Lagoon Cove

Here’s a picture of things we do on a rainy day on the boat. We’ll fire up the diesel stove to warm ourselves, then tuck in with books or do indoor projects. And since the diesel stove provides an oven, I have whipped up a favorite boat dessert, toffee bars, which you see sitting proudly in the middle of the table cooling down, waiting for consumption.

We came up the Johnstone Strait yesterday, rather than today as planned, because as we began to approach the strait the weather reports indicate calm weather. So we first decided to go partway up the strait to Port Neville (about halfway up the passage we have to make), since we had a favoring current until 3pm. However, once we were in the strait, it continued flat calm, so we did the only thing you should do when you discover the strait is calm—go for it! By the end of our passage there was a little wind—perhaps 10 knots—and a heavily overcast day that was threatening to rain, but didn’t until right after we finished anchoring. Rather nice timing!

We overnighted in a small bay called Burial Cove, along with a few wandering logs and an ugly two-story boathouse that showed up after we’d anchored and then was moved again in the morning. We were waiting for a favorable current to go through Chatham Channel, a narrow pathway leading into the waterways of the Broughton Island area where we’ll poke about for the next week and a half. This morning we came through the Channel and are now tied up at Lagoon Cove.

I’ve set my crab pots in my favorite spot in Lagoon Cove, using prawn heads for bait. At Lagoon, there’s a tradition of a 5 o’clock cocktail hour with everyone contributing hors d’oeuvres and Bill, the marina owner, putting out a bucket or so of freshly caught prawns each day. Overall shrimping is scarce this year for private parties—it was a particularly good year for the commercial guys so they let them have an extra couple of weeks and now there seems to be nothing left. But somehow Bill always manages. Fortunately, that means he has lots of prawn heads left over, which make excellent crab bait.