While at Forward Harbour I switched out the raw water impeller, tightened the alternator belt and cleaned the raw water filter in an attempt to fix the mysterious exhaust smoke.
One of these things (probably tightening the belt) seems to have fixed the issue, as we didn’t have any smoke since!
Anyway, on leaving Alert Bay, we headed North-East in the Broughton Islands, a marine park at the top of the Johnstone Strait.
On the way we tried fishing, but failed. However we saw a bunch of humpbacks feeding! Here is the only photo I managed to get of one as it was diving (it’s out of focus with the wrong light balance, National Geographic eat your heart out)
We ended up in Waddington Bay, which was really pretty but all the photos I got were kinda shitty so just take my word for it, ok? Getting in there required careful chartreading as it was completely surrounded by small islands and rocks – a bit nerveracking.
Of note was the huge sealion catching and ripping to pieces fish after fish right next to us, as if to rub it in that he was better at fishing than we were. Well played sealion, well played.
The next day we started to head towards echo bay – a marina where we could pick up some more fuel and we trolled on the way. I caught two small rockcod (that went back) and lost a downrigger weight on the bottom. Urgh.
Arriving at Echo Bay we were talked into moorage for the night and also the Prime Roast dinner, which was a ridiculously huge roast, which filled us right up. That night I did some jigging off the docks and terrorised various tiny fish. No keepers though.
I didn’t mind as it was a beautiful night
Next morning, we decided to head off to Clayden Bay, as people at the Echo Bay marina told us it was quite a spot (they also said noone else was really catching salmon right now which made me feel better).
We left early and it wasn’t far so we slowly mooched our way towards the anchorage, stopping off in various deep little bays to jig for a halibut. We didn’t get a halibut, instead Emma got a dogfish
These are basically little sharks, but have two poisonous spines on their backs. Being sharks they are all cartilage and so super bendy, so they bend up and try to spike you, making getting them off the hook an adventure. Also they hiss. Not very nice things but cool to look at?! Also apparently they are good in fish and chips but I didn’t fancy tangling with it so back it went.
We carried on jigging in different spots until we both caught big rockcod! Emmas was bigger (and first) so we put mine back (it’s swim bladder seemed unexploded and it swam off fine) and kept emmas for dinner! First keeper of the trip (not counting The Prawn)
On the way to the anchorage the water kept getting greener and greener
Finally it was the same colour as the porta-bote!
I’ve never seen water like that – no idea what causes it.
We arrived in Claydon Bay and it was amazingly beautiful. Just this huge calm bay, with bright green calm water – almost like a lagoon
Just before bed we did some more jigging and both caught (and put back) two dogfish each
Then we baited the crab trab with the rockcod head and went to bed after a very enjoyable day. Next up – Port Hardy.
Back in the day when I lived in Campbell River, dog fish were the scourage of the salmon fisherman. Often brought in a good sized fish with a belly missing. Dog fish hitting a hooked salmon. You can imagine there was no love lost with these scavengers.
Glad you are having a great trip.
Ugh, I can imagine how annoying that’d be!
The green water is caused by an algae bloom – that’s what we heard while in the area a few weeks ago. We almost stopped in Claydon bay. Carriden bay to the southwest of there is also quite nice.
Oh interesting! I’ve never seen anything like it. Carriden looked nice as well, passed it on way out