July 4th and 5th

After spending a great weekend with Erin and the Striper Convention in Ganges we pulled the plug, and headed through Active Pass with Tumbo Island as our final destination. Last year I spent the night there solo and really wanted erin to enjoy it as well. On the way down we ran out into the western straights of Georgia down to Tumbo. As we pulled into the bouy area several boats untied and headed out. Knowing I just had a shower that couldn't be their reason for pulling out. So I switched the VHF radio to the weather only to hear that a strong NW wind was going to blow all night long. Not really wanting to take swells all night long we untied and ran around the lower end of Saturna Island and found a great cove called Narvaez Bay.

Dropped the hook, unloaded the dingy to set some crab traps for the romantic dinner with my sweety. It turns out this area is closed to fishing to protect the rockfish stocks but crabs were open.

Not having much luck we load the motor on the dingy and run 2 pots over to the far side of the bay where some canucks were having some luck and ran back to the boat for or'dervs, wine and a game of crib.

Really wanting to have fresh crab for our last dinner I jump in the dingy and race over to pull the crab pots. One keeper and one REAL CLOSE. Dinner is on I reset the pots and run back to the mother ship. Put both of them in the pot they will die in and get in the boat, pour some more wine. Just after the dingy wake had settled down and I mean JUST, over the trees flys a RCMP chopper followed by a RCMP pattrol boat flying at top speed with their lights a blazzing. Being the Kool Cat that I am: I freak out and dump the fresh crab over the side when the chopper was on our blind side. Then the chopper starts to do small circles above us at 500 feet, until the patrol boat pulls up along side us. The following is what was said as I couldn't make this up.

patrol boat: "evening"
me: "hello"

Patrol boat: " you having any problems with the people on shore?"
me: "ummmm, No!"

Patrol boat: "it is fire season and we patrol to make sure everything is undercontrol"
me: "ooook"

Patrol boat: "where you from"
me: "US" [flying the stars and bars might have gave that away]

Patrol boat: "You sure everything is fine"
me: "yep"

Patrol boat: "ok you have a great weekend"


boating with my sweety: 500 dollars
on anchor in a romantic bay: 500 dollars
fresh crab for dinner: 500 dollars

Liberated RCMP crab: Priceless


Today we got up to some wind thinking it might be rough pulled out early and headed to Roach Harbor for customs and to drop Erin off at the taxi stand. Now the solo part of my trip starts.


Heading North.....

to be continued