We arrived at Echo Bay early in the day yesterday (since we got out of Booker Lagoon by 7:30am). It was rainy all day.
Dawnbreaker arrived later on (still pouring rain). Luckily, they had these fancy umbrellas onboard:
Thomas and Urban, above…doing the umbrella spinning thing for drama. Not pictured, Lars at the helm, being serious (but probably not really).
It rained all night. But hey, that means nice freshwater wash down for Airship, so it’s okay.
We slept in this morning (after a not-that-late-but-still-kinda-late evening hanging with the Dawnbreaker crew). After dinner last night, Thomas, Lars, and Urban brought over a homemade apple pie (and a bottle of wine) and we got out the pint of vanilla bean ice cream we brought from home (and still hadn’t eaten yet! How did THAT happen?) … fun conversation, stories, dessert, wine, espresso…
It was great catching up with Pierre, as always. He’s making some expansions and improvements to the store and the restaurant, and he’s got a new, darling cabin for rent (plus suites in the lodge) so if you don’t have a boat but want to come to Echo Bay, there are options!
We wandered around a bit this morning chatting with the other boaters (there were 7 boats at Pierre’s last night…that’s a lot for this time of year!)…and then made breakfast before heading out. (Our default breakfast is…breakfast tacos. Today’s were the last of the chorizo scrambled with some eggs, sliced avocado, homemade salsa, a dash of habanero hot sauce in flour tortillas…yum!) We left around 10am and headed over to see George and Gail at Port Harvey. The rain came and went, but it was a beautiful cruise:
We went around the west side of Gilford Island through Cramer Passage and Retreat Passage to Knight Inlet (bottom of Gilford Island) and then through Chatham Channel to get to Port Harvey. We were timed to hit Chatham Channel at max flood, so the current would be going with us, but at potentially 7 knots. We read up on Chatham Channel, and nothing sounded too dangerous (no whirlpools or eddies or overfalls), and it’s a smooth-bottomed channel, so the flow is laminar which is just fast, but not turbulent. We went through with no issues at all. We had 4.5 knots of current with us at the narrowest/fastest part, but that’s it. Nothing weird or nail-biting or anything.
We dropped our crab pots just west of Range Island on our way into the dock at Port Harvey and then caught up with George and Gail here for a bit. The rebuild of the store and restaurant are coming along nicely, and should be fabulous and better-than-ever for next season!
George said they’d seen a big grizzly on shore near their house next to the apple tree for the past two days, so to keep an eye out. We did, and then there he was!
George waited while I took a few photos before he fired his rifle to scare the bear away.
Now, we’re just hanging out on Airship (one other boat here tonight, the Jacari Maru, a Puget Trawler) and about to make dinner. We aren’t sure of our plans for tomorrow yet. Maybe Shoal Bay, and then the Octopus Islands…and then maybe Heriot Bay or Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island (in the spirit of trying to also go some places we haven’t been before). I could explore like this indefinitely.
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