Up the Johnstone Strait and into the Broughtons

On Tuesday we braved the reports of 15 knot winds at the south end of Johnstone Strait and left our overnight moorage at Forward Harbor at 5am, hoping to catch both a north going tide and the Strait before the wind reached its afternoon predictions of 25 knot winds. When we reached the Strait about 6am, we found about 5-10 knots of wind, a bit of a lumpy sea, but quite tolerable, so proceeded north. About a third of the way up our passage, the water flattened out and with the tide helping us, we made one of the quickest passages ever--a total of about four hours from Forward Harbor. As always, it pays to go out in the Strait in the early morning and check the actual conditions.

Our first stop was Lagoon Cove, a cozy marina about 11/2 hours off the Strait. Its regionally well known owner, Bill Barber, died this spring and we wanted to check in and support his wife, Jean and the great couple they have managing the marina. Bill was famous both for his stories, in particular wild bear stories, and for the generous prawns that he supplied for happy hour every night. This year the prawns are still coming, with the help of volunteers who are going out and pulling the traps. And the marina was doing well, we were glad to see. The night we were there was made even more moving by a bagpiper who played in the evening as a tribute to Bill, ending with Amazing Grace, to which we all threw flowers in the water in memory of Bill, who always stood on the dock to welcome us and remembered everyone's names. We will miss him.

Today we in Kwatsi Bay, another marina with a stunning setting--a small sheltered cove surrounded by high mountains. We had a potluck dinner last night and lots of great food, along with chats with several of the other boaters. These get togethers are always good sources of interesting information about boating, anchorages, and where to drop your crab and prawn pots. We are also now in limited internet bandwidth territory, so no pictures for this post. I will post them when I can.

Got my first crab at Lagoon Cove--my limit of four. We will have a crab Louie salad tonight. We also set our prawn trap outside Kwatsi Bay in a spot we were told about. We shall see if it produces and if we managed to get it on the bottom. Another boat at the dock here has two traps out in a different spot and brought in a large bucket full of prawns yesterday, so hopefully we will get some. I am using a different trap this year--but people say its not the trap, it's the bait and where you drop it. 

We are off to spend a couple nights in an anchorage near here where we have not been, but which was recommended to us. We always like to try one new place each year. We will try to anchor without finding any rocks or getting ourselves stranded on a beach--that's our objective for this year. No beachings and no rocks.