Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

April 13th – 26th   We had some great prawning and fishing during our time off.   About every three days we went out to pull up our prawn traps, and we did quite well each time.   The most that we got in one haul, between the four traps, was 164 prawns.   Pretty awesome!!      We also had good luck with Halibut.   One time we went out Halibut fishing before pulling up our prawn traps.   It was a beautiful calm day and we intentionally went out to fish during the tide change.   It was a large ebb tide changing to a large flood, and we fished from about one half hour before the slack and then after the turn of the tide.   We have found this to be the best time to fish for Halibut, and we were not disappointed this time.   First Jason caught one, it was a nice one and we were quite happy.     Soon after, I had one too and this one was a big one.   It pulled and pulled out the line, and then slowly I reeled it i...

April 2021   During our two-week shift at the beginning of April we had some very winter-like weather with fresh snow overnight several times and cold temperatures.     For our two weeks off at the end of April, however, we ended up having the nicest two-week stretch of weather that we have had in our entire time in Ocean Falls; it was even nicer than any single two-week stretch last summer.   It felt like summer.   It was such an amazing change from our wintertime temperatures that we just had to be outside enjoying it.   We spent several relaxing days doing yard work around the house.     We painted the railing that comes down along the stairs, cleaned up some old crumbling brick planters, and did some weeding.   We took the good bricks from the planters and built a fire pit in the front yard, and weed whacked the long growing grass.   We also figured out how to set up a slackline in our front yard even though we only have one lar...

Hello everyone, and sorry that it has been so long since I have written anything.   Jason and I have been very busy, and I just have not taken the time.   I was just reviewing what I wrote about in the last post, which was from March 28th and 29th (posted on April 13th), so that I would know where I left off, and I see that I left you all hanging with whether or not the birds liked our bird feeder.   It turns out that they do!     The first birds to find it were the Oregon Juncos and there were a lot of them.   Then came the Red-winged Blackbirds, but they only stayed for a few days, and then they were gone.   Soon after they left the Juncos left too, and we were left birdless for a few days before the Golden Crowned Sparrows and a few White Crowned Sparrows showed up.   One pair of Steller’s Jays like our feeder too, but the roof is a bit low for them so they look funny hunched over when they are feeding.   They only take the big seeds and...

March 28th and 29th (Sunday and Monday) On our way back in from pulling our traps, Jason and I grabbed our electric pressure washer from the boat, which we have as a spare high-pressure pump for our water maker, and Jason decided to clean up our 27 steps.   It had clearly been a long time since anyone had paid any attention to them and they were incredibly moss covered.   Unfortunately, the high-pressure pump, which works perfect for our water maker, turned out to be quite lacking in psi for moss removal.   With persistence, however, Jason got the steps looking like new.   I pulled out the chop saw, air compressor, and nail gun from downstairs and got to work on building some birdhouses.    I wanted to build some birdhouses for the swallows this year, and I had done quite a bit of research into the types of houses that best suited the different types of birds.   It turned out that the wider boards that we get off of the pallets fo...

March 28th (Sunday) In the morning we headed out to pull up and bring in our traps.   Because we would be back at work on Tuesday (March 30th), we wanted to bring our traps in, as we would not be getting out to check them.   We did not get any crabs, but we did get another 95 prawns.   We also got another squat lobster, which was, I think, the largest squat lobster that we had ever seen.   Their arms, especially their front pincer arms, get so incredibly long and gangly compared to their body; they are such interesting creatures.  

March 27th (Saturday) Today it rained heavy and steady, with strong southerly winds, all day.   In 24 hours we got just over 100mm of rain in our rain gauge.   In the evening, when it was low tide, Jason and I bundled up in our rain gear and headed out for a beach walk.   We explored along the shoreline looking at all of the interesting old pieces of metal and pilings, wondering what it all used to be.   We walked up along Martin River, along the part that would be all ocean at High Tide, and watched the tumbling rolls of water rushing along.   The river was running very fast due to all of the rain.  It was nice to get out in the blustery rain, but it was also nice to come back into our warm dry home. Our house is the one in the middle.

