The weather cleared and we headed for Namu and Rock Inlet,
where we planned to anchor for the night. (51° 52.340’ N / 127° 51.104’ W) There were a couple of Power Boats and one sailboat in the cove when we set the anchor.
Later the Cal 46 “Dream Catcher” came in and anchored. We had met Chuck and Margie at Lagoon Cove last year. Margie motored over for a visit in their new ridged dingy. We had a nice chat in the cockpit of Teal, comparing our adventures and good crab and prawn spots. Soon a shower came up and sent Margie back to Dream Catcher.That turned out to be one of the last showers of that series of storms. Can’t wait to get to a port where we can dry the boat out again.
July 24, 2007
Before we could leave Rock Inlet we had to winch the anchor off the bottom. It was fouled with an old discarded, and heavy, fish net.
On our way out we stopped at Namu for about an hour or so and visited with Teresa, resident artist, beach comber, and all around harbor hand. Rene the caretaker was away celebrating her mom’s 100th birthday. George chatted briefly with Tom her husband, we checked out their gift shop, and bade farewell to Namu.
We headed to Ocean Falls to take on a load of fresh clear spring water, large crabs, charge our needy batteries, do our chores and dry out the boat.
We set the prawn trap on the way into Ocean Falls and the crab trap across from the harbor. The spillway of the dam was gushing. The slogan here is: "Ocean Falls The best damn site on the B.C. coast", and it is magnificent.
We found just enough room at the docks for Teal (52° 21.186’ N / 127° 41.792’ W).
When we plugged into the shore power we discovered the battery charger we replaced at Bellingham May 29, had failed.
July 25, 2007
We walked to Martin Valley, the residential district for the area, in the company of some power boaters docked with us. We arrived at the quaint country store to get ice cream, and soon there was rumblings of a bear siting. The store owner said, "Oh that's one of the twins", and there he was at water's edge, posing for cameras, but not ours cause we didn't take it with us.... The conservation task force has been in the area trying to get some control on the bears in the community. It seems one of those cute little creatures tore the top off a van and tried to get into the store by ripping off the screens and windows.
Later in the afternoon we went out to tend our crab trap, to find 15 crabs; 12 males, not a underzied one in the bunch, and 3 females. We kept the 6 biggest males from 7 1/2" to 8 1/2". This gave us our first opportunity to use our new crab pot, put on board this year. It's a LARGE pot and yet we had to cook those guys in shifts.... what a feed!
We may abort out trip up Dean Channel to Eucott Hot Springs and head for Shearwater to try to get a replacement for our battery charger. We will try to post something from there.
George and JoAnne
