July 12

July 11, 2011

Bull Harbor
We left Pt McNeil this morning and ran north to Bull Harbor which is our jumping off point for rounding the northern tip of the island. Weather is perfect, no wind no waves and minimal current for a rounding point Scott after we cross the Nahwitti Bar which is the crux of the entire trip.
Today was wet, cold and rainy but no wind. I have never seen the Queen Charlotte Straits so flat and calm. There is hardly a swell to be seen or felt out here.

Tomorrow is another long day, about 7 hours to get to Winter Harbor. There is only one other sail boat here in Bull Harbor tonight and they are going around with us. There is a fishing boat here as well, they are from Montana and are going across the bar to fish in the morning. Were trying to decide if we want to leave early or wait for slack water. I think the wind and waves are nothing right now so the Nahwitti bar should not be any kind of problem.

I went out in the dink tonight and did some fishing and actually did some catching. I caught three black rock fish in about 20 minutes. Apparently they are rather fished out and rare so you are not supposed to fish for them. I was fishing for salmon but I kept getting rock fish. If rockfish are so darned rare why is it that the only fish I ever catch are rock fish? I might have caught the same black rockfish three times for all I know. Pretty dumb fish if I did.

Salmon were all around, I could see their fins on the surface a couple of times. But no luck, so why is that a surprise. Fish 2 Tom 0..

Another two days on my license so I will give it another try tomorrow.

July 12, 2011
Winter Harbor. This is a great place. Not much bigger than Kelsey bay as a community but the harbor is much larger. Not much here and what is here is focused on fishing. There is a very well stocked store, a fuel dock, lots of dilapidated docks with many fish cleaning stations and just a few small charter type fishing boats tied up to them. These all are well used unlike the ones at Kelsey Bay. A dozen small boats were out in the rollers just outside of the harbor entrance fishing and the Salmon are running. We got into the harbor and everyone was bringing in 20 to 40 lb salmon plus halibut. We saw a 166 lb halibut that someone caught and I took photos of bunches of fish laid out on the dock from just two of the boats. I am jealous. Guys told me to just troll a flashy thingy behind the boat and a salmon will grab it in no time so tomorrow I am going to give it a try. I thought 7 knots was too fast to troll but they said 12 would not be too fast.

The rounding of Cape Scott was a non event. We left Bull Harbor early as we agreed that without wind or big waves it really made no difference when we crossed the bar. It was pretty anticlimactic for the crux of the trip. The seas were glassy with no wind and then when there was wind it was right on our nose so we did no sailing. 8 hours of motoring. As we got closer to Winter Harbor the rollers went from about 2 footers to probably 6 footers but they were no big deal and we kept them on our rear quarter most of the way which made for a rather comfortable ride. It is cold, gray and cloudy with intermittent drizzle. We now slated for three days of rain, yippee! It would be a lot prettier if the sun were out and the sea and sky were actually blue and the trees green but the fog and visibility sucks out here and everything is just gray.

Winter Harbor is a very snug and safe harbor; I would definitely return here again and stay for a while to do some fishing. No sense in catching much on this trip because we have no where to keep even a small salmon. Not sure what we would do with a large halibut, no way to get it onto the boat.

We have a problem Houston! The holding tank will not pump out for the aft head and we woke this morning to stench. It gotten better but we have no idea why the tank won’t pump out. Fortunately we can bypass it or use the forward head.

In addition to that Jeff and I had to patch the dinghy, I snagged a fish hook yesterday on the side and there was a pin hole miniscule leak in the tube. Its back to holding air after the repair job, we hope.

Other than that all is going as planned. Wish us luck with the weather. Forecast is for wind from the SE which means no sailing tomorrow either plus Rain rain and rain. What else would one expect on the West Coast? I have not yet succumbed to wearing long pants or socks yet. So far I have remained in shorts and sandals regardless of how cold it is. After all it is summer.