Sincerely, Denise

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Well….we SURELY made the right decision crossing the Cape on Thursday because when we got out to the fishing grounds at 6:15AM which is at the mouth of River’s Inlet, and exposed to the open ocean, there were GIANT swells rolling in. I was quite terrified at first riding theses 8-10’ swells in a 16’ boat, but they were gentle swells, not violent. Nonetheless, we both had our lifejackets on of course and paid attention. A humpback was feeding near us, and I did get a picture which as you can see is exactly how I described it earlier – a gray body and small fin against gray water, not too interesting. Eventually I began to get seasick and the giant waves were not subsiding, so we turned around and slowly trolled back the way we came. That was almost worse with the waves coming from behind, as it felt like a ferris wheel but you didn’t see them coming! We ended up back on the inside at another known fishing spot, and other guide boats were there so we knew it was an ok place to fish. We hooked up a small one and let it go, then caught a small rockfish that wiggled its way off, but eventually packed it in as the bite just wasn’t on this morning. Back at the boat, both of us a bit chilled, I whipped up bacon and pancakes for breakfast (it was only 9AM at this point) and poured fresh cups of hot coffee. After a one-hour respite, John announced he was going back out, and also that he was going to go back to the outside in the waves. NO THANKS! I am going to get out my sourdough starter and feed it so I can maybe make some bread tomorrow. That’s exciting enough for me!

While I was napping John went out fishing again as I discovered when I got up. I figured I’d better get dinner prep out of the way just in case he came back with fish to process which takes a bit of time. I had a bag of beautiful large mushrooms I’d been hauling around, they were going to be appetizers back at Lagoon Cove which we ended up skipping, so they needed to be used. (Thanks to my green bags, they were still fresh a week later.) I also had a cup or so of crabmeat so decided crab stuffed mushrooms would go nicely with our steak and salad dinner plan. John indeed came back with 1 more fish for the freezer, so after vacuum sealing and freezing we decided to pour ourselves a glass of wine and go visit the only other boat in our bay before dinner. They had shouted across the water when John returned “how did you do out there?” and “save any fish heads for us for crab bait” – so since we didn’t need any more crab bait for our freezer we decided to give the head to them. We had a nice chat with them and discovered they were all the way from Santa Barbara California and had brought their boat – a 36’ trawler of some sort – up the coast from California over 42 days! They even crossed the bar at the Columbia and went upriver for quite a ways. I was impressed with their mariner skills! They said they don’t have to be back until October and that they have thrown the calendar away, making no plans….just going wherever they want whenever they want, weather permitting of course. Dinner was very good, the stuffed mushrooms being a hit.