The Wonder of Whales and Much More

August 4th and 5th (Monday and Tuesday) 

We had a couple more days of fog. Sometimes it was very thick, and other times it was more like high cloud, but it was constantly present. The worst part about it was that often there was a visible blue line of clear sky and sunshine out near the end of the channel. It was like Calvert Island was actually creating the fog and it was clear everywhere else. 

We made ourselves stay home and get what we needed to get done, done. We ended up spending a lot of time on devices on the wifi figuring stuff out for our water maker and other things. It was a somewhat brain-numbing time, especially since we are not used to staring at screens as much anymore.  As a break, I reorganized the back cabin of our boat, which being our storage space and workshop, has a way of getting easily unorganized.

August 6th (Wednesday)
After some more brain-numbing chores in the morning and after the heavy drizzle had drained itself out, we headed out in Kiki to clear our heads. We headed out into Hakai Passage and saw a humpback whale just going down for a dive. Out in the pass we found patches of blue sky and sunshine. It was glassy calm, and the water took on that mirrored milky inkiness that almost makes it hard to look at, especially when a wave is approaching, it can be very disorienting. It can become very hard to judge the wave size, spacing, and distance, but it is beautiful, and it was very beautiful out on the water skimming along, across towards many islands. We went exploring up into Leewall Inlet, and some other areas that we had wanted to check out as potential anchorages.
When we were coming back out of the islands we saw a group of three humpbacks swimming along the shore. We slowed down to watch as they surfaced to breathe and then dove. We waited for a while, but eventually assumed that they had rounded the corner before coming up, and we continued on our way, going through a narrow passage to another bay. When we came out of the bay we made our way down along the rocky shoreline looking for signs of salmon. 

The spout of the whales.

Then there were the whales again! Surfacing and blowing, not too far out from us. We slowed right down and just puttered along. Again they surfaced a few times before diving, but this time we did not move on as we were getting our rods ready to troll for salmon in the area. Then, all of a sudden, and it was very startling, one of the whales came up to the surface less than 75' away. The incredible noise of his blowhole, and the tower of mist, not to mention his extreme size so close to us was incredible! The way he came up and then went down again was not like they do when they are on the move, but it was more like he just floated himself to the surface and emerged all at once. When he disappeared once again we were left on the stillness of the water in awe! Wow!!  

 The whale that surfaced close by.

Suddenly the stillness was disrupted by the sounds of water and we looked now towards shore to see all three of the whales coming up to feed, mouths open, one on its side, all right together, just off shore and maybe 200' away from us. After coming up to feed the whales took a few breaths, and then dove once again, but they all dove in different directions, which suggested they were not yet on the move. Sure enough we shorty started to see a line of bubbles appearing and moving along the surface, then three spots of whitish-green water as a massive amount of bubbles reached the surface, and then the water erupted as one of the whales came up with its mouth open, and the other two came up beside it. Wow! 

Whale feeding frenzy.

Up until this point we had left the engine running, but now we shut it off to just sit and watch, and most of all to listen. The noises were incredible! As the whales, in turn, made their way down again, we again started to see and hear the moving line of bubbles. Blupe, blupe, blupe as the air escaped from the water, then, an increase in bubbles and the sound changed to that of boiling water. Then Woosh! as a whale exited the water and the guttural loud exhale sounds of three whales breathing. Absolutely incredible to see, and they were right there! Wow! After this third feed they started to move their way along the shore, and we left them in peace and did not follow them. We continued to see them, however, surfacing and occasionally feeding. 

The beautiful fluke, and the sign of a diving whale.

We tried some salmon fishing along the rocky shores. Jason got one good bite, but then it was gone. He did catch three small Rockfish, but that was it. 

We continued to explore, going out to some of the outer reefs on the opposite side if Hakai Passage, and tried some fishing, but we eventually ended up back at Main Guy Rock where we had had so much luck fishing before. We caught, and kept, a Lingcod and a Dark Dusky Rockfish, and called it a day. 

Sheya with the Dark Dusky Rockfish and a Lingcod. 

We had actually caught quite a few of the Dark Dusky Rockfish throughout the day, as we had encountered them schooling in three different spots. At one point they were all surfacing and we played around with doing some casts, and watched as three or four would follow the hook, darting at it, and then sometimes jumping out of the water after it. It is cool to be able to watch as fish go after a lure.
On our way back home we stopped to pull up our prawn traps, which were both out in about 400' of water. Upon getting the first one into the boat we had seven small Rock Crab, a few prawns, and one of the spiny starfish, which was hunched up like it was feeding. When we picked it up out of the trap he was in the midst of eating a prawn! We have pulled up lots of these starfish, but we have never seen that. I don't understand how it could catch one. 

Spiny Starfish eating a Prawn.

When we lugged up our second, and slightly deeper trap, we had two more of those spiny starfish, one of which was eating a prawn and the other looked like he was just finishing as he still had a bit of the shell in him. Wow. So weird. We also had a couple of small female Dungeness crabs, and more prawns. Yay. In total we got 23 prawns to go with our oven-baked fresh fish-sticks, rice, and sea asparagus. Yummy! 

August 7th (Thursday)
We decided to do a project that we have been wanting to do for a while. We wanted to switch out our alternator from our existing one with a dumb internal regulator, to a different one with a smart external regulator. This should be good for our batteries and help with efficiency of charge. Once we broke down the wiring for the regulator it should have been an easy swap, but of course as it seems to go with projects on boats, it was not that simple. As I am writing this, we just heard the distinctive call of Sandhill Cranes, so cool.
It turned out, and I'm not too sure how we missed this, that the new rebuilt alternator that we got had the wrong type of belt pulley on it. This was something that we got shortly before leaving Vancouver, and I guess at the time our minds missed the glaring difference. We managed to get the two pulleys off and switched, but of course it wasn't that simple either. Because of the shape of the different pulleys the new one we wanted to put on sat differently, and the edges were touching the external fan where the centre was sitting. We ended up having to fabricate a spacer for it, which of course had to be true so as to prevent any wobble. In the end it all worked great, and it was the first real test of what we can do in our workshop with the many tools we have, but of course there are many tools we don't have.
After getting everything put away and tidied up we went for a walk, and enjoyed the early evening on West Beach. 

(Sheya's mom writing: Sheya and Jason left Pruth Bay, on Calvert Island, on August 9th (Friday) to head out to the Northern tip of Calvert Island. Those of you who are following them on the AIS web page will likely be able to see their current position. They plan to explore some of the anchorages of the islands in the outer area before heading back to Shearwater on August 19th. At that point Sheya will likely have lots more to give to me for the blog posts, however, I will not have access to the internet at that time as I, along with Sheya's dad, will be joining Sheya and Jason in Shearwater. Therefore, there probably won't be any more posts to the blog until I return from the Central Coast sometime in the beginning of September.)