We left our cozy spot in Booker Lagoon Thursday, which we had all to ourselves last night. But first I took the opportunity to go salmon fishing once more. This time, since we have a freezer full of fish, I thought I'd do things a little differently and use my fly rod as a fly rod (instead of a trolling pole). I put on an intermediate sinking tip 9 weight line and tied on a Clouser Minnow in dark green and white (I don't have a dark green and blue fly unfortunately). Luckily I couldn't look like too much of a fool because there was only one other boat fishing the area. I cast for about an hour and managed to hook one fish. It seemed pretty small compared to the others I've caught but I didn't get a chance to see for sure. While I was trying to figure out how to retrieve it the fish got off the hook. (When fly fishing in still water, you have to pull in line to give the fly some action. This is called stripping. When you've stripped in all your line and are ready to cast again you have a big pile of line at your feet. That's ok, because you're going to cast it out again. However, if you hook a fish during the latter half of your retrieve you have to make a choice: 1) Strip the rest of the line to get to the fish; 2) Let the fish run all the line out so you can use the reel to pull the fish in; or 3) Reel in the pile while holding the fish on the line, then pull the fish in using the reel. I hadn't finished deciding before it got off.) I was running out of time, so I switched to my green and blue hoochy on the trolling rig and quickly caught a 21 inch Pink. That was all for the day. I trolled the rest of the way back to the pass but no more fish. I was out of time, we had a date at 1300 with slack water in the pass, so I headed back to Nakia to put things in order for crossing Queen Charlotte Strait.
Linda and I got the outboard off the dinghy and stowed, cleaned the dinghy and lashed it on deck, stowed things below, and raised anchor for our exit. As we pulled out into the lagoon the two Pacific White Sided dolphins came right up to Nakia, swimming from the stern to the bow looking up at us as they escorted us to the pass. Linda (watching them out on the end of the bow sprit) says they were so close to the bow of the boat it's almost as if they were scratching their backs on the hull. Our transit of the pass was uneventful (slack water is my friend) except that we had to wait for two power boats to clear the pass before we could enter. We made our way out into Queen Charlotte Strait and set sail. It was soon evident that the wind was blowing directly from our intended destination. The weather wasn't that great, the morning fog still hadn't burned off, and it was a bit cold. At least we were sailing though, so we set a course and started on our way.
I'm sure none of you reading this have any reason to follow Canadian weather forecasts, but lately it's been pretty monotonous in our area: Strong to Gale force northwest winds in the afternoon easing overnight. Our destination, Port Hardy, was 32 nautical miles almost directly northwest from our starting point. At the most we probably only had 25 knots of wind, with wind in the 18-22 knot range more common, but it turned out to be a very long day. In the end we sailed 43 nautical miles to cover 32. We now realize that the dolphins were not telling us goodbye, they were really saying, "Don't go out there! It's safer in here!"
I'm not sure if I should say this, but I think I will anyway. It's rarely a good thing to have a "reason" to go someplace. It limits your options. In this case our "reason" was mail. We have mail waiting for us in Port Hardy. (Thanks Leslie!!! No joke, I mean it!) Had we not had a reason to sail to Port Hardy we could have born off and reached to any number of destinations off the wind. Oh well, we got a chance to see how well the new sails work (they work great!) and it's clear to me the combination of new sails and the new feathering propeller make a huge difference in upwind sailing.
Once we arrived at Port Hardy, the challenge was not complete. Every foot of dock space is occupied either by fishing or pleasure boats rafted three deep in some places. We spent 30 minutes motoring around the harbor looking for a spot, and had finally resigned ourselves to going out and anchoring in the bay when a man on a sail boat invited us to raft up to him. We were both starving (by this time it was 9:30 PM), so we had some soup and went to bed.
In the full light of morning I find we have a pretty good spot. We're tied up right across from the "Eagle Tree." There is so much fish in Hardy Bay that the eagles flock here to feed. Mostly immature eagles, but about 10-15 will sit in this one dead tree waiting for an opportunity to practice their "fish catching, sky diving swoop."
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