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!
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