July 8 - 9, 2013,
Port McNeill
The early morning trip to Port McNeill was over calm
water. Along the way we saw our first
Dahl’s porpoises of the trip; what a delight they are to watch as they frolic in front of our bow. At Port McNeill we dropped our outboard off
at Shop Rite Marine & Lumber, picked up a few groceries then took Hobbit to
the north side of the bay and dropped anchor for 2 days. July 9th was one of relaxing and
reading although my “reading” was actually listening to an audio book recording
of The Hobbit.
We picked up our outboard the morning of July 10, filled up
with water, got a few more groceries and headed back to Cullen Harbor
As we entered Blackfish Sound at the east end of Malcom Island Cullen Harbor
Humpback whale sounding in Blackfish Sound
July 10, 2013 Cullen Harbor
Wind and rain pelted us during the night. The wind associated with one squall was so
high that the anchor chain went straight and taught as a violin string. For peace of mind I let out another 25 feet
even though the anchor clearly had a good bite and was holding.
July 11 and 12,
2013, Booker Lagoon
Waking up in Cullen
Harbor Queen
Charlotte Strait
When the tide was high and near slack we entered Booker
Lagoon. What a difference a week
makes. Last time we were here we had the
place to ourselves. This time there were
four other boats visible as we entered and seven shrimp pots already set. Given how small the area is for shrimping, we
had a tough time finding a good spot to add our two pots. We also set crab pots in the area where I
caught three keepers on our last trip.
Yellow-eye rockfish (a.k.a. Red snapper) from outside Cullen Harbor
It’s nice getting up in the morning and seeing the sun shine
and the wind calm. It’s also nice to
have nothing planned other than to relax.
When the tide was low I went to shore with my camera to explore the invertebrate
and algal life. This place is loaded
with the red sea cucumber, Cucumaria
miniata, which, instead of being orange in color are dark brown to
black. I also saw for the first time an
enormous stand of the red algae commonly called “red spaghetti” (Gracilaria or Gracillariopsis - genus and species can't be determined in the field.). I
frequently see bunches of this algae washed up on the beach or fouling a crab
pot, but never as a large stand covering thousands of square feet of the
mid-tide zone.
In the afternoon Linda and I took the dinghy to check the
shrimp traps. Even with all the other
pots we managed to get our limit of 200.
“Red” sea cucumber Cucumaria
miniata
“Red spaghetti”, Gracilaria
or Gracillariopsis
July 13, 2013, Tracey Harbour
Another beautiful day.
I picked up the empty crab traps then Linda and I took the dinghy to
pick up the shrimp traps; this time we were just shy of our limit with
194.
We hoped to anchor at Dickson
Island but found the anchorage full
and went to our backup, Tracey
Harbour Tracey
Harbour
View from our Tracey
Harbour
July 14 to 17, 2013, Dickson Island
As we settled down to a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and
biscuits, a pod of about 20 Pacific white sided dolphins joined us. They spent more than an hour swirling around and
under us in what must have been a feeding frenzy. The dolphins seemed to work as a team
corralling fish between separate groups of four or five. We could keep track of their underwater
presence by following their bubbles. You
would think this would make it easy to take photographs, but of the 100 or so I
took, only a few were even remotely worth saving. Even though Tracey Harbour
Today’s goal was Wells Passage for halibut fishing. The wind was a little high but I managed to
keep my bait (frozen squid purchased two years ago in Alaska) on the bottom and
caught a small, 28 inch, 8 pound halibut; tiny by halibut standards, but mighty
tasty!
Breakfast guests at Tracey
Harbour
Moon over Dickson
Island
In all our years of boating we have never been so casual
with our schedule or spent more than two nights anchored at one spot. The weather has been so nice, the environment
so beautiful peaceful and tranquil, and at least the halibut fishing good - we
just haven’t felt like leaving. My typical day has been to take the dinghy out
first thing in the morning to fish for salmon then come back and relax or take
Hobbit out into Wells Passage to fish for halibut. Our anchorage is clearly popular as one or
more boats have been here with us every night.
Hobbit at anchor in a Dickson
Island
Coho salmon caught in Well’s Passage
Rhinoceros auklet caught in the foot while chasing a buzz bomb
30 pound halibut caught in Well’s Passage
July 18 - 20,
2013, Carter Passage (Greenway Sound)
Each day when I went salmon fishing in Well’s Passage I
would ask other fisherman how they were doing.
No one I asked had caught anything so I’m guessing that the late July
run hasn’t arrived. I guess I have to
count myself lucky that I managed to catch one coho. Today when I went out for one last try I was
surprised to see a super yacht in the area where we were halibut fishing
yesterday. As I arrived I heard the
anchor chain rolling out in what I estimate to be 150 feet of water. Unable to resist the temptation, I trolled
close enough to see the name (Serene).
Serene has a “hangar deck” at the aft end where a small flotilla of
boats is stored. From here they launched
a cuddy cabin Boston Whaler outfitted with every type of fishing gear your
heart could desire. Serene also carried
a helicopter which took off from the bow and made a couple of trips somewhere. From the Internet I learned that Serene is a
440 ft. super yacht that cost $330 million and is owned by a Russian vodka magnate.
Serene anchored at the mouth of Wells Passage. Note “hangar deck” in the stern
Leaving our anchorage at Dickson Island
In Puget Sound beaches are
largely sand or gravel that are reasonably flat. As we go further north beaches become few and
far between as the shoreline becomes very steep, rocky, and frequently strewn
with large rocks or boulders which have fallen down the hill. Trees grow almost down to the water’s edge
and branches fanning out across the water are neatly manicured by the high
tide; it’s as if someone came along with a hedge clipper and trimmed the bottom
of the trees in a straight line. The golden yellow brown algae called rockweed
grows almost universally on the rocky shores starting not far below the tree
branches. In secluded anchorages north
of Desolation Sound, when it is totally calm and the tide is low, these
shorelines turn into an art gallery as a perfect reflection mirrors trees, rocks,
rockweed, and other seashore life in the water below. So it was on one of our mornings in Carter
Passage where the only sound to break the stillness was tidal water rushing
across the rocks that separate the east and west ends.
Nature’s art in Carter Passage
The bar between the east and west ends of Carter Passage
dries totally at low tide and is passable by dinghy at high tide. The current is brusque through the opening
and, as the tide lowers, large tide pools remain. Tide pooling on this bar is the best I’ve
seen since 2010 when I was a student at Friday Harbor
Black brooding and aggregating sea cucumbers in Carter Passage
Shrimping in this area is interesting. We get few shrimp but they are huge. In six pulls over 3 days we only got 300
prawns plus 2 octopi, dozens of large hermit crabs, and I nearly lost a trap
that got tangled up with a gorgonian – a type of deep water coral.
July 21, 2013, Dickson Island
We pulled our shrimp pots for the last time and headed back
to Dickson Island
Three prawns from Greenway Sound
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