March 26th (Friday) As I believe I have mentioned, the biggest, and really the only negative for us of Ron’s house is that he really doesn’t have a wood storage place.   We can keep a couple of small stacks on the back deck, but that is it.   So, we extended a tarp out from the back roof down to the bank and created a much larger protected area.   Then to keep the wood up off of the wet ground we laid down two pallets making a 4’ x 8’ area.   We used two more pallets upright on one corner so as to create a corner with walls; we now have much more wood storage. Since it had been a month since we last brought wood over from our old house we took what started out as a dry day and moved two truckloads of firewood over to Ron's house.   We counted how many trips going down and up our stairs, with bins full of wood, that it took us in order to move a truckload, and it worked out to be 22 trips.   Since we have 27 stairs to get from the road down to our house and ...

March 25th (Thursday) On one particularly nice day, in fact, it was the nicest day that we had had all year, we enjoyed the sunshine.   It was also incredibly calm on the water so we wanted to go fishing.   We got all of our gear together and headed to Little Red.   We started the engine, untied the lines, and pushed off, but when we put the engine into reverse, nothing happened.   What?   Into neutral and back into reverse, still nothing.   Weird.   Jason played with the cable and suddenly we were in forward gear, so we slowly came back into the slip and bumped up against the dock.   I hopped off with the bowline while Jason tried to figure out how to get it back into neutral.   It turned out that the shift cable had broken almost right where it goes into the engine.   We tied up the boat again and looked at our conundrum, and then decided that we would be asking for trouble to go out on the water with the broken cab...

March 23rd (Tuesday) Three days after our last haul of prawns we headed out once again to check our traps.   It was not great weather for fishing, so we just went out to our traps.   The tide was ebbing, and there was also a lot of fresh water flowing on the surface out of Cousins Inlet from all of the runoff coming out of Martin Valley and from Link Lake; we drifted quite quickly while pulling up our traps.   Usually when we pull in the traps the line is relatively straight down, but on this day the line was out on a steep angle which made the pull even harder.   When our traps got to the surface we were happy to see that we once again had some prawns.   The traps did not seem as full as last time, but we still had many prawns.   When we did the final count we had a total of 71.   Yay!   Both times of pulling up our traps we had a couple of squat lobsters as well.   On this day we had one girl carrying eggs.   It w...

March 20th   At the beginning of our last time off we decided to set some crab and prawn traps.   Instead of using our small, square fold-up traps, we decided to try some full-size round traps, and so we borrowed some that were not being used.   It was a bit early for prawns here, as most of the locals do not start prawning until sometime into April, but we decided to give it a shot as we would be back at work for the first two weeks of April.   We set out two crab traps and four prawn traps, and the prawn traps were rigged so that there were two traps off of one line and buoy, and the traps were spaced about 20 feet apart.   We took “Little Red” (the speed boat that we have use of) and went out and set all six traps.   Three days later we wanted to go out and check our traps, and since it looked like it would be a fairly calm day, we decided to try some fishing as well.   They opened the halibut season early this year, like they did last year, so we h...

March 30th (Sheya’s mom writing:   Sheya and Jason are now back at work for another two-week shift, and Sheya asked me to post these pictures that didn’t quite make it into her latest writings.) Over the past while Sheya and Jason have had some interesting encounters with a marten.   The view from their new home, Ron’s house, continues to present different scenes.   Sawmill Mountain, which used to have a ski hill on it back in the days when Ocean Falls was a booming sawmill town, can be seen on the drive in to Ocean Falls from Martin Valley.   On the side of the mountain there is a certain location where the local residents look to see a well-known face.   Can you detect it in the following picture?   If you are like me, you might have been able to see several different faces in the mountain, or at least parts of them, but did you see Bernard Shaw? Bernard Shaw is in the lower portion of the yellow circle, and then ...