Exploring East of Berry Inlet

October 27th (Sunday)
Pink wisps of clouds greeted me in the morning when I went up into the cockpit. It was a crisp and beautiful morning, and an autumn mist lay over the still water. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out for a day of exploring.
We decided to explore to the east of our anchorage, and would go to the west the following day. We planed along over glassy, calm water and went a short distance up Spiller Channel to Tankeeah River. There was a long stretch of tidal water that dried at low tide that went up to the river. Because it was around high tide we were able to motor all the way up. The closer we got to the river the more foam there was floating on the water.  Lines of bubbles drifted into squiggly shapes and patterns with the water’s current. There was evidence of the last high tide that had left foam stuck in tree branches, and piled high and dry against fallen logs. At the end, where the river ran in, there was a buoy tied to a stump, and we pulled ashore to stretch our legs. 

The forest area was beautiful, the trees were widely spaced, the ground was firm and yet moss covered, and there were many large trees around. We saw a massive "nurse log” – a fallen log that gives life to new growth. When it fell, obviously many years ago, it would have been an old growth tree, and it must have made the ground shake as it tumbled down, tearing its roots up with it. Even as it lay now on the ground with many new small trees and ferns growing from it, it must have been at least ten feet in diameter as it towered above us. 

We followed an old trail that led us along the river up to the Moat Lake. Here we found an old shed full of miscellaneous tools and things; it clearly had not been used for several years. Further along, on the shore of the lake, was a 20ish foot long aluminum boat with a 20 hp outboard on it. Other than for the fact that the boat was incredibly full of water, it looked like it was in great condition. Oddly, instead of being tied to a tree or a rock, it was tied to another outboard motor that was lying on the shore. How the people had gotten the boat up to the lake is an interesting question.

The lake was beautiful in the sunshine, and we wished that we could just go for a quick drive around in the boat, but we headed back down the trail. Because of certain things that we had seen, we think that perhaps people from the Bella Bella fish hatchery do some work with the salmon up there, but that is just a guess.
Back in Kiki we headed along the shore until we found a nice, small pebble beach where we stopped for our picnic lunch. It was lovely to sit on the beach and enjoy the sun’s warmth.
Unfortunately when we left in the morning we had forgotten to take our fishing rod; we brought everything else, net, fillet knife, etc., but we had forgotten the rod. Luckily the area we wanted to try fishing in, was just out from our anchorage, so it was not a big detour to go back for the rod after lunch. 

We tried fishing around the area of Joanna Rock, and we were quite happy with the size of fish that we were catching. It had been a long time since we had been jigging in swells, and also since we had been catching nice-sized fish. We caught two Lingcod, and we kept one. We also caught some nice-sized Rockfish and kept two. Mmm, fresh fish for dinner.
When we were heading out in the morning we had pulled up our crab trap to check it. We only had one small Dungeness and one small Rock crab, so we reset it in a different area. In the evening we had the three fish carcasses, so we pulled up the trap again, and there was still nothing. We put in the carcasses and reset it in another area. There doesn't seem to be a very wide-spread, or numerous, crab population on the Central Coast. We also set our prawn trap in the morning, and we were hopeful that we would catch something in the traps.
Our dinner was delicious! We had fish and chips with some of the fresh Lingcod, made fries in the oven. It was perfect!! 

For dessert we had ice cream! First time we have had ice cream in months. We had bought a small bucket of ice cream at Shearwater the last time that we were there, and we divided it up into serving sizes for the two of us, and then put it into Ziploc bags because it was much more space efficient in our freezer. So, for dessert, we took out one bag of chocolate ice cream. Yum, yum!