Many Thanks- A Quick Message

Hello everyone,

This post is a quick break from the story for us to acknowledge everyone who has stopped by our website to check in on our journey so far.

We wanted to acknowledge you and give thanks for watching our story. Just this week, cruisingmaya.com celebrated its 10,000th view and we reached 300 YouTube subscribers. These numbers probably seem small in the grand scheme of things, but to us, it's a milestone. 

The way I see it, time is so precious and all too often in short supply, which is why we are so grateful for you spending some of your time with us. It motivates us very much knowing you are following along with our journey. 

It's funny to look back before we even had a boat: planning a year-long excursion through the Panama Canal to Florida. Fast forward to present day, 2 years living aboard and we've only gone North so far! Didn't see that coming! 

I wish we had a crystal ball to see 2 years in the future, because it honestly could be anything. That's a daunting proposition which are taking in full stride. 

In short, we just wanted to say thank you for stopping by and being interested. We are grateful and look forward to continuing to share our crooked path. The next blog post will pick up where we left off before, just arriving in Vancouver's Island Barkley Sound. 

Much love,

mac, jenny, & disco

The Central West Coast of Vancouver Island

Hello and welcome back to our blog series documenting our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, aboard our 37' sailboat Maya.

Our travels in this post are indicated in Purple

Distance Traveled in this post: 275.3 nautical miles

Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 1,023 nautical miles

Time duration this blog post covers: 16 days

Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 65.1 hours

Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 100.4 gallons

In the last post we finally landed our first salmon and overcame the trip's biggest hurdles: Cape Scott and Brooks Peninsula.

Picking up where we left off, we were in Dixie Cove, waiting out some nasty weather. Once the system had passed, we ventured out to the open coast and headed south towards the next safe anchorage, which was provided by Nootka Island.

Nootka Island is a large land mass that sits just off of Vancouver Island- giving us a chance to make miles southward, while in the protection of Nooka Island.  Inside these sheltered waters of Nootka Island sits two settlements: Zeballos and Tahasis.

We motored up the Zeballos to find a terrible anchorage and extremely small village. There was only a sliver of a spot to anchor, which was very close to shore, forcing us to anchor in much more shallow waters than we would have liked. We had about 2 feet of water under our keel. In spite of bad anchorage, we dropped the hook, and rowed to shore.

Zeballos is mainly a port for commercial fishing boats, along with a few houses. We walked around "town" for a bit and happened to meet two 20-something-year-old fishermen. We had a good time meeting them and hearing some of their crazy fishing stories, but we opted to leave Zeballos because of the poor anchorage- a big gust of wind in the wrong direction would have the boat grounded.... and that is something we want to avoid!

Anchored in Zeballos

Shallow anchorage at Zeballos- rowing to shore

Fishing fleet at Zeballos

Leaving Zeballos, we motored out the channel to Saltery Bay, 9 miles in the direction of the next town.

Upon arriving, we discovered our anchor options were limited. The bay was narrow, with only a small shelf to anchor on. What's worse is the shelf drops off to super deep water. These conditions called for us to use a "stern tie" which is where we run a line from the back of our boat to shore, in order to eliminate the boat swinging  around in the wind.

Without the stern tie, a big gust of a wind in the wrong direction could put us on shore. The rope to shore essentially keeps the boat in one spot. It's interesting that a satellite view of the bay shows the anchor puzzle. You can see the shelf stick out and drop off deep.

Satelitte View of our stern tie, Link to google map below:

 Saltery Bay GPS Location Satellite View

All went well and we retired for the evening. The next morning when it was time to leave, we started the engine like normal, however almost immediately there was a loud bang and the engine halted to a stop.... oh no!

After surveying the situation, it appears the transmission was left in reverse upon shutting it down the night before, and when we started the engine, the boat started to creep back.... right onto the rope tied off of Maya's stern.

Sure enough, the stern tie line was wrapped around the propeller!

