Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

June 23rd and 24th (Tuesday and Wednesday) Ah, it is nice to sleep in and relax.  Getting up at 05:45 and working for ten or more hours every day gets tiring.  It was nice to be able to turn off the alarm and sleep in this morning.  Once we were up, however, we found that even though we were still somewhat tired, we were also motivated and we started doing various little projects on the boat.  We cleaned the inside, scrubbed our floor, wiped down the inside of the enclosure material and scrubbed our cockpit.  It was nice to get everything clean again.  We also went into our engine room and topped up our battery levels with distilled water and did some cleaning in there.   We have been keeping an eye on the weather forecast and we are hoping to head out cruising on Saturday (27 th ).  So far it looks like it will be nice, and we are looking forward to going out to the outer coast and doing some explori...

June 16th (Tuesday) Today we had the day off; it was our one day off in the middle of our shift and we were happy to get to sleep in until 07:00.  After a relaxing morning teatime we headed out fishing.  We were eager to try out our newly tied hoochie hook setups, and it was a beautiful day.  We gave ourselves a few hours and said that if we still hadn’t caught anything by 12:00 then we would head home.   I ended up catching a very bizarre combo of two animals at the same time.  As we were trolling I caught a small Quillback Rockfish and a Sea Cucumber at the same time.   The double catch on the hoochie hook setup. The only way that we can imagine it could have happened is that the Quillback bit the hook and then took it down to the bottom where it brushed by a Sea Cucumber and up they both came.  It was definitely a very unexpected catch.   About five minutes before we were going to head home, J...

June 10th - 22nd (A Wednesday to a Monday) Another twelve days of work has passed for us at the Mowi fish farm.  It was an exciting shift for us because every few days we were getting another load of fish.  The fish came up from one of the hatcheries near Campbell River and they arrived by boat in loads of about 510,000 fish.  Each of the large tanks at the farm holds 340,000 fish, so we would put 340,000 in one tank and the rest into another tank.  On the next load we would top up the last tank with 170,000, and then another 340,000 would go into the next tank.  Over the span of this shift we filled seven tanks, so we now have roughly 2,380,000 fish on site.  That is a lot of little mouths to feed.   Because the fish arrived to us by boat they had to be pumped through large four-inch hoses to a small tank up on shore.  From there they were once again pumped through hoses to their main tank. ...

June 9th (Tuesday)  Today turned into a busy day, even though it was supposed to be a relaxing day before we went back to work.  I made us a large batch of a family recipe of Church Dinner, which is a tuna pasta dish, so that we would have some yummy pre-made hot lunches for work.  Jason used some of the salmon, some frozen halibut, and some crab to make up a big pot of seafood chowder.  We had some of it for dinner and we have lots left for lunches at work.  Jason also worked on re-tying all of our hoochie hook setups with our own braided line, and I sat at the sewing machine trying to get all of the last sewing done so that I could give the sewing machine back before tomorrow.  It was a busy day, but we got all of our projects done and we are ready for the start of another two-week shift tomorrow.  

June 8th (Monday) Early in the morning we headed out fishing.  We had decided that if we could catch another salmon today, then we would can a bunch, and if not, then we would simply freeze the leftovers from yesterday’s fish.  It was a beautiful glassy calm morning! We ended up having the most action trolling for Chinook Salmon that we had had so far.  Unfortunately we did not manage to keep any of them.  The fish must have all been bigger than yesterday's 20-25 pounder because they broke three of our pre-tied hoochie hook set-ups.   We learned a new lesson today; never trust the strength of pre-tied hook set-ups.  We were using the same hoochies that we purchased from Shearwater last year and that we used all season for our Coho fishing.  We never had any problems then, and even though Chinook are definitely bigger fish, we never thought that the line would be that weak.  Due to the line breaking,...

June 7th (Sunday)     In the morning we headed out salmon fishing.  It was a beautiful glassy calm morning and although there were many large clouds hugging up against the mountains and moving around, there were also some blue patches.  We saw one very large rain shower that looked at first like it might make its way towards us, but it ended up spreading out and dissipating, and we remained dry.   It was not a warm morning, however, not summer like at all.     I was happy that I had bundled up, but it felt a little ridiculous to be back in my long john pants and fleece jacket layers in June.     Although we did get some periods of sunshine through the moving clouds, as the breeze began to pick up I ended up putting on an extra puffy-vest layer, and my rain jacket as a windbreaker.     We trolled along Barba Point and ended up going further along the shoreline than we previously had.  We saw a neat...

