Day 30 - Bottleneck Inlet

Boat Bluff Coast Guard Station

We left Kent Inlet in the fog and crossed through Meyers Passage and made a successful second attempt to go into Bottleneck Inlet. A nice stay, but we both agreed, that there are nicer places in the area to stay. Rick and Faye went out Halibut fishing and Mike and I went exploring. We found a most excellent anchorage through a narrow opening in Wallace Bight, much more protected and more scenic than Bottleneck. This is our last night with Raven Spirit as they have to head home tommorrow and we are turning around and heading north again (to Fiordland)
The temperatures continue in the high 20's low 30s for another day, a little bit of fog, but with the heat it burns off quickly.

Day 29- Kent Inlet - Princess Royal

A few days later, we depart Tate Cove and arrive at Kent Inlet on Princess Royal. Another Tidal bore at the entrance gives way to a very scenic and beautiful inner bay. Again, the book makes it sound like the most scariest place on earth, when in fact, as long as you aren't making the entrance to extreme high and low tides as was the case last month, you could entrance this bay at almost any tide. One of the most protected on the coast. This is the start of the Deer Fly invasion.....the dogs are going nuts and even the cat is having a crazy time trying to catch these biters as they pester us and try to get a piece of us. The weather is hovering in the high 20's (28-29 degrees Celsius)
Mike and I explore the uncharted lagoon in the back of Kent Inlet - Ding Ding...there goes our pristine new prop! No bears, but lots of birds and and a very large lagoon that we oculd not finish exploring due to tide change. We did not want to get trapped in the lagoon as there were quite a few rocks going through and the lagoon itself had quite a few unexpected rocks mid fairway! Nice stay and worthy of another visit.

Day 28 - Tate Cove (Aristabel)

Following Orca's to Tate Cove

A short jaunt from Ethelda Bay brings us to Tate Cove in "Borrowman Bay" on Aristabel Island. The fish camp is busy as ever and the boys have a marvelous time catching fish and letting 10 go for every 1 they keep. The crazy porpoises here are not Pacific white sides but rather their shyer cousin the "Dahls Porpoise" - only this group were not shy at all.
Tate Cove is busy with 3 other boats besides our two also anchored in there, luckily the weather is settled. The couple we met last year in their float home are not at home right now, so we suspect that they have gone to Kitimat to re-provision.
Lots of Coho and bait around, a great fishing area!

Day 27 - Ethelda Bay

Very Calm and Flat on the outside when we go gunkholing


Big gate keeps the public out now


Who needs to be a spelling master to understand this sign?

Last years docks now sinking into the ocean.

Last season for this boat




Here is the link from last years stop http://northtoalaska2008.blogspot.com/2008/08/august-6-7-ethelda-bay-estavan-group.html

A quiet night in Fin Bay on Hawk Island and about a 25 mile drive to Ethelda Bay in the morning brings us continued blue sky, a bit of chop on the water and nice arrival time for slack water at Gillespie Channel. This tidal bore is best travelled at slack water as it can run fast and you wouldn't want to hit the little nuggets hiding under the rapids! We came here last year for a couple of days and were disappointed to find that there is now a gate locking up the premises on the ramp up to shore. The docks are very much ready to fall into the ocean and not much maintainance has been done since last year. Their breakwater is on a constant shift to the dock as we think perhaps in one of the winter storms one of the anchors has let loose.
I understand the need to protect your belongings, but what a shame that we can no longer visit the old radio tower and helipad on the top of the island. A nice gunkhole in the evening takes us to calm settled waters on the outside of the Estavan group, but we cannot find the entrance that was used by last years fishermen to the halibut fishing grounds.

Day 26 - Butedale to Hawk Island

View from our Bay on Hawk Island

Watching Seiners starting a set


Getting Ready to make the "Purse"


After our two day stay in Khutze, we departed for post north and west. Enroute, we stopped in Butedale to show Faye and Rick what was left of one of the busiest canneries on the coast (in its day of course). We filled up with water and had a nice visit with Lou. We meet three of his guests that stayed in his cabins last night, and what a story they have to tell. These three gentlement met from all over via the Internet. One is from Ottawa, another from South Carolina and the third one is from Idaho (I think!) They had finished walking the ridge of Princess Royal Island and then paddled their way through the 13 mile lake up above on the Ridge with these inflatable boats they have strapped to their pack sacks. Their packs sacks I might add, weigh approximately 75 lbs, not an easy feat while travelling up some of the mountain sides! I have added their links below. These young fellows have traipsed through game trails, paddled through what looks to be millions of bug nests and are now preparing to paddle their way from Butedale to Klemtu. we thought the folks we met in Duncanby were nuts going to Alaska in 23' boats, this is crazier!
We have a nice afternoon visit, fill up our water tanks and head up through Wright sound and find an anchorage in a small bay on Hawk Island called Fin Bay.

