We left Kelp Passage near first light for our Dixon Entrance crossing. The weather forecast looked excellent — wind NW 15 diminishing to light early, seas 1 meter. We popped up early to check the 4AM update to be sure nothing had changed for the sinister overnight. It looked even a little better, and a soft fog layer confirmed that the air wasn’t moving much. On big crossings, fog is … Read more
Before we left Lowe inlet this morning, Airship pulled our crab traps and had a couple of nice keepers – after several consecutive days of empty traps. There will be crab dip tonight. We left Lowe early to find the calmer winds in Grenville Channel, and to catch the currents at a more favorable time. The wind part worked. The currents – not so much. Grenville currents are complicated and … Read more
We left the Khutze Inlet anchorage early (5:30am-early) to beat the increasing winds that were forecast. Conditions were calm calm calm. By the time we reached Whale Passage and Wright Sound, the wind had picked up a bit (10-20kts from the NW) and we had about a one foot chop. Quite pleasant! Additionally, we think every single boat at one point had Dall’s porpoises surfing their bow. (That must really … Read more
This morning the plan was to transit Jackson Narrows about an hour before low slack…giving us a little more water under the keel and maybe only a slight bit of current against us, but we actually had a little current with us, so apparently it had already turned. We all made it through just fine and it was a fun piloting challenge! The rest of our cruise today through Jackson … Read more
We left Shearwater this morning just before 10am. Timing today was for Perceval Narrows, but the swell we expected in Seaforth Channel was almost nonexistent and the wind still hadn’t picked up much by the time we arrived. We arrived at Perceval Narrows with about 3kts of current helping us along. And just after that, Pacific white-sided dolphins took turns surfing every boat’s bow wake. The wind kicked up early … Read more
We pulled our prawn and crab traps this morning in Codville Lagoon and, here’s what we got: five small coon-stripe prawns in the prawn trap, and in one of the crab traps, a whole bunch of green sea urchins! If you aren’t going to catch what you’re aiming for, it’s at least fun to catch something new to learn about! We did some research on the sea urchins/uni and watched … Read more
We pulled our crab traps this morning before departing Green Island and had one small spindly little sea spider but no Dungeness. Additionally, the other trap had a large clump of about a hundred of these things, which we later learned were squid egg sacs! They seemed hardy enough, so we think they’ll be fine in spite of the disruption in their environment for a few minutes. Not catching any … Read more
Another alarm set for 4am, but this time the condition report was “GO!!” No outflow winds, barely any wind, and very minor westerly swell. A little fog…we’ll take it! Off we went as soon as it was light enough to see. We had a very nice cruise up to the Green Island Anchorage and we’re all tucked in just off of Fitzhugh Sound. We normally stop at Fury Cove or … Read more