June 5th and 6th (Friday and Saturday) The weather over the past two weeks has been very cloudy, with a lot of showers and a few days of rain.  On Saturday it was back to raining quite hard and steady.  The weather forecast had been back and forth all over the place.  We often refresh the weather web site in the morning and see a forecast of sun for the next few days, and then by afternoon it’s calling for a mix of sun and cloud, and by the evening they may be calling for clouds and a chance of showers, and then by the next morning it may be back to mixed sun and cloud, or a chance of rain.  It has been changing so regularly that we keep being disappointed.  We had really been hoping to get a break in the weather in order to have a chance to hike up Mt. Caro Marion again before going back to work, but right now that isn’t looking likely, but then again they still have time to change it back to being nice.   It has defini...

June 4th (Thursday) In the morning, after a bit of sewing, we got ready for Ken to pick us up around 11:00.  It was the day for the Mowi staff fishing trip on the lake.  Although it was socked in and raining in the morning, as we started to get ready the clouds began to lift and we were hopeful for a nice day.   Ken picked us up and we went up to the lake with him and Shelly where we met up with the crew.   There were three boats in the lake ready for our use, one was the Mowi lake boat which is used for adjusting the intake pipes on the lake, the second was the Mowi sea boat which had been brought up for the day, and the third was a nice little lake boat of Ken’s.     Jason and I rode with Ken and Shelly, and as we planed out across the water we were happy to be under the cover of their small enclosure as another shower came overhead.     It was lovely to be out on the lake again.     The last time tha...

June 2nd and 3rd (Tuesday and Wednesday) On Tuesday morning we awoke to the sound of pouring rain.  We had had a lot of cloud and showers over the last couple of weeks, but this was the first real day of hard and steady rain.  It was a lovely day to be inside.  When I checked my email, I had one from Gladys saying that she would be happy for me to borrow her sewing machine if that would make things easier.  When I expressed that that would be helpful, she took it upon herself to bring it to us through the rain.  I had said not to bother today, but she came anyway saying that it was a perfect day to be sewing.  Of course she was right, but I didn’t want her to have to make the trip.  It was very sweet and thoughtful of her.  Once I was all set up with the sewing machine on board I could really make progress.  It was so much easier when I could fit, pin, and sew, without having to try to do all of...

June 1st (Monday) Happy first of June everyone! It is amazing to think that in twenty days it will be the longest day of the year.  It will be interesting to see how much more our daylight hours increase in the next twenty days. Today we both worked on projects.  Jason worked outside on the dock and fixed our barbecue.  Sadly it has not lasted as well as we had hoped.  Before leaving Vancouver we had decided to buy a good-quality marine barbecue because it got good reviews and was designed to mount easily onto a sailboat.  It is a Dickenson, the same company as our indoor propane stove and oven, but it has not been as good as we had hoped for.  The brackets that attach the barbecue to the railing, also a Dickenson product, corroded a couple of months ago, and the barbecue would have fallen into the water if it had not been connected to the propane hose.  We fixed that issue, but then the other day when Jason wa...

May 31st (Sunday) We had our first sleep on our new mattress last night, and we both found it very comfortable.  It was nice and firm, and quite supportive.  We are very happy with how it turned out, and hopefully it will last well.  In the afternoon we decided to head out salmon fishing.  It had been quite cloudy and showers kept passing through, but it was also calm and a lovely day.  We headed out.  After a few hours of trolling we had still not gotten any salmon.  We had caught a few small Rockfish, but that was it.  Although we were really hoping for some fresh salmon, we were also not encouraged by our luck.  Since it was around slack current, we decided to reel in and go and try some bottom fishing.  We were hoping for some fresh fish for dinner.   As we were putting our lines down we saw a massive splash out in the middle of the Dean Channel.  It was the sp...

May 30, 2020 (Saturday)   On Thursday, May 28th, we started working on the project of our new v-berth mattress.  This project had started quite a while ago when we first started researching the best “bed in a box” 6-inch foam mattress.  About five years ago we cut new foam for our v-berth and we increased the foam size by two inches (from four to six inches).  We kept the original shape of each piece of foam, but modified the covers to accommodate an extra two inches in thickness.  Over the years we learned which parts of our mattress construction took away from the comfort level, and we began to think about how it could be done differently.  The quality of the foam that we used last time was not that good, and it had been gradually flattening.  In combination with doing research for a good mattress we also redesigned the way that we wanted our cushions to be cut.  We decided that instead of having the cushi...

May 29 (Friday) At around 14:00 the wind seemed to be dying down and we decided to head out and try our luck salmon fishing again.  When we got out to the mouth of Cousins Inlet we started trolling our way along the rock cliffs of Barba Point.  We trolled along for a while, but caught nothing.  The water had been quite calm when we first got out there, but the breeze started to pick up a bit and with the flooding current and the rebound off of the rock cliffs it got a bit choppy.  We decided to cut across Dean Channel to the area of Rattenbury Point.  Although we had been past this area in our sailboat last year, we had never been over in Kiki, and we wanted to check it out.   We cut across the channel and started trolling our way along, one advantage of trolling is that you get a lot of time to view a new area and look for wildlife.  There was one point that was very weathered looking, the rocky shore was smoo...