Day 25 & 26 - Khutze Inlet & Butedale

Author gets whimsical again!


So....Why?


String some lights...voila, Xmas Tree


Lou's Laundry Day


"Extreme" Hikers leaving for Klemtu


Orca's in Grenville Channel


Sunrise in Khutze


"Traveller" enroute to Alaska, 3rd time we run into him.


We trundled off in the morning from Seaforth (Muir Island)with intentions of filling up with some gas for the dinghy's in Klemtu as Shearwater was out of gasoline,our intended stop was Bottleneck Inlet. The seas in Finlayson Channel was a bit uncomfortable with beam seas of about 3 1/2 feet, a change of plans, we ended up through the back door through Klemtu Passage and ended up a couple of nights in Khutze Inlet. One of our all time favorite anchoring sites on the coast!

While in Klemtu, we enquired about Francis, our wonderful tour guide from last year, he wasn't around, but then I am sure the rain kept most people home. A quick visit to the store and off again. Enroute up Klemtu Passage we ran into one of our fellow yacht clubbers, Chris R who was delivering a high speed inflatable to Prince Rupert for the Coast Guard, nice job Chris!

We had an anchoring episode on the first night (I will go into detail later! - but it involves the middle of the night and a dragging anchor). We are lucky and we manage to see two grizzleys in the delta. One appears to be an older version of one of the grizzlies we saw last year. The weather lifts the next morning and we spend a wonderful day fishing, bear spotting, crabbing (we were not disappointed - 16 between the four of us.

So you were probably wondering what happened with the anchor? Sound asleep with visions of prawns and crabs running through my head when the rude sound of the motors firing up awakens me from my pleasant dreams - we are dragging anchor, to make matters worse, the fog is thick as pea soup and our bow search light decides to pack it in. I am ordered to the bow with a flash light and I am to watch the anchor that Mike is pulling up from the bridge with his new fangled little remote control. I started yelling to Mike as to what the hell he was doing as he was letting out all of the anchor chain, so much so, we ended up with rope (the bitter end) - you know that part we ordered last year for our winch - the one that allows us to hand crank the anchor up?...the part that did not show up??.....well it wouldn't have helped anyways, with no anchor chain on the windlass teeth, nothing was going to come up from the bottom of the ocean. By this time, Rick and Faye are awake also (they are tied alongside us) and now there are three of us in the fog looking at the rope hanging through the windlass with 300 feet of chain and an eighty pound anchor sitting under water....... brainwave..... Mike is going to move our raft, the anchor etc to shallower water. With the fog as thick as pea soup, we have trouble seeing the other two boats anchored in the bay with us, Mike ends up taking us way out to sea and what seems to be an eternity, but was only really an hour, we finally are able to get to shallow water and are finally able to hand pull the anchor up the 8" we needed to get the chain back on the windlass. Thanks to Rick for sharing in the loss of sleep and the use of his back to manhandle that 8" of rope back into the little hole. Note to self - when Mike says he "thinks" we are anchored good, nag him to make sure!

Day 24- Seaforth Channel - Muir Island

We spent 2 nights in a no name bay off of Idle Point. It gives us a bird's eye view of Seaforth Channel, all of its boat traffic and condition of the seas out there. Crabbing is so-so....a couple of small dungeness and 2 rock crabs. We have never seen so much herring in a small bay, with pink salmon, seals and eagles feasting on the boiling bubbles of herring. The boys come back with more salmon and we are now having to eat large chunks of meat to make room in the freezer for this salmon. Mike has released more than quadruple of what he has kept. Its been a long time since we have seen so many coho around. The sports fish camp in Shearwater is fully booked to the end of August in comparison to the fish lodges in Rivers which are only40% full. The fish are a mystery!

Day 22 & 23 - Shearwater

Another great Sunset


Beautiful!


The anchor Mike helped pull up


Dawn in Shearwater

We leave our favorite little fishing hole and head up to Shearwater, enroute, Mike hears a "Pan Pan" on the radio of a boat that we have just passed in a "no name" bay that we have stayed at in the past and we have nick named "Dukies Beach" - this is also the bay where we have had the "Northern Caber Toss" games with friends (Craig and Marion)- Mike turns the boat around and heads back to see if we can assist. The boat "Pacific Song" - 65' long passagemaker has the identical problem we had last year in Roscoe Bay - his Anchor Winch is stripped and his anchor has freewheeled to the bottom of the ocean. Luckily they are only in 45' of water and he only has @70' of chain and the rest is cable. We tie along side of her and between Paul (the Captain) and Mike they manage to use their dinghy winch and are able to pull about 150' of cable and the 70' of chain plus the "300 lb." anchor from the murky depths. After must groaning and straining, the two gentleman have a system in place with the winch and all ended up well. It was only a 2 beer fix! We headed off to Shearwater and after laundry and general clean up, we had a nice pizza dinner in the pub. The facility is full and we have to raft against Raven Spirit. In talking to the dock master (Jeannie) we find out that they have had a banner year with being full all of June and most of July - we quickly make a reservation for our return visit at the end of the month when I am flying home for an overnight trip to Vancouver.
We talked via Radio to Lloyd and Sandy from BYC who are having battery life problems and they will be heading south to Port Hardy to re-battery.