I quickly donned a wetsuit and got to unwrapping the mess underwater. Thankfully the engine stalled before it got really messy, and after a few minutes the prop was free of the line. Lesson learned: make sure the transmission is not in gear before turning the engine on! We let our guard down and were immediately reminded.

After a slight hitch, we got underway to our next destination: Tahsis.

What we found in Tahsis was a fisherman's paradise. We pulled into the town's only marina to discover Maya was the lone sailboat! Fishing boats galore.

Upon docking, we enjoyed our first taste of civilization since Port McNeill over two weeks prior.

Maya, the lone sailboat in the marina.

We got beers and watched all the salmon fisherman come in to clean their fish. Tahsis was a good stop, we even got a road run in while we explored town... Disco was quite happy about that! We also got to take a hot shower which was glorious, as well as filled up the boat's water tanks.

We left Tahsis and headed for Friendly Cove, where Nookta Sound meets the Pacific. This cove has a lot of historical relevance as this was the site that Captain Vancouver and Spanish Explorers met and discussed how to divide up this new found territory. Also, this cove was the settlement of one of the coast's biggest Native population, dating back many generations.

Today, the cove has a lighthouse station and the keepers gave us a tour. The island also had a network of trails that we enjoyed exploring.

Lighthouse

Just outside the cove, we noticed tons of sport fishing boats trolling for fish.... naturally, we followed suit and brought in a nice big Lingcod. Delicious white meat for days!

Headed to Friendly Cove from Tahsis via Princesa Channel

Spinnaker out- headed to Friendly Cove

Path at Friendly Cove

Endless Pacific Ocean- On Nootka Island

Nice Lingcod!

At this point, we were looking at rounding another peninsula to the south, so we had to wait for good weather in order to make that trip. Unfortunately, another strong weather system had moved in, so we headed further inland to Bligh Island and spent several days waiting out the stormy conditions.

After several wet and windy days, we received a promising break in the weather and made a dash south for it. While the forecast was correct, sunny and almost no wind, we had some nasty sea conditions and I suffered the trip's first episode of seasickness. Woof. That sucked.

Being seasick is miserable!

At any rate, we made it around Hesquiat Peninsula and landed at Hot Springs Cove, which is famous for its natural hot springs. It's so famous that people flock to it- by sea taxi and seaplane. Luckily all the tourists leave around 5PM, so we got to enjoy the hot springs when it was pretty empty... aside from the naked Australians.... hence no pictures.

The path to the Hot Springs.... it was a mile long boardwalk!

After a calm night at anchor in Hot Springs Cove, yet another large weather system moved in. We thought about moving the boat further inland for better protection, but we ultimately stayed, and thus reaped the fury of what would be trip's biggest storm.

It absolutely poured! The wind whipped!.... and soon the swell from the ocean found us. We even had to reset our anchor once during that storm. Additionally, the wind from the storm pushed all the smoke from our fireplace into the cabin, causing us to be smoked out. It was a mess! Another lesson learned.

The next morning the storm subsided and we hoisted the anchor, and made our way to the interior of Flores Island- much like Nootka, Flores Island offered us a way to make miles southward without having to travel along the exposed coast.

In the sheltered waters of Flores Island (Young Bay)

Clear weather following a nasty storm (Young Bay)

The next few days were spent hopping from anchorage to anchorage, ultimately arriving in Tofino, where we refueled and filled our water tanks. Sadly, we could not stay in Tofino, as the anchorages are poor and the town is not set up for sailboat cruisers so we pushed onward to our next major destination: Barkley Sound.

This is a good place to stop for now- thanks for sticking with the story up to this point.

Be sure to check back in for the next blog post, because that's when we really flex our fishing muscles and land the biggest fish of our lives.

Thanks again for stopping by- really appreciate it.

Trials and Tribulations of Salmon Fishing

Hello and welcome back to another chapter of our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island aboard our 37' sailboat Maya!

