July 9th

JULY 9 th

Ivory Lighthouse

Up in the morning early and out of the Harbour, we want to round Ivory Island before the wind, current and pacific swell picks up.

As we head into Mathieson Channel we are entertained by a large humpback whale just of our port bow.  WOW!  Still can’t get that picture.  Just a small black bump.

 It was just feeding on the top, so didn’t even get a tail shot.

We listen to chatter between Coast Guard and a vessel that’s in trouble. We can only hear the Coast Guard side as the situation is down near Hakai Pass. It is a bad body burn and Coast Guard is dispatching a fast response vessel. The Hakai institute has one of their vessels there to help relay. The person is in shock.  it is important to get him to hospital, the nearest is Bella Bella near Shearwater. My guess is that he had an overheating problem on his engine and he loosened the cap off without letting it cool and covering the cap up with a big towel to protect him. WOOSH out comes super-heated steam and what is touched by it is instantly cooked, OUCH! Coast Guard has IT COVERED.

Normally we take Reid Passage in behind Ivory Island as it shortens the exposure to the long Pacific swells and standing waves that frequent this location. This passage inside Ivory is a bit tricky and requires attention to the depth sounder as it is narrow and shallow. Last year we saw a black bear on the beach rolling rocks for those tiny itsy bity little crabs that hid under there. How does a bear get a meal out of such a small creature?

We take outside Ivory Island as it is almost dead calm. The last time that I was outside the Ivory Light House was when I wore a young man’s clothing, about 40 years ago when Jim MacLeod and I were bringing “Star Ship” back from Prince Rupert for Hugh Johnstone. It was a very nice 42 ft Pacific Trawler that was once owned I think by Randy Backman of music fame. It was a trip that wetted my appetite to go north.

You wonder what was in the head with the Hydrographers so long ago when naming bays, islets etc. As we round Ivory there is one very small islet called Mouse Rock the other larger one called Rat rock. COOL. There is a short discussion on the bridge to the location of the pass we must navigate to reach Mathieson Channel. It is not very often that Penny is wrong in the navigation dept. but it was so this time, RIGHT DAVE on the navigation, wrong on the family relationship, RIGHT. We cruise up the Channel in glassy green glacier waters. Penny sees a fish jump, STOP the boat we are (ME) putting out the fishing line. We troll up the channel for about two hours to our destination for the evening, which is Rescue Cove. We catch……………….a lot of sea weed, not the edible type and let it go. 

So Peaceful

This is the first time that we have put a crab trap in the briny this year. I guess I am just lazy as the catching could be the easy part as now when boated you have to KILL and clean them and evidently this is a BLUE job. We have three in the trap one being a male, SUCKS TO BE A MALE this time. The girls get to go shopping again at the equivalent of the underwater Sears and Roebuck store.

 

Raven "Ravens"

We take the “Ravens” for a high speed gunk out through Jackson Passage to explore Nowish Inlet. The entrance to the Inlet between the islands is pretty with what appears to be a small OK anchorage inside. There is a small channel with 6knt speed and rapids that leads to the main Inlet.  We went part way and found it a little boring so we about faced.

View from Rescue Anchorage

Back at OA we cook the lone male crab, he is big and delish. We start to ponder if there is a more scrumptious way to cook crab. As it turns out in the cook book by Pacific Yachting, written by James Barber, there is, we are off on a new adventure in culinary exploration. I just have to remember to put the net in the water (with bait) so we can practice on this new thing cooking. We have not in our busy life allowed ourselves the luxury of time to experiment with that thing people call gourmet cooking. I put the net back down and will retrieve in the morning when Chevy is on shore leave.

For the people in Vancouver suffering through the smoke-filled sky about midnight here it is sparkling clear with a Billion stars winking back. I step onto the side deck as a wondrous cool breeze brushes me. I stop and all of a sudden realize it is still twilight and the dawn will come in but a few hours. We are further north now, towards the land of the midnight sun and the twilight zone.