Cabbage Island – Riveted

“Honey, I have something to tell you…”

Laura Domela — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:34:57 +0000

Okay , so remember last week when we were out at Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands, and we went to the brick beach and brought back a few oysters? We fried 'em up that night and ate a few with the fresh crab we caught for dinner and everything was delicious.

The next morning while we were eating breakfast, Kevin suddenly turned to me with an alarmed and solemn expression on his face. "Oh no!" (gulp) "Honey, I have something to tell you. Remember yesterday, when I was shucking the oysters on the rear swim step, and you were inside working on dinner?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well, inside one of the really big oysters – I found a pearl. It was a big pearl, too. I was super excited and I thought 'Cool! I'll give this to Laura as a nice little surprise.'"

"Oh, how neat!!" I said.

"Well, there's more. When I found the pearl, I set it aside – just on the floor of the rear cockpit [the outside back deck area of the boat]. And then, I kept shucking. And then, I got to that crazy huge oyster…the one I couldn't get open…the one where you came out to see what was going on?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well, I put that oyster aside to tackle later, and then I finished shucking ALL the other oysters before coming back to my nemesis. I finally got that last mean one open and was really glad to have no more oysters to shuck. And then I brought all the oysters inside to you, and then I went back out and got out the high-pressure spray hose and washed all the oyster shells and dirt and…um, and everything off the swim step and out of the rear, um, cockpit… I guess. I sprayed it all off … really well. It was nice and clean when I was done."

"Awwwwwww."

"Yeah. So, isn't that cool that I found a pearl? It makes a good story, I guess. I'm just going to go out and take a look and see if by any chance the pearl is still out there anywhere."

Kevin went out in the rain and looked around for a few minutes, then came back in a little dejected. "Nope. It's gone. I hosed the whole area down really well last night after I finished shucking the oysters. I'm sorry, I totally forgot about the pearl."

"It's okay, honey. It's really cool that you found a pearl! And it's a good story, anyway."

A few days later, after we'd traveled from Sidney Spit to Ganges Harbor, stayed the night, then cruised out to Cabbage and Tumbo Islands, Kevin was hosing the deck off again (sand and dirt from hiking shoes, etc.). There was a little scrap of paper over one of the scupper drains. He removed the bit of paper, and guess what he found? The pearl!

It's pretty big! Maybe I should make a necklace.

Returning to Anacortes from the Gulf Islands

Laura Domela — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 01:02:39 +0000

I forgot to post these photos the other day of our return trip from the Gulf Islands to Anacortes. It was a beautiful, smooth cruise the whole way.

More eagles:

More seals and sea lions:

We arrived at our slip, called Customs, and the whole clearing process was pretty easy and convenient.

Here's our return route from Cabbage Island to Fidalgo Island/Anacortes:

Sunrise at Cabbage and Tumbo Islands

Laura Domela — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 12:21:54 +0000

This place! I love seeing the telltale gold light from the porthole in the stateroom. It's my sign to get up and grab my camera.

Sunrise at Cabbage and Tumbo was as good if not better than sunset last night.

The other direction:

Kevin went to retrieve the crab trap while I took five thousand photos of the changing skyscape (no crab this morning):

We're gonna make a quick breakfast and then head outta here. I know, why??

See ya later seals!

Cabbage and Tumbo Islands, B.C.

Laura Domela — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:55:09 +0000

Warning: Today was a picture-filled day. I tried to pare it down, but I didn't do too well.

This morning before we left Ganges, we took advantage of the very nice free Wi-Fi for a couple hours of work this morning, and then headed up into town for breakfast (and to grab those smoked bacon chips already, sheesh!) We were heading out of the harbor just as this Salt Spring Air flight was taking off ahead of us:

The sun came out today for our cruise down to Cabbage and Tumbo Islands and it made for such a nice cruise:

Passing the Java Islets, there were a handful of adolescent eagles (along with one adult that we could see) hanging out:

Nice rock formations on Saturna Island:

Cool contemporary home on Saturna:

This was as we were coming around the south point of Saturna Island…and Boiling Reef. During flood tides and rougher waters this point can be pretty treacherous, but today it was totally calm and we noticed only the slightest of eddies as we were taking photos of the sea lions and eagles on the reef.

Sea lions on the rocks:

More eagles:

Eagles and sea lions, hanging together (look at that face!):

We snaked our way into Reef Harbor (flanked by long reefs) with no problem and grabbed a mooring buoy.

There was one other boat anchored in the cove, but they were just day users and left before sunset. Here's a wide shot of the cove on the right (boats on the right) looking out into the Strait of Georgia. This is how calm it was all day today.

A heron, fishing in the cove:

Cabbage Island:

We put the crab trap out and then took the dinghy ashore to explore.

It was low tide, so there was plenty to look at on the shore (including tons of oysters, but we didn't feel like shucking again today, so we pinned our dinner hopes on catching some crab).

Purple starfish. They look so happy and chill. "Oh heeaay eyyyy. We're starfish! How ya doin?"

Another eagle in a tree. Yawn. (I know when we get to Alaska we'll probably be saying this for real, but for now, it's still cool, and it's fun to test out my new lens as well.) This was SUPER zoomed in.

We took the dinghy out to the rock with all the seals and said hi:

After our dinghy ride, we headed back to Airship and pulled up the crab trap. Hm. An oyster shell. How'd that happen? Alright…crab trap went back in the water and it was time (and weather) for a top deck cocktail and some charcuterie. We tried the Salt Spring cheese (two of the three we picked up) and both were yum (with a Perfect Manhattan and some salami and chorizo):

I could see the crab trap on the bottom from the top deck (25 feet down and clear water, that's fun!), and one of the times I looked down at it, I was pretty sure I could see claws yammin' at the bait container, so we pulled it up, and what d'ya know? A keeper! (Bait today was a chicken leg and more Canadian bacon, since that worked well the first time.)

Back up to the happy hour deck with one Dungeness crab in the bucket! The view from here is hideous, isn't it?

We pulled the trap up once more before sunset and had two crabs…too small, one male one female. The female's underside female part looked JUST like Jesus from South Park, don't you think?

We watched the seals playing and eating over by the shore and I really wished they would just come over and play ball with me already. They're so dog-like….their big eyes and splashy, um, fins. Okay whatever.

More pretty pictures of Reef Cove at Cabbage Island:

We cooked our crab in our new big pot and served it with some garlic butter, a kale/lemon/parmesan salad, and a bottle of wine from our friends at Gourmet au Bay. Delicious.

I'd say this is a successful last night in the Gulf Islands for our first trip up here. Tomorrow we're headed back to Anacortes. (We'll let you know how the whole "clearing Customs at our slip" goes.)

Here's our track from today (25.8 nautical miles):

That little 90ish degree turn up there is us changing our minds about going through Active Pass at max ebb tide. The current would have been 3.7 kts against us right at the time we were heading through…so even though we could have done it fine (we were following a 46' catamaran), it would have slowed us down quite a bit and we opted for the longer way….because, hey, more time on the water!