Maps of our travels. 

Zoomed in map.

Distance Traveled in this post: 43.1 nautical miles

Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 790.2  nautical miles

Time duration this blog post covers: 4 days

Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 10 hours

Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 79.4 gallons

Brief memories from this blog post

In the last post, we had just overcome two of the West Coast's biggest hurdles: Cape Scott and Brooks Peninsula.

After rounding Brooks Peninsula we were feeling confident- we could now ease off the gas pedal and slow down a bit, allowing for shorter travel days and more time for exploring and relaxing.

Columbia Cove is the first real refuge after Brooks so we were not surprised to find it full of sailboats when we arrived! And by full, I mean there were about 5 boats (which is busy for the West Side!).

Maya at anchor in Columbia Cove

We dropped anchor and decided to check out the beach on the other side of a small peninsula. It was low tide, so we had to hike a ways through a shallow bay and then through the woods, but it was totally worth the trek! We found a stunning, white sand beach, and an endless Pacific Ocean.

We made it around Brooks!

Thousands of miles of ocean behind us

We explored the beach, flew the drone, and enjoyed the sunset over an endless Pacific Ocean. It kinda felt surreal hanging out on the beach- knowing just a year prior we had hardly any boating experience, and now we were in this very wild place.

We got a late start the next day (so thankful to sleep past 4am), and decided to head to the Bunsby Island, which are renowned for Sea Otters!
Interesting story: Sea Otters were almost hunted to extinction, but in the 1970's a pack of sea otters were reintroduced to the Bunsby Islands, where they have continued to flourish since then. This means there were sea otters everywhere! Unfortunately, we never got a good photo of one.... must be time to upgrade our camera gear ;-)

With the Bunsybys as our destination, we left the anchorage and  decided to try our luck trolling for salmon.... not 15 minutes later we had one on the line! We were shocked! We quickly reeled it in, only to lose it bringing it into the fishing net. We were devastated! We were so close to bringing in our very first salmon, only to lose it at the finish line.

After losing that one, we immediately threw the lure in the water....only to get it snagged on kelp a few minutes later. It all happened in a split second, but I made a mistake by releasing the lock on the fishing pole, allowing line to go out in order to save the lure. As soon as the lever was thrown an explosion of fishing line blew up in the reel. It was a disaster. The fishing line completely bunged up in the reel! Bah!

We managed to stop the boat and retrieve the lure. Our fishing was done until we could fix the line. We motored to our anchorage in the Bunsbys feeling rather defeated.

Several of our mistakes were compounded at that point- I garbagled up the fishing line. What was made worse was it was our only fishing line. Doh! Huge mistake not having another line to spool on the rod.... now we had to unravel the world's biggest line tangle.

I won't bore you with the details, but we spent approx 4 hours untangling that mess. 

In the end, we managed to unravel approx 400' of absolute madness and respooled our rod. Very important lesson learned!

After a peaceful night in the Bunsyby's we awoke with renewed vigor to land a salmon.

Anchored in Scow Bay of the Bunsby Islands

A large weather system was moving in so we decided to move to anchorage that provided better protection from the wind. While enroute to Dixie Cove, we happened across approximately 20 small sport fishing boats trolling in a small channel. THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.
We dropped our lure in the water and fell in with the trolling sport fishing boats. Not 10 minutes later the pole bent in such a way that I was sure our lure caught a rock on the bottom. Just as I was telling Jenny to stop the boat there was a flash of silver and a huge splash.... IT WAS A SALMON! The fight was on and we quickly brought in our first salmon- a 25lb king salmon!

Our first salmon!

What a catch!

What a rush that was! Not only did that fish provide fresh, incredible meat for days, but a memory that we will never forget. That was one of the most exciting things to happen on our trip to this point and a memory we will cherish forever.

We're gonna stop the post here for now. Check back soon for the next installment (spoiler alert: big storms and more fish!).

