JUNE 21, 2016 PENDRELL SOUND

JUNE 21, 2016  PENDRELL SOUND

Last night we took our secret weapon lures and set out for some fishing. I have not caught a fish for over thirty years and had not been fishing since our kids were young. We grabbed our rods whose reels had been expertly rebuilt by our frequent boating crewman, Geoff. Once we found our spot, David patiently instructed me on the fine techniques of tidal fishing. We needed to keep pulling up on our rods to make the shiny lure dance. At one point, we were drifting too close to some buoys so we brought in our lines before moving further out. As I reeled in, I felt some real resistance and thought I had hooked a big one, but amusingly discovered that I was attached to David’s line!  Not a good start.

David managed to hook a good sized yelloweye rockfish. He let me bring in his next hooked fish but it turned out to be just a bug-eyed Quillback rockfish…not a keeper.  I did get a tug on my line but by the time I reeled in 150 feet of line, it was long gone. I couldn’t keep the momentum going and had to stop reeling in a couple of times which is not how it should be done.  I am sure it was bigger than David’s. In fishing…size does matter. We had a grand time, though. I’m hooked!

                                                   The Belle peaking around the bend.

Before leaving Squirrel Cove, David made his way to shore and went clam digging. He tested a clam by rubbing it on his lips…no stinging sensation… so he proclaimed them safe.  He ended up only enjoying two that evening because his wife’s little voice of uncertainty kept ringing in his ears. He did, however, fix up some clam chowder that has been cooking away today and just might be far to tempting for me to resist!

                                                             David digging away

We took a 3 hour cruise this morning up Waddington Channel to deep Pendrell Sound. It was a peaceful journey all the way but the spot we planned to anchor in is now an aquaculture so we had to sweep the end of the sound for depths shallow enough in which to anchor. Our hook is down at this moment but we are doing a careful watch. There are rocks about. Along our journey there were miles of oysters attached to the shoreline rocks baking in the hot sun. Hard to believe they survive until the tide comes in.

The sound is home to several oyster culture operations. Reading our Waggoner Cruising Guide, I learned that strings of cultch material (often empty oyster shells) are suspended from floats in the bay until the oyster spat adheres to them, at which point they are shipped. Fascinating. And that, my friends, ends the educational portion of this blog.

The warmest salt-water north of Mexico is said to be found right where we are anchored with summer water temperatures reaching in excess of 68 degrees. On our little “cruise about” earlier, I tested the water…not so balmy to me!

The wind has picked up and we can hear what sounds like the anchor chain scrapping on the rocky bottom as the boat turns. We have our anchor alarm on to be on the safe side. We watched a sailboat come in, drop anchor and then attempt to secure a stern tie to the shore. The poor fellow in the dinghy was having trouble finding a spot on the oyster shelled shore to tie up and then had to climb over the rough sharp shells to a tree quite a distance from the water’s edge. Quite a feat in my mind. The whole process probably took at least 45 minutes with all hands on deck. We have in the past attempted our own stern tie a couple of times with little success or efficiency. We are choosing to turn in circles as the wind and currents command which is fine if both are reasonably mild and we have plenty of swing room.

Last night we watched the rain clouds make their way across the sound toward our cozy vessel while sipping on a “dark and stormy” cocktail. Our anchor alarm never sounded in the night, but it was still

was a restless night for us.

The morning has again brought rain. Our neighbors are shoving off but we are staying one more night. This will give us a chance to clean and tidy up below. David has resigned himself to the fact that the complete installation of the water maker may not happen this trip but, nevertheless, he is tackling it again today. It has turned out to be a bigger job than either of us anticipated. We talked about planning an Alaskan trip in David’s 70^th year (2018)…he should have plenty of time to get that thing up and running for a long trek north.

A new neighbor arrived mid-afternoon. It looked like a chartered yacht with five or six male passengers and what looked like three crewmen. They were making the most of their time here, paddle boarding, kayaking and hiking. One fellow even went swimming, and we didn’t hear any yelps of chilled surprise when he hit the water. I think this is the spot where friends told us they had gone skinny dipping. Ah, to have such abandon!

I was wide awake most of the night listening to the buckets of rain falling. It was quite the storm and the persistent leak above my pillow started to drip, drip, drip. I thought the clouds surely had unloaded their significant supply of moisture last night, but awoke to even more rain.

David is not felling well…he started to feel a cold coming on last night. Think we will be staying put at least one more night.