The good weather is still with us for the two-hour run to Klemtu.  I’m not too hopeful that they’ll have much in the way of fresh produce, since the ferry delivery was last Saturday.  But, we’ll be in Shearwater in a couple of days, so we don’t need a lot. 

As it turned out, we were able to pick up a few nice pears, a pineapple, apples, a little broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, and beautiful avocados.

The two-hour run to Rescue was easy, and there weren’t any boats in the anchorage, which was nice. 

Just when we were beginning to think all the hummingbirds had flown south, this hummer found our feeder this morning. 

 

We’ll be heading for Klemtu for some fresh produce bright and early tomorrow morning.  So, this afternoon we moved to Bottleneck Inlet, where we’ll anchor for the night.  This way we won’t have to worry about waiting for high tide in the morning in order to get out of Wallace Bight.

It’s a beautiful sunny day this morning, with calm winds, so just before the turn to flood tide,  I headed out the entrance, letting the current carry me outside at about 5 knots.  The water is so shallow that it’s a little scary seeing how close the sea urchins are to the bottom of my kayak as I whiz by.  Thankfully, I make it through the narrows without being punctured. 

 

The low tide has exposed colorful sea stars and urchins.

 

 

 

This pretty jellyfish floated by.

 

The early morning sun turned this seaweed covered rock a brilliant green.

 

While I was shooting the seaweed, this mink scurried over the rocks looking for goodies.  When he spotted me, he stopped just long enough for me to get a shot, and then he was running for cover.

 

 

He took one last look….

 

And then, he was outta there.

 

I spotted these loons way in the distance.  Unfortunately, they were determined to keep that distance.

Horsefly Cove, unlike its ugly name, is beautiful.  We’ll definitely be returning next year, when we have more time to explore.  But, since the weather forecast indicates that conditions are going to be good for traveling today, we’re underway bright and early this morning.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Wallace Bight, the tide is too low in the entrance, so we anchored for a few hours in Bottleneck Inlet until there was enough water to get through the shallow entrance to Wallace Bight.

We were up at the crack of dawn, eager to get underway, after spending one of the most miserable rolly nights ever.  Home Bay is not going to see us returning, ever.   On the bright side, we had excellent traveling conditions, and were able to get as far as Horsefly Cove, in Green Inlet, before calling it a day.

Al’s getting anxious to get the boat hauled out so that we can assess the damage resulting from hitting whatever it was at Monckton.  It’s obvious that the port prop has some bent blades, but we won’t know if that’s all the damage until we haul out.  So, since the seas are calm this afternoon, we decided to head for Home Bay, just a couple of hours north of here, where we’ll spend the night.  That way tomorrow’s run to Khutze Inlet won’t be so long. 

We’d never anchored in Home Bay before, but Don Douglass’ cruising guide made it sound like a reasonable place to spend the night in settled weather.  Well, there was zero wind, and yet the swell that was rolling into the bay made it very uncomfortable.  Unfortunately, there were no reasonable options this late in the day.  We were stuck for the night.

The fog was really socked in when I got up this morning, so I couldn’t go paddling.  Fortunately, however, we had a pretty low tide, which brought us closer to the shore, so I was able to capture this heron fishing pretty close to the boat.

=

 

 

 

 

This eagle was busy looking for low tide delights.

 

As soon as the fog lifted a bit, I headed for the East side of Barnard Harbour, where the floating lodge used to be anchored.  On my way, I spotted this eagle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talk about getting the evil eye.  I guess he didn’t appreciate me interrupting his beauty routine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had a few choice words for me.

 

So, I left him to finish his preening and headed over to the lovely little waterfall at Barnard Harbour.

 

 

This cheeky guy winked at me.

 

 

Once again we’re up early, hoping for smooth water.  Fortunately, the fog is gone this morning.  It’s low tide when we pull the anchor and head out toward the narrow, shallow opening to the lagoon.  The chart and tide tables indicate that we should have 6.7 feet of water under us — not a lot, but adequate, since we only draw 42 inches.  About halfway through the narrow spot we heard a big THUNK.  Uh, oh.  Al immediately throttled back and put the engines in neutral, and we coasted through the narrows.  As soon as Al put the engines back in gear we knew we had a problem.  Vibration.  The starboard prop vibrated badly at anything over about 1000 rpms. 

Now, we had to make a decision about when we wanted to haul out to replace the props.  Luckily, we had a spare set of props onboard.  After talking it over, we decided to continue on to Cameron Cove, before heading back toward Shearwater where they have haul-out facilities.  Unfortunately, this means we won’t be going to Laredo Inlet this year, since that would be way out of our way now.  Oh, well, there’s always next year.

We had smooth water all the way to Cameron.  We hadn’t been anchored 30 minutes when I spotted this bear walking along the shore.   When the bear spotted some tasty looking grass on the other side of the cove, rather than walk all the way around the shoreline, the bear decided to take a shortcut and get cooled off at the same time. 

 

 

 

Shortly after breakfast, we had a nice surprise, when our friends, Andy and Susie, on “Blue Heron”, came by the boat.  We hadn’t seen them in several years.  They were staying in the next cove over and were on their way out fishing.  We invited them over for wine when they got back from fishing.

A small boat anchored just ahead of us this afternoon.  It turned out to be our friend, Marvin Robinson, from Hartley Bay.  He was here to guide a group on a hike up the river tomorrow morning, looking for Kermode bears and wolves.  One of the members of the group was Ian McAllister, renowned a National Geographic photographer who has written excellent books on Kermode bears, grizzlies and wolves.  They’ll be staying in a tiny cabin on the beach owned by the First Nation people of Hartley Bay.

At high tide, I suited up and headed for Barnard Creek looking for photo ops. 

Marvin pointed out the huge landslide that happened a few days after we left here last year.  The slide, which started at least 1000 feet up the mountain, has completely filled in one of the tributaries of the creek, where I had been paddling last year.  (Cheated death again.)

I watched this eagle catch a fish and head for a nearby tree, where he could enjoy his breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wind is supposed to pick up this afternoon, so we got an early start this morning for Monckton Inlet, hoping for flat seas.  Well, the seas were flat, but dense fog rolled in about an hour before we got to Monckton.

Entering Monckton, we had to rely on the radar, since we only had about 50 feet of visibility.  Since the wind was supposed to pick up this afternoon, Al wanted to anchor back in the lagoon.  Finding the lagoon in the fog required complete faith in the radar, but we managed to feel our way through the narrow entrance.  Naturally, once inside the lagoon, all the fog disappeared, and we had wall-to-wall blue skies. 

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I heard sandhill cranes.  I hurried as fast as I could to get suited up and on the hunt. 

I didn’t have far to go, as they had landed just across from where we were anchored.  I found them hiding behind some rocks.

They gave me quite a workout.  I’d paddle like mad trying to get to where I could get a shot of them, just to have them move behind another rock.