PRAWNS and more pictures

July 3, 2024

After a wonderfully quiet night near Nettle Island, we prepared to leave our anchorage and retrieve the prawn trap, but when Walt opened the top of the navigation station desk, he found that the important documents stored there in plastic protectors had gotten wet because of small leak resulting from some heavy rainfall. We took all the papers out of the “protectors” and spread them out on the queen-size bed in the aft cabin to dry, sponged out the protectors, and were happy that we’d found the items when we did!

Off we went to collect the prawn trap, and when Martin hauled it up using a special reel attached to a drill motor, behold! There were prawns in the trap—29 to be exact! Woo-hoo! Karen did an excellent job of processing them, and we looked forward to a fine evening meal.

There was no wind, so we motored slowly among the marvelous islands in the Broken Group,

and in the early afternoon, we found our way into a stunningly beautiful anchorage between two islands: Dodger Passage. Here, sparkling surf was bursting onto rocks near and far, small islands and castle-shaped rocks invited exploration, golden-sand and white-sand beaches beckoned, birds whistled and chattered in the treetops along the shores, and warm afternoon sunshine and bracing breezes washed over the anchorage. Here we decided to stay, and while Karen and Martin took Coracle to one of the beaches and enjoyed taking photos around the rocks and tide-pools, Walt napped and then did trip-planning for our LONG journey east through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria on Thursday. I dealt with email, worked on a blog post, and did some DuoLingo French practice. I also spent some rapturous time lying in the sun on Braesail’s foredeck and listening to the continuous muffled thunder of the distant surf on a reef and the intermittent hissing gurgle of the nearby surf on large rocks near a gravel beach.

Following a dinner of OUR prawns and some halibut chunks in a delicious white sauce served over pasta, Martin took me out and around the anchorage in Coracle, whose propeller produced a kelp salad near some rocks and had to be untangled. We motored along an island shore sporting a lovely white-sand beach lined with driftwood and then evergreens, through a shallow passage between the island and more stacks of rocks, and then into a patch of calm water where Martin paused to take photos of various scenes and objects outlined in gold by the setting sun (I assured the safety of his camera bag!).

Upon our return, we discussed plans for Thursday’s travel, how early we’d need to start to catch favorable currents and avoid dangerous ones, who would be on watch with whom, when, and for how long, etc. Dry, sunny weather, no fog, and little, if any, wind were predicted, and wave heights were forecast to be low. Because Walt and Martin were going to rise at 5 am to hoist the anchor and leave for open water, we all went to bed quite early in preparation for a successful journey on the morrow.