Back in Shearwater (sung to the tune of "Oh, Lord, I'm Back in Lodi Again")

June 22

We’re still in St Johns Harbour….we got here on June 17^th, which was the last sunny day we’ve seen. L We have spent 6 days at anchor, more than we’ve ever spent at anchor (problems listed later). We met up here with Mel and Bernice, friends from Oak Harbor who spend their summers here yearly, and a whole group of folks from Campbell River, Bella Coola, Camano Island and Seattle. This is a great bunch of people – we’ve had a lot of fun. One of the main purposes of this cruise for us was fishing. (I hate to fish, BTW, it’s Bob’s thing). We got here – after spending a lovely day in sunny Shearwater (the last sun we’ve seen) on 6/16 – on the 17^th. We cruised into a tiny little bay with boats at the end – looking for all the world like a trailer park in South St. Louis County. (seriously) A guy (we later learned it was Ed, from Bella Coola) came out of his boat and directed us to a spot where we could anchor – two coves away…..this is not water for the timid. We threaded through some skinny spots and came upon a great big bay with a wide, flat mud bottom – perfect for holding. We anchored in about 37 feet of water (at low tide) with about 125’ of chain. Nice.   We dinghied over to chat with the folks in the “trailer park , finding our friends Mel and Bernice. (Mel is the designated King Of Fish in these parts.) So, the next day, in a downpour, Bob went fishing with Mel – at 5:00am, which is when, according to Mel, the fish bite). When he came back to the boat at 8:00am, Bob had a lovely 14# King salmon. Yum. And here is a picture of the quiet cove we're sitting in:

After that, it has rained continuously for the past 5 days. The first day of summer was yesterday – it was 50 degrees and raining. (I am grateful daily for the silk long johns I stuck in my drawer “just in case.”) Bob and Mel have fished daily – and we have been gifted with 4 chinook salmon (the limit) and one coho…..a total of about 67 pounds of fish. When you consider that wild, line-caught Pacific salmon sells (at my grocery store) for $10.00 a pound, that’s a great return on the $103 fishing license Bob bought. Here are the first and the last salmon Bob caught. I think they may be related, they look remarkably alike. 

Okay, every boating story has a bad part…………on every single “long” trip we’ve taken, something has gone wrong – we’ve lost the windlass, we’ve lost the computer, etc., etc……….and yesterday was ours. After catching a 22-pound Chinook and filleting it and putting it in our freezer, we spent the afternoon reading, knitting (me, not Bob) and otherwise killing time………around dinner time, after the martinis J, Bob went up on the flybridge to check the salmon in the freezer – HORRORS. The freezer was not working. My mind’s eye immediately envisioned 67 pounds of slimy, gray, nasty salmon……………consigned to the briny. Okay, it wasn’t that bad. No salmon was ruined – it was still cold, but had not begun to freeze, AND the freezer was pretty much saying ‘All done, no more worky.” All we could do was turn on the generator (which got it going again) for a couple of hours. However, we do need to sleep and the generator cannot go all night……so we turned it off. This morning, the salmon was still cold, but no freezing had occurred. So, Engineer Bob got to work! Our freezer has been moved to the forward stateroom (no more company – sorry, kids) and is now closer to the battery bank, thus working fine. 

Every cruise has its issues.

This is the longest we have ever been at anchor without moving the boat to another anchorage. I’ve got to say, it’s not my favorite thing. While we have had a good time fishing – especially Bob (and me – I’ve finished a pair of socks) – it has its down side. We started out with 200 gallons of water. We are fine in that department, however, no power pretty much means no water heater. Ice cold water. While really refreshing to brush one’s teeth in, not terribly exciting when washing one’s face. Showers? Fuggedaboudit. We are going au naturel. Bob took a “rain shower” the other morning – he couldn’t take it any longer. I heated water on the store to wash my hair, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that for a complete shower. Sigh.

We are planning on leaving tomorrow to go back to Shearwater (which is where I’ll post this) – the closest thing to civilization up here. They have SHOWERS.

June 23 - we're back in Shearwater, enjoying the hot showers and dinner out!

This is what Millbanke Sound (wave to Tokyo, everyone) looked like at 9:30 this morning........it was gorgeous!