Also, my apologies that these posts are being published so slowly. Between working full time, the holidays, and this dreary dark time of year, it's hard to find time to produce these posts to the quality that we wish to maintain.
I am hopeful that by the end of the January the remainder of our circumnavigation blog posts will be up and we will start detailing what we have been up to more recently and what we have on the horizon.

As always, we so appreciate your viewership. Time is truly the most important commodity, and it is often in short supply. We know you can spend your time doing a million different other things, but the fact you choose to come here and read these posts is something we are very thankful for and appreciate. In short, THANK YOU (and Happy Holidays!).

-mac, jenny, & disco

Our First Taste of Vancouver Island's WILD Side

Hello and welcome back to our blog series detailing our 2 month sailboat trip, circumnavigating Vancouver Island! Here are some stats for this portion of our adventure.

Our path is the red line on the map.

Distance Traveled in this post: 176.7 nautical miles

Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 747.7 nautical miles

Time duration this blog post covers: 5 days

Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 25.8 hours

Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 75.9 gallons

In the last post spent a few days in Port McNeil preparing for our journey around Vancouver Island's Northern Cape. We reprovisioned, fueled up, filled up on water, and did laundry. After all of that we motored to Bull Harbour, which is a popular staging point for boats who are about to round Cape Scott, which is Vancouver Island's Northern tip.

We arrived in Bull Harbour after a marathon day of motoring from Port McNeil. If you recall, enroute to Bull Harbour we were dumbfounded to find that our chartplotter did not have any map data for the west side of Vancouver Island! That did not help our nerves for rounding Cape Scott, which is known for its rough weather and sea conditions.

The latest weather data showed a large low pressure (read: bad weather) system moving in, bringing heavy rain and wind for the next 4 days. By our calculations, we thought we could sneak past the cape and scoot into an anchorage before the storm hit. 

Not wanting to spend the next four days stuck at a floating dock in Bull Harbour, we decided to chance it and attempt to round Cape Scott before the storm rolled in.

Leaving Bull Harbour at first light

Sunrise

At 4AM we shoved off in our bid to round the cape! Our first hurdle was the Nawahitti Bar, which sits almost immediately outside of Bull Harbour. The Nawahitti Bar and Tatnall Reef is an area that goes from deep water to very shallow, causing funky currents, standing waves, and confused seas... not to mention IT'S REALLY SHALLOW!

We carefully navigated the seaweed choked channel, which has depths as shallow as 16 feet. Thankfully it was a very calm morning allowing us to maneuver Maya through deeper channels.

Navigating the Tatnall Reef

The Nahwahitti Bar only lasted several miles, and after approx 90 minutes we had successfully navigated our way through the maze. With a sigh of relief, we continued on towards Cape Scott, motoring along at 5 knots. 

After several hours we made it to the Northern tip of Vancouver Island.... Great Scott, Cape Scott! We had made it! To properly capture the moment we flew the drone and watched humpback whales- what a great moment that was. The winds were calm and sea generally settled. We had heard horror stories of Cape Scott and it looked like we slipped by without any issue.... or so we thought.

Cape Scott!

It was roughly an hour after we rounded Cape Scott that the wind started to pick up. Our original plan was to anchor in Sea Otter Cove, just south of Cape Scott.

However, based on the information we had been given, the anchorage was unprotected, which would have made for several rough days at anchor while the storm passed over us.

In light of this fact, we decided to continue past Sea Otter Cove, to Winter Harbour, an additional 6 hours south. As we past Sea Otter Cove, the storm front moved in and the winds began to pick up and before we knew it, we had winds of 30+ knots.

We took out a reefed jib sail, which helped stabilize the boat as she drove through the waves and after several hours of very uncomfortable sailing we turned and rounded the corner into Winter Harbour and dropped anchor. Our first taste of Vancouver Island's West side and the big blue Pacific was in a summer gale.

