I woke up during the night to the sound of
pouring rain, again! Fortunately, when
the alarm went off at 5:50, the skies showed promise and so we anchored up,
pulled the empty shrimp trap up from 350’ and set sail 14 miles off shore in
pursuit of salmon and halibut.
We didn’t catch any keeper salmon, just a
small coho. We didn’t catch any halibut,
but I wrestled with a monster for about 10 or 15 minutes on my salmon pole but
he won, I lost. We did, however, end up
with some huge ling cod and rock fish. I
caught a 37” 18 ½ pound ling cod. Val
caught another very respectable one. We
both caught some really nice sized red snapper and a black cod, I think it was.
The swells were amazing…maybe 10’, Connor
thinks 13’, but there were only 1 or 2’ wind waves. It was like driving through hills on the
ocean. Sometimes you could see a long
way and sometimes it felt like we were in the bottom of a bowl of water. No worries but very interesting. When we throttled up, we’d go whizzing down
the swells and then bogging up them doubling our halving my fuel economy.
The skies were clear and the sun was warm on
our skin. We rounded Estevan Point, a
notoriously rough crossing, with ease.
Although we were tired from our early morning and there were fish to
clean and vacuum pack, we decided to make a quick pit stop at Hot Springs Cove
for a soak in the warm sulpher springs.
We were all surprised to see so many boats
there. There were water taxis, seaplanes
coming and going, and private boats as well.
Even the trail to the hot springs was all boardwalk. I can tell we’re close to Tofino now. I even had a bar on my cell phone today, but
not enough to make any calls.
After a quick bowl of Val’s incredible clam chowder, which, unlike most,
was heavy laden with the bivalve delicacies, we made the 40 minute hike from
the public dock to the baths and, oh, did they feel great after fighting the
swells all day. It’s really hard to
stand or move when the boat is bouncing all over the place. My back was grateful for the hot soak and my
nose was grateful to get rid of the fish smell.
 |
| A beautiful mushroom along the way. |
We ended up in a delightful one boat cove
called Hootla Kootla Cove, (who names these places?) only 4 miles from the hot
springs. Connor went to his berth to do
his schooling as it was too rough for him to do anything out in the swells
earlier today. Val and I packaged 21
meals of fish in our little vacuum bagger and got them tucked happily into our
freezer which is now 60% full….although, I wish there were more salmon and
halibut in there. I threw some steaks on
the grill and Val made a lovely salad with some fresh baked bread and it was a
great meal in no time at all.
The sunset was amazing and the bright, full
moon is poking through the pine trees in our cozy littlebathtub of a cove. Yes, it was another great day. I hope yours was too!