Off to Idle point for a day and night of fishing - Mike heard they are limiting out within hours there! I don't know how much more meat I can take out of the freezer to make room!

Day 21 - Spider Island - Swordfish Bay

We leave Rick & Faye to finish doing their telephone business in Duncanby and head up to Spider Island Group. We anchored in our Favorite spot "Swordfish Bay". After we were settled, Mike and I went out fishing for the evening bite - there are no stinkin' fish here says the Fishmaster. A quiet night and then in the morning Mike decides to go out and throw a few more herring to the fish gods. He comes back within about an hour with two 10-12 lb. coho, obviously the fish here are only morning fish! We decide to head up to Shearwater to meet up with Rick and Faye again.

Day 19 & 20 - Duncanby Landing

A calm trip to Duncanby


Left a few hours ago from Hardy enroute to Alaska!


A Sunny day at Duncanby

A 4 nm trip across Rivers Inlet brings us into Duncanby Landing. We spotted a pod of killer whales (first of the trip) as we entered Duncanby. Fishing is spectacular here but the lodges are all suffering the woes of low head counts. There is an estimation that all of the lodges are down a minimum of 40% due to the current economics - it must be Murphys Law - fishing is spectacular but there are very few fisherman to enjoy it. There is also speculation that at least 3 of the existing lodges in the area will not see the season finish. Only the strong shall survive!
Mike catches about a 15 lb. ling cod and once again, the freezer is full to brim. Coho fishing is open again in Rivers (instead of Catch and Release) and the returns are nothing short of eye-popping. We had a lovely restaurant dinner with Faye and Rick and settled down to a few nights of DVD watching. We are awoken the first morning with a sea lion catching fish in the water about 50' off the boat and then into the bay comes a huge humpback whale to have his breakfast. Its a regular "Whale-a-palooza!"

Day 18 - Fury Cove

We spent a wonderful night in Fury Cove. It was a humpback whale festival! In the morning there were a pair of humpbacks just outside the bay with a performance that we have never seen before, as if they were trained circus whales, they both jumped tandem out of the water, as usual, my mouth was open and my camera was closed, I really ought to learn to reverse that! In total, we counted upwards of 16 humpbacks in the surrounding area! Off to Duncanby for a couple of nights.

Day 17 - July 11 Shawl Bay to Fury Cove

Finished up the laundry, got all watered up and headed out of Shawl Bay enroute to Fury Cove. I am writing this just outside Wells Passage in a blanket of fog, but a very calm, no wind, smooth ride up the coast. At this point, if it stays nice and calm we will make Fury Cove by around 9:00 ish tonite. Long day, but not really as we only departed at 11;45 am. We are travelling with Faye and Rick off of Raven Spirit and hope to be in and around Shearwater by Monday. Will check in then. No photos just yet, the fog is just thick enough to make visibility for photographing kind of useless.
Happy Birthday to my baby sister tommorrow and happy B'day to Shannon tommorrow.

Day 9 - 16 - Shawl Bay

Its been a beautiful week sitting in Shawl Bay. The sun has been out just about every day, the place looks great and we have run in to some old boating friends and made some new ones. It was great to see the Bead Lady (Carol) and I managed to get all those birthday gifts that I needed to mail home from her. Carol is a great fit with the folks at Shawl and has done well in moving her great stock into the store there. Rob from Shawl has done a good job in keeping things maintained while mom and dad have been away. We hope to stop in there at the end of August or September on our way home. For those that need to replenish, Rob has a Taxi service on Wednesdays and for a fair price will take you to Port McNeil to gather all of your groceries and booze and such. You leave at 9:00 ish and return somewhere around 1:30-2:00 ish......its a great time saver and fuel saver for those of out for long periods of time.

Day 8 - July 6 - Lagoon Cove to Shawl Bay

Untouched Photo, Electrical Storm on the Go



Jeans Flowers are still attracting the hummingbirds!


Swallows about to "Fledge"


Dolphins following us under our Bow


Almost looks like they are smiling?

