Fury Cove – Riveted

Codville Lagoon to Fury Cove (and Humpbacks!) | BC

Laura Domela — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 19:24:45 +0000

Today’s plan was to meet up with our friends on Dawnbreaker down at the Koeye River inlet. The Koeye River is a very good place to watch grizzlies, and the anchorage there is decent for a temporary stop in relatively calm conditions. It was beautiful in Codville Lagoon this morning, but the further south we went, the more fog we encountered.

Entering the bay at the Koeye River Inlet:

Dawnbreaker was already anchored and their dinghy was gone, so we assumed they were already up river. We launched our dinghy and headed out to meet them (and hopefully spot some brown bears!)

Long house on shore:

Airship, anchored:

Our Torqeedo had other plans for us, however. It quit abruptly as we were headed into the river and gave us an error message. E23. Kevin messed with it for a few minutes as we were pushed around by the waves coming in from Fitz Hugh Sound. I turned us around and started rowing back toward Airship while he worked to see if he could recalibrate and clear the error, but to no avail. We got back to Airship and brought the electronic tiller part in and did some troubleshooting and determined that somehow, water had gotten in where it shouldn’t be. We messed with it for about an hour, and decided to bag it on the river trip. Being stuck up river with grizzlies and only oars didn’t sound awesome and it was 2pm already. Our plan was to get to Fury Cove so we could do our Cape Caution crossing tomorrow…and we still had about 3 hours to go. We tried radioing our friends to let them know the deal, but didn’t get ahold of them. (We figured we’d just get them on the radio once they were back.)

Back out in Fitz Hugh Sound the fog cleared a bit and once we were past Hakai Pass the seas calmed to rippled for the rest of our cruise down to Fury Cove. We’d seen the occasional humpback in Fitz Hugh, but mostly too far for much detail. Just outside of Fury Cove as we were about to turn in…humpbacks! Several of them were directly in our path.

We watched them for about 10 minutes and then just as we decided we could get past them easily and go into Fury Cove….they started bubble net feeding. This is the very first bubble feeding we’ve seen all summer, and happens right here in front of our anchorage! I took way too many photos. Hopefully that’s what you want to see right now:

The bubble circle just before the whales come up through it:

This close to Airship:

You never know where they’re going to come up. (Actually, you do if you watch the birds.)

We watched them for over an hour. The light was so great…bubble feeding at golden hour! We watched across the channel as another boat (Bonaventure, heading to Seattle) made its way toward us (with spouts and breaching and tail-slapping humpbacks between us and them…busy whale day today!) They stopped when they got close and we both watched the bubble feeding for a while before heading into the cove to anchor.

We’re the only two boats in here, and it’s just gorgeous.

Oh and…guess what? We can hear whales from our boat!

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty chill, so we’re planning to leave just before sunrise (6:30am or so) for what will likely be a foggy crossing of Cape Caution.

Airship to Alaska | Day 10 | Fury Cove to Shearwater BC

Laura Domela — Tue, 17 May 2016 17:24:13 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Our Cape Caution crossing yesterday was nice and calm and uneventful, just like we like it!

We weren't planning to cut through the Walker Group, but as we passed by that inviting opening, I decided to cut through after all. It's so pretty in there!! Kevin was napping but the change in rpms woke him up so he came up for a few minutes while we meandered through the rocky islets.

Just past the Walker Group a bit, I saw what looked like a bunch of debris in the water. Turns out, it was not debris. It was HUNDREDS OF OTTERS! To the north:

And to the south:

We got to Fury Cove and there were four other boats in there. One we knew, three we didn't.

We put our crab traps out and then stopped to say hi to Kim and Ken (on their cool big catamaran called an AfriCat). The plan for later (with Gill and Ray on the sailboat next door) was to meet on the beach at 4:30 for happy hour. By the time 4:30 came around the sun had come out and the wind had died down and we had a lovely gathering on the beach.

Kevin dropped me off at Airship to start dinner and went to check/gather crab traps (no crab). Next up: a drone flight over the cove for some pictures!

Fury Cove is great because it's nice and protected, but you can see right out into Fitz Hugh Sound to check conditions visually:

We decided to head out early in the morning today to get up to Shearwater (we left just after 6am). The cruise was calm and gray and a bit drizzly, but fine.

We saw a few spouts today at the north end of Fitz Hugh Sound, but then didn't see anything for quite a while. Kevin went down to shower, and then (of course) bam! Two huge tail slaps…big ones, where a whole lot of the whale is out of the water. It was so cool!!! But all I got was this:

Here's yesterday's map, from Port McNeill to Fury Cove (68.3 nautical miles 9 hours 9 minutes):

Here's today's map from Fury Cove to Shearwater (51.7 nautical miles, 6 hours 39 minutes):

And now, we're at Shearwater (with internet!). We did a load of laundry and sat at the pub and worked and had some lunch and a beer while the laundry did its thing. We'll probably go back up for dinner later on. Here's a link to last year's post from Shearwater, when the weather was nice and pictures could be taken…it's too gray and rainy now.

Not sure yet of tomorrow's destination. We'll figure that out tonight!