Excerpts from Cape Scott

Anchored in Winter Harbour

We spent the next two days at anchor recouping from our long passage from Bull Harbour. I can't tell you how comforting it is to complete trust in our anchor setup- that night the wind raged with big gusts while we slept comfortably at anchor.

After we a few days, the storm was still in full effect, we decided to move the boat up to another anchorage further up an inlet, which still offered protection from the open Pacific Ocean and its waves. We enjoyed several nights of peace and solitude in Jullian Cove- flying the drone as the last of the major storm front passed. I love this photo below as you really get sense of the environment we got to experience.

The last of the storm leaves

Now that the storm front had passed we could focus on our next challenge: Brooks Peninsula, which is a huge, rectangular land mass that sticks 10 miles out from Vancouver Island. Due to the shallow waters and currents surrounding the peninsula, Brooks has gained a reputation for rough sea conditions.

With a fair weather forecast we set out from our anchorage at 4AM and plotted our way around Brooks Peninsula, rounding Solander Island which sits just outside Brooks Peninsula. The weather held and sea conditions were favorable, making our trip an easy one, (just a longer one at 7 hours).

Excerpts from Rounding Brooks Peninsula and Columbia Cove

Solander Island

Once around Brooks Peninsula, we anchored in the first available place that offered refuge from the Pacific Swell.... Columbia Cove.

What was cool about Columbia Cove is the incredible, white sand beach it offered! We hiked over and enjoyed watching the sunset, knowing we had overcome two of the West Coast's biggest challenges: Brooks and Cape Scott.

The beach at Columbia Cove

The big Pacific behind us!

Ok, this post is starting to get lengthy so I will cut it about there. Be sure to stop by as the next blog post has fishing for salmon... and dodging more summer gales.

Thanks for stopping by and see you next time! Cheers!

Regrouping After 4 weeks of Cruising

Hello and welcome back to another installment of our adventure circumnavigating Vancouver Island on our 37’ sailboat!

Sorry for the delay in this post! Once we got back to the dock, life and responsibilities came crashing down on us! It turns out there’s a lot of things you need to do when you’ve been away for two months.

***Quick real time life update as of this posting****
We are back in Anacortes- I (Mac) am working full time at Northwest Yachts, building a 57’ luxury trawler, and Jenny is working part time as a Pharmacist, and looking for a more full time position in the Anacortes area. We are still working on our youtube videos, but we are bit behind schedule on those…. We will have a video that covers this section of our trip up on youtube sometime in the future…. www.youtube.com/c/cruisingmaya

Ok back to the story!

Our travel during this blogpost is the purple line on the map.

Distance Traveled in this post: 83.9 nautical miles

Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 571 nautical miles

Time duration this blog post covers: 3 days

Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 14.7 hours

Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 59.9 gallons

We left off in the last post just as we were going to Port McNeill, after spending 10 days in the Broughtons. 

Port McNeill sits on the North East side of Vancouver Island, and its main industry is logging, fishing, and tourism. The town is small (pop 2000), but centrally located around the water, which makes it great stop for cruising boats, as everything is a short walk from the marina. Port McNeill was the last chance to reprovision the boat before spending the next month in the wilderness.

Upon arriving in Port McNeill, we opted for a dock spot, which gave us easy access to the town’s amenities. A much needed visit to the laundromat was in order…  it had been a month since the last laundy load!

Hello Port McNeill

 In addition to clean clothes, we got a few items from the grocery store, refueled, filled our water tanks, and used the precious internet one last time before shoving off towards our next anchorage, 50 miles North, via a channel that experiences strong tidal movement.

Due to the long passage and tides of the day we were forced to leave Port McNeill at 4AM. While 4AM is quite early to be shoving off from the dock, it does have its merits… mostly due to being able to see the sunrise! We got to witness a stunning sunrise from the water as we continued moving north towards Bull Harbour.

