More from Fancy Cove

August 31st (Saturday)
It poured rain last night and it was pouring in the morning when we woke up.  By the time we got up, however, it had stopped and there were a couple of blue patches, so we were hopeful for a dry day. Jason made us a fantastic egg frittata for brunch, my parents packed their bags and got ready to leave, and I packed them a dinner to take on the ferry.
By one o'clock the clouds had darkened again and the rain had started. It started to pour rain as we were thinking to head out for the ferry, and even though we procrastinated for a while, the rain did not let up. We finally all piled into Kiki, bundled up in our pvc rain gear, with my parents’ packs in heavy-duty garbage bags.  The trip was a little bumpy from chop from the current, but we made it there in 28 minutes. My parents got their tickets, and we said our goodbyes.
Jason and I headed back home, and although the chop created by the current had dissipated, the rain had increased. We stopped near the mouth of our anchorage and pulled up our crab trap hoping for crab for dinner.  Unfortunately there were no crabs, although we did have one beautiful Ratfish. We put the trap back down in a different area, although our hopes were no longer high for crab here.
Back at home we got a fire going and relaxed with a cup of hot chocolate. Later, as we were making dinner, we turned on our AIS and watched as the ferry left the dock at Bella Bella. We watched as it went past the entrance to our bay and then I called the ferry on the VHF radio. I spoke with a very nice guy and explained that we were anchored in Fancy Cove and that my parents were on board heading for Port Hardy, and I asked if it would be possible for them to make an announcement wishing my parents, Darcy and Raymond, "Bon Voyage" from Jason and Sheya. He said, “Yes, of course,” and we said goodbye. We would have loved to see the look on my parents’ faces when that announcement came over the PA system. It should have been quite the surprise!
Jason made us cabbage roles for dinner, and they were amazing. It was his first time making them, and after reading a recipe for the general method he made them with completely different ingredients and they turned out great!

September 1st (Sunday)
It is amazing to think that we have now been out on our adventure for four months! In that time we have visited 34 amazing anchorages, and made so many memories!

This morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny morning, and we headed out for a lovely early-morning low-tide kayak. We took our bucket with us hoping to be able to harvest some sea cucumbers. It had been just over a month since we had them last. We managed to collect four of them, which we were very happy about. We also were seeing rock crabs on the rocks in the shallows, which was a first for a very long time, so that was very cool. It was a beautiful morning for a paddle, the visibly was good, the sun was shining, and the wind was light. We found an interesting area that we decided to revisit at high tide; it was a large salt-water lagoon lake with two old boats wrecked on the shore, and an a-frame structure. 

We went home for some lunch and then went back out kayaking in the afternoon around high tide. The tidal exchange for the day was about 15 feet, and it was the highest tide of the month.

All of the tree branches were in the water, and with the darkness to the water in certain areas from freshwater runoff it had the feel of being in a lake at high water. 

We paddled around the little bays within our anchorage, and it really was a beautiful spot. There were so many little streams running out, many flat grassy spots, and some of the longest Old Man's Beard we have seen. 

We explored through one area that was a flooded marshy fresh-water area. We followed the winding channels that fresh water would flow out when the tide was lower, but we were also able to paddle over many flooded grassy areas and get much further in our kayaks than would be possible at a lower tide. 

When we had paddled as far up as possible in one area I got out on one of the grassy islands and found a circular fresh-water pool that was completely cut off from the rest of the water. 

It was only about 8" deep, and right in the middle was a big toad with his eyes and nose up. As soon as he sensed my movement he swam down and hid in the mud with just his eyes poking up. 

Toad floating on the top of the pond.

Toad swimming down to the mud.

We returned to the lagoon-like area, that we had found at low tide, and paddled the shoreline puzzling over the variety of old abandoned items, two boats, a kitchen sink, a window frame, two outboard motor covers, etc. It would be interesting to know the history of the area.

After returning from our paddle we went out in Kiki to pull up our traps.  We had prawns in our prawn trap, which was exciting. We had 12 of them, but unfortunately the biggest three, which were quite big, were females with eggs, so we let them go. We also let one small prawn go, and so were left with eight; four each, enough to be a side dish and to enjoy the flavour. 

We also had one small slime fish in the trap, and were perplexed by the fact that once again all of the meat had been eaten off of the fish bones in our bait container. They were picked so amazingly clean, with no trace left as to what got the feast except for a couple of pink sand-flea-like animals.  The bait container that we have been using in our prawn trap has slightly larger holes than the one in our crab traps, so I think we will switch it out with a different one to see if it makes any difference. The holes are only about 3/16", but perhaps they are large enough for some very hungry animals.
When we got our crab trap up into the boat we had three small female rock crabs and one small male Dungeness. No keepers. Oh well, we had an amazing dinner of leftover wild chanterelle mushroom fried rice, sea cucumbers, and prawns. So delicious!!