Day 10 – Fury Cove to Ocean Falls

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 May 2015 18:18:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 10

We never saw the grizzlies at Fury Cove (dangit), and we departed at 7am for another long cruise to Ocean Falls (58 nautical miles). We saw humpback whales in Fitz Hugh Sound three different times (Airship seems to be the whale-spotting boat).

The first time was right off our starboard side, and it was the tail as the whale dove. Kevin was in the shower and no one in the fleet but me saw it, and I didn’t get a photo.

The second time was 20 minutes or so later, two of them on my starboard side again, also heading south. I don’t think anyone else saw these either.

But the third time, we saw a few huge spouts right off our bow (and behind Mark’s boat).

Kevin told the fleet, and we slowed up as I booked it out onto the bow to get a few photos.

I zoomed in just as the whale was preparing to dive, and we got quite a nice tail wave…maybe three times up and down before diving. Here's a whale tail wave flip book:

I may or may not have been one of those people who cheered at the whale tail from the bow of our boat.

Approaching the entrance to Ocean Falls:

We made a quick detour over to the right of the falls to put our crab traps out. There's known good crabbing here at Ocean Falls, and now that it's been a few days since the "all you can eat crab and prawn dinner" at Pierre's Echo Bay, we're ready for some more crab.

This mermaid (created by local resident Herb Carpenter) greets arriving boaters:

Getting settled on the long dock:

Our new spot:

More in the next post about Ocean Falls!

Day 9 – Quadcopter Down!

Kevin Morris — Tue, 26 May 2015 01:44:00 +0000

(Posted by Kevin)

The quadcopter (the one built with my own loving hands in August last year) had a very bad day at Fury Cove.

It was flying along like usual, about a quarter-mile from the boat, probably capturing some beautiful video – when it suddenly plummeted to the ground – flipping over and over – and crashed hard on the rocks below.

The crash site was on the other side of the island, so we had to take the kayak to look for it. We grabbed the tiny DVR that records the video feed from the ground and watched the last few seconds of the video. It showed us approximately where to look for the debris field.

Did we mention that the crash site was in a place where other boaters had sighted a grizzly with two cubs that same day? Well, yeah. That.

We knew he crash site was either in the water or on the rocks right by the water. The tide was coming in rapidly, so we knew we had to find it quickly or it would be covered by the incoming tide (if it wasn’t already). We grabbed bear spray, waterproof boots, life jackets, and set out in the kayak. Once ashore we started making plenty of loud noises. We hiked up and over the rocks and pretty quickly found the carnage – lots of small, broken drone bits scattered among the rocks. The ONLY piece that had landed in a tide pool was the GoPro camera (which can’t be flown in its waterproof case, unfortunately). It was a total loss.

Other boaters told us they had seen an eagle flying right in the same area at the time of the crash. There were many eagles around, so that theory made sense. Examining the wreckage, nothing looked wrong with the copter – motors and connections were as they should have been (except crash damage).

It’s hard to get the parts to re-build – especially while we’re exploring in the boat. We are looking at options to replace it so we can capture more video on this trip. We shall see. There are SO many things we still wanted to capture with aerial video…

Day 9 – Port McNeill to Fury Cove

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 9

We left Port McNeill this morning at 5am (that means the alarm went off at 4am!)

We had a 60 mile day and our first exposure to open ocean as we exited Queen Charlotte Strait and crossed Cape Caution (about a mile offshore). The prediction originally was for 1.4 metre waves with an 11 second period, but during our first hour or so that changed to 1.6 metre waves (5.2 feet) with a period of 6 seconds (then 5). The general “rule” is that you don’t want the period to be smaller than the waves are tall…and this was, um, THAT. It certainly was not as comfortable as an 11 second period would have been, but we didn't think it was too terrible. The boat handled it well, and we were never nervous. We knew we could duck into Port Hardy for the night, or anchor out at the Walker Group if it was too rough.

Mark led us through the Walker Group so he could show us the (beautiful) anchorage there (in case we need it on our return trip).

We rounded Cape Caution and now we’ve had our first open ocean experience in our boat. Not bad, not bad.

Fury Cove — our anchorage for the night:

Our new view:

A couple sailboats were anchored in Fury Cove when we arrived. They’d been here for two days, and told us they’d seen a mama grizzly bear and two cubs on the beach both days, so we’ve been keeping an eye out for them.

Some of us met on the beach at 4pm to do a little exploring. (Don't worry, we made lots of noise and carried bear spray.)

The beach is called Clam Beach and is covered with white clam shell:

There’s a shack built just up some stairs from the beach (which is odd, because I think this is marine park property).

Hey look…an eco roof!

Kevin and I had taken our kayak and paddled over to the beach, so after our wanderings we kayaked around the cove a bit more. Here’s Margaret saddling up her dinghy. I love Margaret! (She said that Mark, even with his back to camera, is still pretending not to know her.)

Airship anchored (Thelonius in the background):

Opposite direction back out into Fitz Hugh Sound:

Fury Cove, kayak, and Xtratufs:

Next stop: Ocean Falls!