Sunrise enroute to Bull Harbour

Boat nap underway

During our travel day to Bull Harbour, we discovered that the boat’s chartplotter did not have any of the maps for the West Coast! Oh shit! I can’t believe we didn’t check that before leaving! (Quick note for non boaters: you have to purchase different map data for you chartplotter- the previous owner purchased maps for in the inside passage and Washington, but that data did not include the West Coast of Vancouver Island.) It was an interesting feeling seeing our little boat icon driving off the charted map…. Such a stupid mistake. We quickly took stock of our situation- we had one phone aboard with a chartplotting app that we could use for navigation, however if something happened to that phone (like if it went for a swim) we would be left without any sort of electronic navigation, which would be a huge problem for us.

We had a second phone with the chartplotting app, however we had not downloaded the maps for the west side…. Doh! Seriously, how could we have made such a stupid mistake?! The next opportunity for downloading maps over cellular was probably weeks away, which was too much to risk- everything was riding on that single phone with the maps.

After weighing options, we decided to turn around, motor a few hours backwards to where we last had cell service, download the maps onto the second phone, and then continue back North to our intended anchorage. It was brutal backtracking that distance, but we managed to find a sliver of 4G service, which allowed us to download map data on the second phone, giving us the peace of mind of having a backup should anything happen to one of the phones. And what did we learn? Check your frickin’ chartplotter to make sure you have map data!

Ok, so with the chartplotting fiasco behind us, we continued on to Bull Harbour, which is a popular stop for boats waiting for a weather window to round Cape Scott (Vancouver Island’s Northern tip). I should mention at this point that when we were in Port McNeill we got an updated weather forecast which called for a large low pressure system moving in from the North. That weather system gave us two option: stay in Bull Harbour (which was nothing more than a floating dock) for several days, or sneak around Cape Scott just before it hit.

Weighing our options, we decided to try to attempt to round Cape Scott before that system hit.

Hate to do this, but we are gonna leave you hanging…. Join us next time to see if we were able to round the cape before that major weather blows in.

And I realize this post is a little lacking in action…. Don’t worry! Our time on the West Coast of Vancouver Island was epic! Like epic weather, epic fishing, seasickness, wildlife, and much more. Stay tuned for another blogpost in the near distant future.
Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you soon!

Sunrise leaving Bull Harbour to round Cape Scott

See you soon!

I apologize that this is a little out of order - here is the link to our latest video through the stunning Princess Louisa Inlet. We used our 30 hp Beta Marine diesel engine A LOT during our 2 month trip. This requires constant vigilance to make sure that it is running properly. In our video we highlight the 5 engine checks we do EVERYDAY before we start the engine. Please let us know if you have other engine checks that you think we should add to our list! Next video of Seymour Narrows and Campbell River coming very soon! 

Living off the Sea in the Broughtons! Lots of pics!

Hello and welcome back! We continue our journey around Vancouver Island on our 37’ sailboat. Let’s jump right back into it! 

Our travel in during our time in the Broughtons

Distance Traveled in this post: 143.5 nautical miles

Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 487.4 nautical miles

Time duration this blog post covers: 10 days
Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 34.65 hours

Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 51.5 gallons

In the last post, we had just finished travelling up Johnstone Strait, using the ebb tide to our favor, breaking our single day mileage record on Maya. That record travel day delivered us to the doorstep of Broughtons, a large group of islands and channels on the north side of Canada’s Inside Passage.

Fun fact: The Broughtons are named for William Broughton, who was Captain Vancouver’s right hand man during his exploratory missions to the area in the 1700’s. Captain Vancouver was the first to map the coastline of British Columbia, and Broughton was second in command during that mission.

A drone view of Maya in Simoom Sound

The Broughtons are amazing!

