Magic in Dodge Cove.
As planned Tom pulled out early, and quietly, before his girls woke up, headed for a day in Wrangle. They wanted to get to town early so that Debbie could visit the museum, and look around town before she flies home late this afternoon. Chris and Tom also have boat chores (laundry etc..) to do as well. It’s been fun having Debbie with the group.
A Blue Jay or Stellar Jay playing in Dodge Cove
Magic's crew stayed at the cove off Butterworth Island, sleeping in, and then just hanging out for the morning. Pulled the crab pots, no keepers, and took another look at the Eagles nest. Babes quiet this morning, and only one parent around, sitting at the tree top. Most of the morning there was another Eagle sitting atop a snag very close to our boat. Once the dinghy was back aboard the Eagle flew off. Hummm, maybe the other parent Eagle is keeping an eye on those pesky photographers. After all, no ‘releases’ had been signed for the photos of their offspring.
Tom named this unnamed inlet ‘Dodge Cove’. He thought it was only fair since earlier in the trip he had named another unnamed one ‘Miners Cove’. This view is looking out of the cove.
We are headed to McHenry Anchorage today, and the Miners will meet back up with us tomorrow somewhere further down at Vixen Harbor.
Whale Show!!!
Yippee another whale show. About 20 miles west of Wrangle. A couple Humpbacks playing on the surface fairly close to us. Stopped engines and got the camera’s out.
Wow, barely got those photos downloaded to the computer and we had Dall’s Porpoise playing at our bow. Yep, more camera action. There were about a dozen of them. Glen ran them trough ‘speed drills’, they stayed with us at from the 5.5 knot knot clear through 12 knots. They never quit, we slowed back down after about a cazillion photos and getting wet from their splashing. Boy they are fast. They stayed right at our bow for almost 2 miles. What a hoot. Tried to get some video, as well as still photos.
Glen changed plans and decided to stop for the night in a cove of the North Burnett Island Bay; across from Cannery Point in Burnett Inlet. There are crab pots in the bay but that did not hamper our anchoring too much. Further in the Inlet are what appear to be two large fishing camps. This island is quite large and the shoreline looks perfect for seeing bear. Okay about as perfect as most of the other places we’ve stopped, most of which proved to be bare of bear.
After a light dinner we went for a dinghy ride up the channel. There is snow on the tops of the hills along the way. We did a bit of fishing and each caught a Coho Salmon; two lovely 8 lbs fish.
What we had thought to be two large fish camps, turned out to be a fish hatchery. There were fish leaping out of the water everywhere you looked, all trying to find the fish ladder. It was great fun to watch them jump and try to photograph the action. A man came down to the dock and so we went over to chat with him. He invited us ashore for a tour. Wow, what a great facility. They raise Coho and Sockeye here. He showed us many large pens of baby Coho which just today they started to introduce to salt water. They will be released later this summer. The fish ladder had only been opened at 4:30 pm today and by 8:00 pm a few hundred fish had already made their way ‘upstream’ into the large holding tanks. They had several buildings, separate areas for baby Coho and Sockeye, an incubation building for the eggs yet to be gathered this summer, a big area for the large returning fish, and a generator building. Down at the docks there were smaller pens for those being introduced to salt water (they mix salt and fresh water together in these) and larger pens for salt water only. The entire operation was very interesting and very clean.
Glen was particularly interested in the generator room and the chemical distributors. The generator was water powered by water coming down the hill from a lake. It went backwards through a pump system which spun the generator and made power for the entire facility. He asked the gentleman where they bought their chemicals (always doing business) although he already had spotted some company names on drums etc… This guy did not know but he went up and got the manager to come down to chat with us. It turns out that they buy from several places, including Western Chemical in Bellingham which is associated with Cascade Columbia, where Glen works. The two dropped names back and forth and did their business contact bit.
They took us down to their docks and asked us if we’d like to catch a fish. Sure! So they handed Glen a rod and to the end of the dock he went. First cast and bam, he had a fish on. Then it was my turn. Not being a fisherman and not really knowing what to expect, I cast the line out. Not far enough and fouled the lure in the process. Try two also did not go out far enough. I handed the rod to Glen and he cast it out for me, right into the boiling fish, and then handed it back. I started slowly reeling and then bam, I had a fish on. He was a fighter, so it was fun to bring him back across and to the dock. The worker was right there with a net to help land my fish, as he had for Glen. If fishing was always this easy, I’d take it up. They offered us more but we declined. With two fish on board and smiles on our faces we said our thank yous and goodbyes, and started on our original intent – exploring up the channel. This place is beautiful and definitely one to come back to another time.
We got back to Magic just as it was starting to get dark (10:30pm). Cleaned and iced our fish.
What a great day! Great water, weather, whales, eagles, porpoise, and salmon too! I could get used to this.
PS - We don't care what Tom says about where we caught the fish, we actually caught them ourselves. He is just jealous. :) But I bet he won't be complaining when he eats it. :)
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