SULLIVAN
BAY TO LAURA BAY
Monday,
July 27th and Tuesday, July 28th
Laura Bay (near Echo
Bay), about 15nm from Sullivan Bay, is one of our favorite stops along the way
through the Broughtons. It is tiny and only fits a few boats so fingers were
crossed that we would get a spot and sure enough, nobody was there - Fantastic!
It requires an anchor and a stern tie – for our non-boating friends, a stern
tie is a line that runs from the back of the boat to something on shore, like a
boulder or tree trunk, and holds the boat in place so it doesn’t swing on the
anchor. We deployed our anchor and John secured the stern tie, then Abells came
alongside and rafted to our boat. Just as we arrived another boat was right on
our tail to get in there so they ended up near us also with a stern tie. The
weather was iffy with showers and squalls sprinkled in between sunbreaks, but
we decided to throw down some crab and prawn pots anyway to see what was there.
The boys then went out fishing to see if there were any salmon around. Around 4 Connie and I set out to pick the prawn pots but when we got out there it was truly deadliest catch weather and unsafe, so we left the prawn traps and went to pull crab traps, which only yielded a couple of crab - including one enormous male
that was soft shell so we had to throw him back. He had to be over 8”!! Mostly
caught a bunch of females. The commercial guys were in the cove too so we
figure they cleared them out. Hunkered
down this evening as the wind picked up and overnight turned into a downright
storm. The next morning we awoke at 6AM to a monsoon, it was raining sideways
and blowing hard with sheets of rain whipping across the bay – I was sure we
were doomed for the day when all of a sudden at 7AM it just stopped cold in its
tracks, nothing! No rain, no wind. It was the weirdest thing! Connie and I went
out to check pots and managed a few prawns and a couple of crab including the
same soft shell giant male which we once again threw back! What a pig eating
all our bait. The boys went fishing again and Connie and I had a glorious 2
hour kayak adventure – her fit bit reported it was 3-1/2 miles of paddling.
Needless to say between that and the pot pulling, our arms were wiped out! The
afternoon crab pot check revealed that same male crab back in the pots, off he
went to the bottom again with his “get out of jail free card”. I wish we’d have
taken a picture of him, it became a bit comical after awhile to continue to
catch the same crab! When we were out kayaking we heard a cat meowing and
discovered a black cat on the tiny islet in our bay – what?? We weren’t sure if
it was owned by the boat next to us or a stranded cat, so I paddled over to the
other boat and asked and they said “oh yeah, we just take him to the island and
dump him off so he can explore”. OK…never heard that one before for a cat, dogs
yes, but cats? Anyway, actually seemed like a pretty good idea unless an Eagle
was in the vicinity. Mid afternoon we decided to go visit Echo Bay Marina and see how it was faring since it was sold to a First Nations corporation. Pierre and Tove used to own the marina and created a huge following with their big pig roast dinners that boaters flocked to from all around. They had a way of making your stay there so festive and fun! We'd heard it has since become run down and not maintained well, and it was accurate. We stopped at the dock because they advertise a small grocery and gift store and all these amenities. We were greeted by a rather grouchy person that had a huge chip on his shoulder making our interactions with him very uncomfortable. We will not be back. From there we motored around the back bay and next bay over, it was a beautiful afternoon for exploring. Back at home base we each made our own dinners and played cards afterwards, which we
always do!
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