On our boat trip last year, we had spent about a week exploring the Broughtons, and had vowed to return! And here we were- back again! Upon arriving in the Broughtons, we immediately brought the boat to Freshwater Bay in Blackfish Sound, which was our favorite anchorage from last year’s boat trip. When we were in Freshwater Bay, the September, before we witnessed a wildlife extravaganza with whales, sea lions, dolphins, and good fishing. This year was no exception: we saw whales, dolphins, and had good luck fishing with the added bonus of having the whole anchorage to ourselves!

Timelapse of the boat at anchor in Freshwater Bay

Panorama of Freshwater Bay at Low Tide

We spent two nights in Freshwater Bay, enjoying the sight of humpback whales in the distance. Their blowholes reminding us of their presence even after the sun went down. After a nice stay we forced ourselves to hoist the anchor and continue on- we had returned to the Broughtons to explore… not stay put! So on we went!

For roughly the next 10 days we stayed at new anchorage every night. Because the Broughtons are densely packed with channels, islands, and coves that meant our travel days were short- most days has us traveling under 10 miles… a welcome break from previous week's 30-40 mile days.

Since we were able to spend less time traveling from anchorage to anchorage, we were able to spend more time fishing, which the Broughtons is well known for.

Jenny with a nice catch that turned into dinner

A nice cabazon that was also turned into dinner

I thought it might be interesting to go over our fishing setup and how we go about fishing day to day. To start, we carry two crab traps, a prawn trap, and two fishing poles (a 9’ trolling rod, and 7’ jigging rod). A typical day fishing on Maya would start by us looking for a spot to throw out the prawn trap. To find just the right spot we use Navionics, which is smartphone based chartplotter type application. We look for areas of 200-300’ depth, which is where prawn typically live at and once a place has been selected, we drive Maya to the drop site, and toss the prawn trap overboard. Our trap has 250’ of floating line, attached to 100’ of leaded line, which is attached to our floating marker buoy that sits on the surface of the water. We use commercially bought prawn bait which is essentially ground up fish in pellet form- $10 of bait typically lasts us at least 5 soaks.

Once the prawn trap is in the water we continue on to our anchorage (which is generally within a mile or so of where we threw the prawn trap overboard), stopping along the way to fish with our rods from Maya if we found an area that like. We usually look for areas that have a lot depth contours…. Pinnacles or areas that go from deep to shallow in a short amount of distance have worked well for us.

Depth difference between crab and prawn traps

Eventually we would stop fishing and head to our anchorage where we would usually continue to fish, either off of Maya or in our dinghy. Once we landed a good sized fish we would fillet it and then put the carcass in bait bag, then attach that inside a crab trap. Crab eat anything and everything that’s on the ocean floor and they happen to love fish guts. For our crab pots, we look for depths under 50’. And with those pots thrown overboard and soaking, we kick back and relax for the evening!

In the morning, as we are leaving the anchorage, we pull our crab traps, typically from Maya. With the crab pots up, we move Maya over to the prawn trap. Then the real work begins. While crab pots are easy to pull up by hand, the prawn trap is another story. We do not have a fancy electric pot puller, which forces us to pull our traps by hand. And those prawn live in DEEP water.

This year has seen a marginal improvement of our manual pot pulling with the addition of a pulley, allowing us to pull down and lift the pot towards the surface, saving our backs from the rigors of pulling straight up from the ocean floor.

While all of this manual pulling is a lot of work, it has been worth it for the amount of prawn we have hauled in. While in the Broughtons, we pulled in hundreds of Spotted Prawn- over 300 prawn in one pot pull while in Simoom Sound! That amount fed us for several days! For scale, after cleaning, each prawn was about the size of a quarter. And, when you add in the 6 or 7 crab we caught while in the Broughtons, we ate like royalty. Nothing beats fresh seafood, and this was as fresh as it gets! Absolutely delicious.

A very successful prawn pull in Simoom Sound!

Cleaning prawn

Tasty victory!

Pot full of Prawn about to be cooked

Dinner from the sea! We even used "sea beans" harvested from the shore

Fresh Dungeness Crab! