We exited Ell Cove Wednesday morning onto a flat calm Chatham Strait, but we could see fog in our future.
We watched two different humpbacks breaching and fin-slapping in the distance as we cruised south down Chatham Strait, but they were too far for decent photos. Eventually, we were in thick fog with very little visibility, and for a while I regretted leaving our perfectly clear spot at Ell Cove. Luckily the fog dissipated before we arrived at Red Bluff Bay.
We decided to anchor in a little nook closer to the entrance of Red Bluff Bay this time (in front of the cannery ruins), since we’ve been at the head of the bay already a few times this summer. We saw another boat anchored here on our last visit, and since right now we’re all about shrimp, we’ll be that much closer to our pots — which we’ll be checking a couple times per day. We dropped our anchor in about 55 feet, backed up to 40, and have moved very little since we set. Kevin took some beautiful aerials Thursday morning while we had our coffee on the flybridge:
This site was a cannery from around 1917 to 1921, and after that it briefly operated as a herring saltery.
We pulled the shrimp pots after a couple hours and had just 9 shrimp (a combo of spot prawns and coon-striped shrimp, which we added to our leftover salmon and crab as part of a seafood risotto), but yesterday morning we had 58, mostly spot prawns, some of which we grilled up for dinner last night (with garlic butter for dipping, plus a salad and baked potato). And I’m sure we’ll have a bunch more, so we’ll be eating shrimp for a couple days and maybe need to freeze some. (Yay!)
This morning it is overcast and we even had a little drizzle, but the doors and windows are still open and the sun is trying to peek through. This morning’s prawn pull was 36, mostly bigger spot prawns…yum!
We’re staying a third night here before moving on, so we can say hi to friends Brian and Allie on Knot to Worry who will be arriving later this afternoon. Next up: over to the Keku Islands!