Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

March 30th (Monday)  We were surprised to see snow when we woke up.  The snowline was right down to the water, it was snowing, and there was slush on the dock and our boat.  As the morning progressed the snow turned to rain, and the snow at the water’s edge melted.  In the afternoon the clouds began to lift and the sky lightened, the rain stopped and we had only showers for the rest of the day.   After checking the weather forecast we confirmed our plans to head out tomorrow.  The weather was looking nice, although still cold for the next few days, and we hoped that the nice weather would continue.  We made plans to head to Shearwater to get our mail and fuel, and then to go out and anchor and explore for a few days until we had to be back in Ocean Falls to work.   We spent time in the day getting all ready to head out in the morning.  We brought our crab trap in, got our outboard up onto its p...

March 28th and 29th (Saturday and Sunday) On both Friday and Saturday it absolutely poured, and it poured nonstop and steady.  The snow line was not far up the mountains, and the tops of the mountains were getting a lot of snow.  As the system passed by us it got windy on and off a few times, and when it did pick up it howled by and blew our boat against her dock lines and then back against her fenders.  The wind never lasted long, and when it did wake us up at night it was always just passing by and we went right back to sleep.   We had emptied Kiki of water on Friday, but we did not go out to empty her on Saturday, and when we went to do so on Sunday she was the fullest that we had ever seen.  The water was only about 6” down from the top of the transom, and she was sitting very low and stable on her pontoons.   We went out to check our crab trap and we had five, 7” Dungeness.   We cooked them up and had...

March 27th (Friday)  Well, today we told Ken, the manager of the fish-fry farm, that we would work two shifts for him.  We will be working from April 14th - April 27th, and then again from May 12th – 25th.  I was also able to get hold of the manager of the Shearwater grocery store and post office, and I talked with her about the possibility of us coming and getting our mail and maybe a few groceries.  She said that that would be okay, and that what they were doing was requesting that customers call them when they arrive at the dock.  We would then tell them what we needed (our mail and any groceries).  If we were getting groceries, they would gather everything for us and ring the purchase through over the phone on a credit card.  They would then put everything outside of the door, and once the door was closed we would be able to go and get the items.  That was good news for us as we had been getting mixed messa...

March 26th (Thursday) Last night the sky clouded over and the rain began early in the morning.  It rained pretty steady for the whole day, and we headed to work to finish up our project.   During the morning the Shearwater barge arrived, and when we saw people’s trucks with food boxes arrive at the under-cover area outside our work, I headed out to help.   The weighing and sorting of everything took quite a bit longer than normal because people were working to maintain a “social distance”.  This made it impossible to help each other, and therefore everything took more time.  The boxes were also much less organized than usual with multiple boxes containing two people’s groceries, which were unlabeled.  We then had to consult our receipts and sort out the items.  We assume that this was due to the high volume of online orders that Save On Foods was receiving.  Their staff must be completely swamped.   I was quite surpr...

March 25th (Wednesday) Today was another beautiful day, and we spent the day enjoying the sunshine.  Over the last week of lovely weather we have noticed a new type of duck has arrived in the area.  They are quite shy, so it is hard to get close to them when we are out in Kiki, but while we were enjoying the sunshine in our cockpit a male and female pair came into the marina.  They were out on the water, in between the two docks, bathing and preening themselves on the glassy calm water.  I got a few pictures of them, and we were able to identify them as Barrow’s Goldeneye ducks.   We watched as they stretched and flapped and preened their feathers, and every now and then one of them would dip its bill into the water and raise its head up towards the sky. This motion was then repeated by the other, and it seemed to be some type of mating ritual. They were very pretty, especially the male, but unfortunately most of my pictures had too much glare ...

March 24th (Tuesday)  Today was another beautiful sunny day, there was a heavy frost in the morning, but that quickly melted as the sun came up above the mountains.   Our day was partially spent trying to figure out where we stand in terms of getting stuff from the outside world. Things seem to be changing so quickly with regards to restrictions because of the COVID-19 virus that it is hard to make any plans at all.  Just four days ago our plan was to be leaving Ocean Falls on Thursday and to be heading north toward the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then we found out that the provincial park was closed and also that the island was requesting no visitors, not even for fuel and supplies. At that point I asked my mom to contact Shearwater for us to make sure that the fuel dock, chandlery, grocery store, and post office would still be open. She was told, “Yes, but perhaps with limited hours.”   Then the next day we heard that Bella Bella was self-isolatin...

March 22nd and 23rd (Sunday and Monday) On Sunday we painted the kitchen area of the suite. We used a third colour for the kitchen called “Sandy Beach”, and Jason and I both liked it more than the pinkish-white colour that we had used for the walls in the rest of the suite. Unfortunately there was only two gallons of the “Sandy Beach”, so we definitely did not have enough to use in the other rooms. As it was, we used a full gallon for the first coat in the kitchen, doing inside all of the cupboards and drawers, and most of the second gallon for the second coat.  On Monday we painted all of the doorframes, window frames, and baseboards with the blue colour, and now the place looks pretty and new. It is amazing to see the difference of the whole suite from when we first started. Seeing projects like this through to the end is always rewarding.  Our repair of the dryer vent hole, and also of the many cracks in the walls and ceiling turned out well. I think it would be ne...

