotte Strait today as its not quite as flat as we would like it (about a 3 foot chop) and hopefully jumping up to Rivers Inlet tommorrow.

Thank you for the emails and kind requests to update the blog, its good to know you're all still with us on the trip!

Day 23-30 - Shawl Bay

We travelled another 10 Miles up Tribune Channel to one of our favorite spots to give them a hand getting ready for the season. We stopped at Burdwood group of islands on the way with the intent of anchoring for a night there prior to going into Shawl, but the wind had picked up again and the gale warnings were going to blow right into the anchorage, so better safe than sorry, into Shawl we go. Surprise...Surprise.....no one is there but the Cat and Dog.

We were shocked to pull in and see two new floathomes tied up to their docks. We were sure that there was another story to be had. Under the party Gazebo, there is a fairly new Hot Tub sitting in pieces - another Story? probably not until it gets hooked up....come on up Penny..... Sometime early evening Rob comes in as he has just been to Port McNeil dropping off Lorne and Shawn for their week out. Oh well, we can still do what we came to do with or without them. We have had the burn barrel going non stop, we are now out of paint and the hose on the power washer is broken. Good Thing we are going to Port McNeil tommorrow....you guessed it, we are close to running out of Beer!!! Things are looking spanky here and we hope to get the painting and other odd jobs done towards the end of the week. Lorne will be quite surprised to come back to see all the clean up that we have all done (Maybe its a good thing he wasn't here!)

Back to the story on the two float homes....for those that don't know Shawl Bay, it is a community of floating homes around the perimeter of the bay. Other than Lorne's place, all the other homes are summer places. High winds broke the anchors on these two homes which are actually a fishing lodge and the homes ended up broken up on the beach. The owners of the homes, had lumber dumped off at the docks here and Lorne and Robbie have been working on rebuilding the two homes and they should be towed out of here within the next week or so and re anchored in their old spot.

Mike is now busy getting ready to varnish as we hope to have a few more days of sunshine. Spring is finally here. I am going to do some trap maintenance and then drop both my crab and prawn traps for a seafood feast tommorrow night.

Day 22 - Kwatsi Bay

View Looking out into Kwatsi Bay

"Shaman" steaming up the docks when the sun came out

MV "Shelagh"

A dull day to travel

From Lagoon Cove to Kwatsi is about a 10 mile run. A short day on the water. Max is the only one in at Kwatsi. Anka has gone to town to do the big store shop, getting ready for the summer season. Sweatshirts and hats to be bought.

Winter has been pretty harsh for this new age pioneer family. A large landslide came down within about 100 feet from the house taking out their power and water for a period of time. It occured around 3:00 am and not only was the noise frightening, but Max said that the smell of the cedar trees and mud permeating the air in their house was a sure sign that the slide was close. No one was hurt and all has been repaired. Marika (15 year old Daughter) tells me with some trepidation that her and her brother will be going to Port McNeil next year for School and that the family will be moving their as well for the school year. They have been homeschooled in conjunction with part time schooling at Echo Bay for most of their lives. This change has its positives and negatives. Hopefully there will be more positives!

There is a boat (Shelagh) tied to the dock at Kwatsi that Max skippered up from Victoria. Turns out that it belongs to one of the inventors of the game "Trivial Pursuit" - the gentleman has a similar boat on the East Coast and both boats are being used for Whale Research. The Shelagh will be tied to a whale research station in Echo Bay (Alexandra Mortons' old place) and the University students will be using it along with the owner to do Whale Research in the Broughtons. Stop in and say "Hi" Chuck!

I asked Max about sealife in the area and they have had whales, both Orca and Grey come into their bay in the last little while. A few years ago, we ran into a large school of pacific white sided dolphins (around 50 of them) in Bond Lagoon (next door). Unfortuneately Bond Lagoon has a large logging operation in it now and the Creek that the good folks of the Broughtons had worked so hard to stock with Salmon has had a few slides into it.....logging....slides...related??? I am finding more causes that I could champion while up here. I know the trees grow back but we have seen more slides up this way this year than in the last 10 years of coming up here. It sounds like not all "good" practices are being practiced with the logging.

We had a nice stay with Max and Marika and wish them a busy season!

Day 19-21 - Lagoon Cove

Within the Hour the leg was changed out

Lagoon Cove Looking Pretty

York Island in Johnston Strait, still with gunplacements

All Right already.....complaints abounding due to my non-failure to keep up the blog!!

We spent a wonderful 3 days albeit in the rain at Lagoon Cove. Bill & Jean are very gracious hosts and invited the boats that were there for Icecream and Cake up at the House after dinner (In lieu of appy hour) We ran into the most amount of pleasure boats here. One Boat load we even Knew! There were 5 boats at Lagoon out of 5, 3 of them only one nighters enroute to Alaska. The people we knew on the brand new Solander yacht were former Gulf Commander Owners and we knew them from years ago! It was nice to run into some people we knew. As you might have guessed, conversation by the third week between Mike and I is pretty Mono Syllable.... errr...should I say its not quite as stimulating as normal??

The winds have been pretty much howling these last few days at around 30 knots, throw in some rain and a few spots of rare sunshine and you have the makings of a nice spring storm passing through.

We were given 2 very large dungeness crabs and a big plate of prawns (already cooked) by Bill and Jean when we arrived, I like this kind of crabbing and prawning! Lots of updates from Bill and Jean about all the goings on around the Broughtons, its been a busy winter. At the very least, we will stop there on our way back in the Fall. Minstrel Island (across the way) is still closed and the new owner has been busy towing stuff out and subdividing and selling off the back end of the island.

Some excitement at Lagoon, a crab boat is going up on their ways and the crew will change the leg. We are used to doing things during a tide swing, these guys have it down to a science. They were up on the ways for about 45 minutes, had the motor leg unbolted and new one put on before Bill was able to leave the winch for Coffee. Good Job Boys!

We topped up on Fuel while in Lagoon....hold onto your shorts Gord....1.35 lt. diesel. Guess that 5.00 head of lettuce is looking like a fair deal. We have discussed the price of fuel and with expectations that it will be doubling in the next few years, now is as good as time as any to do this trip!

Some salty looking hunters came in for Fuel - yuck ---- Bear hunters....Thank goodness they haven't shot anything. I suspect with the long winter, most of the bears are just waking up. Mike and I beleive that the bears we used to see in Chatham Channel on the beach were shot as were most of the bears in the surrounding area. So along with "No" to Fish Farming in the sea (versus land), I will be adding "No" to bear hunting. We are certainly at a stage in our ecology that there is no need in the wilderness to control the bear population by hunting...its just Trophy hunting! Okay....rant done....Onwards with Day 22