Spent a quiet night in a thunderstorm at Lagoon Cove. Mike was loving the rain as it washed all the salt off the boat. Kobi not so much. Today is rubber glove day for Kobi as unfortunately he has a plugged scent gland, probably due to a few days of being scared out of his poor self. Unpleasant, but necessary.

Bill at Lagoon told a few of his bear stories last night at happy hour and we stayed and chatted with a few of the other boaters travelling around the Broughtons. We pulled out around the crack of 10:00 and are now headed for Shawl Bay. A flat calm day with high overcast but a nice day to travel. Lots of boats finally coming into Lagoon this morning as the winds seem to have abated and everyone that has been trying to get up here made a run for it this morning.
A family of dolphins followed us quite a way up through Spring Passage and from the looks of the photos had some old scars from a "Fish Fight"

Day 7 - Cardero Lodge to Lagoon Cove

We have left the stifling heat of Desolation sound and meandered our way up to our favorite Schnitzel House. The temperature has dropped down to a balmy 24 degrees, it was quite bearable. We were surprised to see enroute that "Shoal Bay" was completely full with boats tied three out. Duh....4th of July celebrations. Apparently they sell out every year with a giant Pig Roast......poor pig, what did he ever do to be skewered and spit roasted!
We are only one of two boats at Cardero's, the other boat is out of Campbell River and they ducked in after encountering 5' and 6' holes in Johnston Strait yesterday. The wind caused a small problem on Shaman II with the lose of our Flag and Flagstaff, it had been ripped right out of the wood, holder, screws and all. probably because we encountered winds of 30+ knots. The ocean was fine, but the wind sure was uppity. After a nice dinner, we lowered the dinghy and retraced our steps around Owen point to see if we could find it floating. No such luck. Just cold, wet and windy with an 80 lb. dog sitting in my lap, scared from the noise of the wind howling.
We finished the night getting to know Tony and Sherry from Lloydminster and few drinks.
This morning the wind is down and the tide is just switching, time to head out. We hope to make it to Lagoon Cove if its not too rough in the Strait.

Day 6 - Happy July 4th - Shaman Travel Day

Former "Funtime" Owners


"OOPS"


Happy 4th of July to all of our American friends!
We have a lazy morning, check in on the VHF radio to see if anyone else we know has made it up, it appears not. We will leave around the crack o’ noon to make the 4:00 slack tide at the rapids at Stuart Island. Before pulling out, Paul comes over and lets us know that there is a boat high and dry at the head of Prideaux. Mike thinks it’s a charter boat, that would be the only reason someone wouldn’t check their depth sounder before dropping anchor and stern tying to shore? No damage appears to be done, just injured pride I am sure. As we are pulling up our anchor, we run into the former owners of Bean and Scotts boat “Funtime” formerly called Winsk – they are pleased to hear that it has been restored!
Light winds greet us when we get to the intersection of Homfrey Channel and Toba Inlet. Lots of logging still going on up here, although perhaps they are off right now with fire season kicking in.
Dual evening destination, if the wind is down, we will press on to the lower Broughtons, if the wind is still up, we will hole up at Cardero’s for Schnitzel.

Day 5 - Prideaux Haven (Still)

Oyster Catcher

Another idyllic day in Prideaux. It’s a bit exhausting this sun business! Keeping the fluid levels up is also tiring, but we are doing our best. Today we have a float plane come into the bay We agree to stay one more night and head out tomorrow with the afternoon tide for points north. We are now bored with this. Nothing much to report except the weather is still fine (over fine really!) and other than Paul and Theresa from BYC, there are no other boats here that we know. Mike goes exploring and finds the commune hidden in the woods that we found a few years ago with Dave and Penny. The newspapers and magazines there are from back in the early 70’s and only the mice and birds live there now.

Day 4 - Prideaux Haven - Desolation Sound - July 1

Special Delivery?


Sarah Point


Soaring to keep cool, or George Hunting?


Sunset in Prideaux

Happy Canada Day all!
Another 30 degree + day – its almost stifling, no breeze and no clouds. We spent a lot of time running around in the dinghy today just to get a breeze. Went clamming and oystering today and managed to get a nice haul. We will let the clams soak and we will have them in a few days when they have finished spitting out all the sand. The bay has not been crowded, we are surmising that the strong winds in the Vancouver area and Malaspina have kept most of the tourists hiding out until it calms. There is a daily exchange of boats some leaving, some entering and some just through for a day cruise. Around noon most days is when everyone pulls up and leaves to the next bay in Desolation. We are lucky it is early in the season yet and the winds have kept most of the tourists away, otherwise, swimming would be out of the question as it turns into a bit of a cesspool. The water is 70 degrees, nice for swimming and cooling down! We are anchored in the middle of the bay with no stern line and Mike is happy that his Satellite is holding up and we have no TV interruption.