MAY 11, 2022 – BOTTLENECK TO LOWE INLET

Well just like when you have to catch an early flight somewhere, I woke up every hour from 3AM on, knowing we had an early start today. My sweet husband brought me a cup of coffee before I could get out of bed this morning, which is so kind. He also braved all the elements (yes, still raining) to cast off Lucky Dog (they raft to us most nights), pull the anchor, bring in all the fenders and lines, and finally casting off the Boston Whaler, which we tow behind. After pulling out into the main channel and on our way, off our starboard bow I see splashing out of the corner of my eye, and then a group of fins slicing their way through the water towards our boat. I shrieked with delight because a small pod of porpoises were racing to greet us. This has happened many times over the years, but NEVER gets old. They playfully dove all around our bow, swimming right next to the boat, just for a few minutes before they disappeared again, but wow did it make my morning! They seem to be such joyful creatures, and the fact that they made a beeline for our boat shows that they made a conscious decision to come play. The channels we are transiting are relatively narrow and again sheer walls on either side of us with very deep water, yesterday some of the water was over 2000 feet deep. The snow level today is down to about 800 feet so we are almost in the snow. Waterfalls are cascading down on either side of us; this is the most scenic part of the trip so far, too bad it’s very overcast and raining. We knew we were leaving early for Alaska this year but didn’t expect it to be this cold! The payoff is relative isolation, we see a boat or two here and there but so far we’ve had most anchorages to ourselves. Today we are heading for Lowe Inlet in the Grenville Channel, as just a week ago Karen Orth (our friend from the yacht club) reported bears on the beach by the waterfalls! We’d all love a bear sighting. Our pilot house/galley area reeks at this moment, as I just finished mixing up a vat of shrimp bait which I will soak for 12-24 hours, then freeze into the previously mentioned cylinders (in my dollar store mugs) for easy entry into the bait box. I took some of the remnants from John’s chinook, the backbone and other scraps, and forced my Cuisinart to chop it all up, which actually made it turn into this disgusting gray paste, but great for coating my shrimp pellets. I then mixed in some salmon roe, some canned crab bait (it’s like cat food), some fish oil and then water to hold it all together when I freeze. It's so clean this way rather than what we used to do which was slop the bait into the traps when we laid them down, which made a big mess in the boat and got all over our hands and raingear. That fishing fish oil is very aromatic and doesn’t wash off easily. We arrived at Lowe Inlet at 1:30 and snugged into the back “Nettle Basin” for the night. The Halley’s boat “Phenix” (MBYC) was already anchored along with another boat we didn’t recognize. In the very corner of the bay next to shore a liveaboard wooden motor sail type vessel was also anchored and clearly had a woodstove for heat, evidenced by the smoke churning from atop. By late afternoon 3 more boats came into the bay, one of whom “Scout” couldn’t get a satisfactory set on his anchor after 3 tries, so he left. We heard him on the radio telling his friends that they were heading for Baker Inlet. A commercial crabber also came in and set a string of 6 traps tethered together along the southwest shoreline, then set his anchor for the night as well. Since it continued to pour heavily, there would be no exploring today, so I attempted to read my book but soon fell fast asleep and took a 2 hour nap! Still raining when I woke up at 6PM so I made us some dinner, we played cribbage, then back to our books and bed.

NOTE TO VESSEL CHEFS: Before I left on this trip I did some research on how to process fresh “hard to find” herbs such as Thai Basil, which I use in my Thai dishes. First I tried drying the herbs and found that the flavor was baked right out of them (maybe I over dried). I also found an article that suggested freezing basil in cubes to add to dishes. Instead I opted to freeze a cup of leaves whole in a baggie. The first time I used the frozen thai basil on this trip I thawed out the bag about an hour ahead of time for chicken rice bowls but found that if the leaves defrost they deteriorate immediately. Tonight I made thai street noodles for dinner (Pad Kee Mao) and instead of thawing the leaves I added the frozen leaves right to the noodle dish. Success! The flavor was just as if they were fresh. Next I will try with the regular basil I also froze, when I make my tomato basil mozz salad someday soon.