Fishing and Paddling

July 11th (Thursday) 

So today was a fishing day, and it turned into a bit of a fishing marathon. We fished, and fished, and fished and we were actually catching a lot of fish. The only problem was they were small. They ranged in size from about 5" to 12". It was crazy. 

We started the day out fishing close to the anchorage, and right away we were catching fish. Once we saw that an area was only giving us small fish we would move on to another area, and we slowly worked our way further and further out the inlet. At times we were catching so many fish that we wouldn't even get a chance to really start jigging before we had one. Our logic was that if there were this many little fish deep inside the inlet that there would be bigger fish out closer to open water. 

We worked our way all the way out Convoy Passage to Nucleus Reef. It was open to small ocean swells, and with it being a rocky reef coming up from the depths, with no land around, we thought it had the makings of an awesome spot. Apparently we were wrong, as we caught the least number of fish there of anywhere in the day. It was somewhat disheartening, but we were stubborn and continued trying. 

Eventually we moved on to Hanbury Point where we were right back to catching small fish one right after the other. Although we put in about seven hours of fishing we only caught one fish that we considered big enough to keep, and even it wasn't really a big one. To top it all off, we managed to loose two jigs throughout the day. Very disappointing, but after the success of our last fishing day at Calvert Island I guess we had it coming. We did see Rhinoceros Auklets and a whale, which is always nice. We also saw a lot of seals, including two seal pups and their moms. 

It was an amazingly warm day, very muggy in the morning, and there were some dramatic clouds around with heavy rain showers in the distance, but for the most part we had a mix of sun and cloud. 

When we got home we decided it was a perfect day to fix the leak in our v-berth hatch, which had started a few days ago. We pulled out the glass from the frame and resealed it. Fingers crossed it will be dry from now on. 

 Using dive weights on the hatch to help with the seal.

July 12th (Friday) 

This morning we headed out in our kayaks. We wanted to paddle over to the next bay, Joe’s Bay, and check out the lagoon. We got there close to high tide with the current still flowing in. The water was very cloudy in Joe’s Bay and in the lagoon entrance, and very dark in the lagoon. There appeared to be a high concentration of fresh water within the lagoon, and there were no barnacles along the tide line; instead there was a lot more slime on the rocks than outside of the lagoon. There were still schools of little fish, the loons were fishing, there were a few starfish, and a bit of seaweed, but nothing like normal for a saltwater environment. 

It is also interesting that there seems to be a huge shortage of crabs here, not just in the lagoon but also in this whole area. We haven’t seen any other boats here, and there aren’t any crab trap buoys, so it seems unlikely that the area is over crabbed, but there appear to be hardly any crab.

When we first got to our anchorage we put out our crab trap thinking it would be a great area, and the next morning we had a crab that we think was a small Dungeness, although it may have been a Graceful crab. With part of our fish carcass from that day we reset the trap in a different area, and this morning we had nothing. Of course all of that might just be bad luck, but on our entire kayak paddle along the shoreline we did not see a single Dungeness or Rock Crab. Even in the area of current around the lagoon entrance where we are used to seeing a lot of crabs, there was not a single one. Most peculiar!

Although we would have enjoyed spending the day inside the lagoon exploring, we also did not want to get trapped inside until the next high tide, which was not until 22:30. Since we were not able to know what it would be like to portage out at low tide we decided not to risk it. The shoreline of the lagoon looked pretty much the same as outside the lagoon, and although I am sure we would have had a great day exploring inside, we decided the risk was not worth it. We had read that this lagoon's tidal rapids was one of the more dangerous on the coast, and even when we paddled back out not more than an hour after paddling in, the current was already flowing strongly, and I do not think we would have wanted to ride it out much later than we did. 

Today was also another very active weather day. It was quite warm and muggy, and we were both in shorts and tank tops. On our paddle back home we watched as a large storm cell moved towards us. We could see the wind line and the rain coming. It lasted for about 20 minutes before we were back to our mix of sun and cloud, and although we got quite wet we did not get cold, and we dried out quite quickly. 

When we got back to Waterfall Inlet we decided to go have a look at the inlet’s namesake that we could hear in the distance. It was a fast flowing multi-tiered waterfall that was quite pretty. 

Back at home we took advantage of the nice weather to do some laundry, but we had to keep a close eye on the clouds, and had to bring everything in at one point for a quick passing shower.