March 21st (Saturday) At around 10:00, after some Spanish lesson time, we headed out fishing. We had talked to Ken, and he was planning to launch his boat and to come out around 10:30 to meet us, and to do some fishing as well.   It was another beautiful morning, but it was quite crisp and there was a heavy frost overnight. By 10:00 the sun had been on our boat for over an hour and everything was melted, and the air was beginning to warm slightly. We bundled up in our layers so that we could keep warm for the trip out, and hoped that we could de-layer as the day progressed.   Out from Wallace Bay we started our drift at the beginning of the area that we have found to be the “hot spot” for fish right now. There was very little wind, and with the movement of the current, we drifted at a nice slow pace. Jason had his line down with the herring bait, and I was using the jig. We had not been fishing long when I got a good-sized bite. Based on how it fought, I w...

March 20th (Friday)  At 09:00 Ken came by to pick us up. We headed up to Link Lake to see what we could do about clearing out the boat launch area. It was blocked by logs, and we set about throwing, carrying, and pushing them out of the way. It did not take us long, and we had the ramp all cleared except for one log that was too far out into the water for us to get a good push on. It was floating except for the root end, which was stuck in the mud. We decided that we would have an easier time moving it once we had the boat backed part way into the water so that we could stand in the boat and be closer to the log to give it a good push.   We headed back to Ken’s place in Martin Valley to get the boat, and then back up to the lake we went. It turned out that the boat trailer had an easy time of moving the last log out of the way as Ken backed the boat into the water. Soon we were off, planing across the lake. The wind from planing was quite nippy, but it was a b...

March 19th (Thursday)  After some Spanish lesson time in the morning we headed off to work. It was another beautiful sunny day, but since we had to get the suite finished before we could leave Ocean Falls, we headed to work instead of outside.   We did a final sand of our patched areas, fairing them smooth, and then we started to clean. First we swept, then we vacuumed, and then we wiped. Every surface, the ceiling, walls, floors, and cupboards got cleaned until the place was dust free. This took most of the day, and when we were finished we headed home a bit early, with the plan of starting to paint tomorrow.   At home we enjoyed the sun, and relaxed on the dock soaking up the rays. The water glistened and we watched the seals on the breakwater as they snorted, raised their heads and tails, and scratched themselves. The seals that were in the water kept popping up their shiny bald heads to look at us, and then splashing and diving back under, and we watc...

March 18th (Wednesday)  After some Spanish practice we walked over to the post office to give Dorothy our next letter with the blog stories, to go out to my parents. We also eagerly told her about our day yesterday, and she was very interested in the Basket Star, which she had never seen before. It is always fun talking to her while petting Tiger, because Dorothy is so interested in our adventures. Unfortunately Tiger has been out of sorts of late, not eating all of her breakfast, and she has also thrown up a few times. Hopefully she feels better soon.   We headed up to work, but only for a few minutes so as to put some fairing filler on the area around our dryer vent hole repair.  Then we headed out fishing again.   It was another gorgeous day, and it was actually even warmer than yesterday.  While we were fishing the wind completely died off, and the whole area out from Wallace Bay became glassy calm. It was the stillest, and warmest, that we...

March 17th (Tuesday)  Last night was the first night in a long time that we have noticed phosphorescence in our toilet when we flush. With all of the sunny weather that we had there was an algae bloom and the water became very murky, and the fireworks in our toilet at night were awesome! Who wouldn’t love flushing, even when you have to pump by hand, when you get to see green fireworks at the same time? In the morning, after a good session of Spanish, and having had some breakfast, we headed out fishing. It was a beautiful morning, with not a cloud in the sky, and the wind that was blowing down off of the mountains and out of Cousins Inlet was light. Based on what we had observed the day before, we were hopeful that the wind would die off in the afternoon.   Out from Wallace Bay we set up our lines and started our drift. Although the wind was still blowing a bit, it was not strong enough to push us too fast and it moved us along with the ebbing tide on a brisk dr...

March 16th (Monday) Today was a spectacularly, beautiful day!! It was the nicest day we have had, probably since around the end of September last year. It was clear blue sky; the sun gets quite high in the sky now, well above the mountains, and we get sun well into the evening.  When the breeze calmed off in the afternoon it became glassy calm, and it was warm enough to sit outside on the dock in just a light, long-sleeved shirt. I was barefoot, and Jason was in a t-shirt; it really felt like a perfect spring day.  While we were outside enjoying the weather, we saw a marten come out of the bush and onto the rocks along the shoreline. He went hopping along from rock to rock, and stopped occasionally to look around. He was so cute from a distance, and we are very glad that the marten has stopped coming around our boat. It has been a long time now since we have heard any little feet on our deck at night, and there have been no signs that it has been around at all....

March 15th (Sunday)  On Sunday we were off to work again. It was day seven in a row, and we were looking forward to taking Monday off.  It was another beautiful sunny day, although there was still a steady, northerly wind blowing out of Cousins Inlet. From inside it looked warm outside, but stepping outside the wind whisked any warmth away and made us shiver.   I started the morning off by making our next food order on the Save On Foods website. Dorothy had come by to see us yesterday and let us know that the website was being overloaded by people who no longer wanted to go to the store to shop, due to the Coronavirus. The website was not prepared for such a high usage, and so apparently Gladys had spent several hours on Saturday trying to get onto the web site to place her order.  We decided to try it first thing, so that if we could not get on, we would have all day to keep trying. This was our last day to place an order for the next barge.  Se...