We are not alone ...

 June 24th

We finished packing and Doug and Jan ran us down to the  Bella Bella ferry dock. 5 very heavy totes of fish and 2 carry-ons with our clothes, and we were ready to head back home. Well ... sort of ready. I honestly could have stayed and enjoyed the fishing and great company for longer! Ah, but there are things to do and people to see. 

We had no issues boarding the ferry at 5:30 in the afternoon, and I had purchased reserved seating in the Aurora Lounge. Big mistake! The BC Ferries website indicated that these lounges came with food and non-alcoholic drinks included in the $40 fee. I figured it would be worth it, although I couldn't imagine eating $40 worth of ferry food. The chairs were purported to be comfy and reclining. That was what I was looking for as we wouldn't be getting in to Port Hardy until 11:50 pm and then had that 4-hour drive to Courtenay to look forward to.

The seats reclined ... some. Although most of the BC Ferry "lounges" DO include food and beverages, this one did not. (same price, though). 

We managed to see some humpback whales, and the sunset was amazing. I was a little disconcerted to see this armada of UFO's coming in off our starboard side, however!

Shearwater & Bella Bella

June 23rd

Finally! Doug worked his magic looking for all the best fishing spots, and just off Serpent Point I hooked a nice salmon! She was a spirited thing and ran like the dickens, but I managed to keep a tight line and in she came. 20 pounds and 33" of silver Spring! Salmon tonight for supper!!!

 We'll be taking a lot of fish home! We figure that we have about 130 lbs in total of Salmon, Halibut, Ling Cod & Prawns. I hope Norman and Sarah like fish ... it's all we have room for in the freezer!

We fueled up in Bella Bella and got a couple of groceries and tomorrow we'll take a tour of Shearwater. 

We got to see and talk to a couple of the folks entered in the R2AK race. (Race to Alaska) The only criteria for entering the race is that your may not have a motor in or on your craft. These crazy people leave Victoria and are on their own ... no support of any kind ... all the way up to Ketchikan. 1st prize is $10,000 and 2nd prize (highly sought after, we understand) is a set of steak knives!

There's a special prize for the 1st finisher in a human-only powered craft. Apparently there actually ARE a few who make it all the way without a sail!

This fellow was all alone on this tiny Hobie Tandem Island. As of June 28th, he still has not finished the race. I was amazed that he made it this far!

Rait Narrows

 June 21st

This morning we got up early and went fishing. To no avail. We got skunked!

However, prawn pizza for lunch made up for it. Out for the afternoon fish and got skunked again! All the boats around us were having the same problem. Have the salmon all gone south already?

Tonight it's leftover night. A little of that and a little of this. All delicious!

June 22nd

We're still at anchor in Rait Narrows. No fish to be had in the morning, and a run over to St. John's didn't produce any better. This is very unusual for this time of year, but that's fishing.

To top it all off, it's been raining for a couple of days. At least the BlueBird is warm and dry.

We pulled anchor at noon and headed up to Shearwater for the night and we'll try again tomorrow. Last ditch effort as we head back home in 2 days!

Codville Lagoon and Abandoned Cove

June 20th

After pulling up our prawn traps and getting only 1 keeper crab, we headed north to Codville Lagoon to hunt for Salmon.

We did some sightseeing along the way and scoped out the possibilities of fishing spots.

We arrived in the evening and put 4 prawn traps and 4 crab traps. We really didn't have time to do much fishing this evening so we stayed on board and played cinch and had some cocktails. Tomorrow we'll head off to Abandoned Cove to get serious about Salmon fishing.

Abandoned Cove was great fishing ... for me, anyway! Our lines went into the water at 12:30 and I caught my first Spring at 12:40! To be honest, it was on Pete's pole, but he handed it over and I wasn't going to argue!

Altogether I managed to net a 12-pound Spring and a 7-pound Ling. Looks bigger than 12 pounds, don't you think?

Nobody else got any keepers, and the guide boats we could see weren't getting any nets out either. I felt very luck to get what I did!

Tomorrow we'll head up to Rait Narrows and see if we have any better luck.

Rivers Inlet to Foughner Bay

 
Rivers Inlet is, indeed, a beautiful anchorage. Another "favorite" of Doug and Jan. 

We didn't manage to catch any fish ... well, we DID, but we had a thief. This fellow was very talented as he could strip that fish off the hook without us losing any gear!

I guess we'll have Sausage Pasta tonight (sorry, Ralph .. I know it's your favorite!)

Monday, June 17th

We're now at Foughner Bay. Here we're seriously into catching some halibut! Doug is a genius at finding just the right spot at just the right time of day when the tide is perfect. Jan is always on top of the marine weather and tides, so how can we miss!?

For tonight, we'll enjoy chicken parmesan along with a new recipe that Jan wants to use us as guinea pigs for. Gluten-free focaccia bread! I have to say that the recipe needs a bit of tweaking. It tasted great, but didn't have that beautiful pillowy softness in the middle that we're used to. Worth another try, though.

Tuesday, June 18th

Halibut fishing today! I've never fished for Halibut, so it was a new experience for me. Doug rigged up some great jigs that didn't get caught on the bottom (I can't reveal his secrets here) and also used a "spreader bar". The jigs were the winners today with 4 nice Hali coming into the boat. Mine was the biggest at 73 cm. Pete actually had a bigger one, but opted to let him live so that he could net a whopper, Didn't happen, however.

Tonight it's Halibut for supper seared with anchovies, capers and garlic. Along with that we'll have warm spinach salad and new potatoes from Siefertts.

Wednesday, June 19th

We got the big one! Pete was exhausted by the time this big boy cam into the boat. 125.5 cm and 60 pounds! Just a mere .5 cm under the max allowed. 

This was our limit in Halibut with me netting 2 small ones and Pete getting the big one. We might even share some of this with friends! Where are we going to find room in the freezer is the big issue! :)

Enjoying the trip aboard Sea Drifter

 

June 13th, and the big challenge! We were going to go around Cape Caution. 

For those not in the know, Cape Caution is on the mainland just off the tip of Vancouver Island. When you're going around the corner into safe waters, to the west is Japan! The seas here can be very rough with swells enough to turn any sailor green. I've never been seasick, so hopefully this won't be any different!

As it happened, we got around without a hitch. The seas were 20' on 20 second swells. We anchored in another of Doug and Jan's "favorite" anchorages in Smith Inlet.

The fishing was pretty much a wash . We put out 2 crab pots and 10 prawn traps. We'll collect those tomorrow

June 14th, and although the crab pots produced only females and small males, the prawn traps came through for us! 

Jan is an expert at pulling line on the prawn pull. She taught us how to pull with the right and throw with the left to make perfect circles. Well .... HER circles were perfect! 

The spot  prawns that we got were massive. Although Doug tells us that they can get much bigger. We managed to collect 88 large and extra large and 70 small ones. 

Prawn Pad Thai and Prawn Pizza are on the menu in the next couple of days!

After pulling the traps and de-heading all those beauties, we headed out to fish. 

Doug knows all the good spots, and this was the place for Ling Cod. Down went the jigs and up went our hopes.

Pete caught a beauty! This guy was 19.5 lbs and will definitely be our supper tonight! 

We all caught a few scrap rock cod that got to live another day.

Jan caught a beautiful, very large Yellow Eye Rock Cod. He had to go back as they are a protected species. He was gorgeous ... a bright orange colour.

We spent another night in Smith Inlet and netted 96 more prawns and a 14-lb Ling Cod.

The wind picked up and we headed back to Sea Drifter with 2 Kelp Greenling for supper.

Clam chowder for lunch was a treat! Doug and Jan had dug them prior to us joining the boat and kept them in the live well. It was delicious!

June 16th we pulled anchor and headed up to Rivers Inlet after a very poor prawn pull. Mostly side-stripe shrimp on the medium to small side. They'll be delicious anyway!

Sea Drifter Travels