Wednesday, July
16, 2025
We are having power
challenges in that our house batteries (which provide us power when the
generator isn’t running) are at the end of their useful life and aren’t holding
a charge as well as they should. This means that our generators are running way
more often than normal, which isn’t what one wants to hear in a pristine environment. Probably just as well we didn’t anchor near the sailboat yesterday,
he would have HATED us this morning when I fired up the generator at 6:00AM. Normally
a considerate person wouldn’t turn on the generator until 8AM, but we weren’t
near anyone, and we were seriously low. Typically we run them a couple hours in the morning to repower the
batteries, and a couple hours in the evening before dinner or during dinner
prep. By contrast we’ve been having to run it twice a day for 4 hours. Not
great. Anyway, today’s weather report is seas at 2.7 meters and 7 seconds apart
– NO THANKS! That’s a bucking bronco ride and way too long of a journey to
tolerate that. We’ve resigned ourselves that we are just stuck for now.
We moved back down to a
little bay off the straits (just 12nm), poised for leaving in a couple of days
we hope. We’ve anchored back here before, both times we have been the only
boat. The bay is simply identified as “Secure Anchorage” on the charts, no
name. John and I were thinking we should name it but can’t come up with
anything good at the moment - any suggestions? The trip down from Oyster Bay was uneventful, but
the good thing is our house batteries got some charge and we are now 100% - or
so we think. John is of the opinion that the gauge isn’t working correctly, so
we are a little in the dark, no pun intended. Again the day started out socked
in and foggy but the sun made an appearance when we landed around 12:30pm.
After securing our anchorage and having some lunch, John took off to go fishing
again, his passion. I opted for my passion which is kayaking around our bay.
Even though the sun was out, there was a chilly wind creeping into the bay off
the straits, which made for a cooler paddle. Today’s funny story is that I was silently gliding around a little islet and suddenly came upon a seal resting in the
water, floating just below the surface motionless with just his little snout
showing. I stopped paddling and glided gently past him and as I was broadside
about 6’ away it was just like a cartoon….his head rose way up out of the
water, eyes bugged out, and he swiftly retreated below the surface, made me
chuckle! At least we are back among the living – birds, barnacles, mussels,
seals. When John came back from fishing he reported that a humpback was bubble
feeding out where he was fishing so he enjoyed a long whale show. If you’re not
familiar with bubble feeding, google videos for it. The whales swim in a big circle
blowing bubbles beneath the surface to gather the prey in a smaller ball, then
they rise straight up into the air, mouth wide open to feed on the prey. It’s
pretty spectacular to witness especially if you have a group of whales working
together. J caught and released several fish today, none of size worth keeping,
but he doesn’t care….he just loves the process. This afternoon around 2:30 I
set out a piece of frozen steelhead that I had brought from home (Costco) to
thaw for dinner. By then the sun was beating down into the pilot house and it
was toasty warm. I kind of forgot about it until 5:30 and when I retrieved the
package it was quite warm. I wasn’t sure if I was going to serve this or not
given it clearly had been above room temp for a couple of hours, but I cut open
the package to inspect and the fillet just disintegrated in my hands, literally
into bits and pieces, it was already quite decomposed. I had never experienced
that before and wouldn’t have thought it would have fallen apart so quickly!
Anyway, it went overboard and I set out to make scratch pizza instead which turned out
great. Our usual after dinner experience of cribbage and rummy, then early to
bed.
Our Cruise route today
"Secure Anchorage" not to be confused with the neighboring "Exposed Anchorage"
For those familiar with Fury Cove, which is a popular bay when coming off of a Cape Caution crossing heading north, you can also see it on this map just above Fury Island. But as you can see, we are just barely off the straits, tucked away
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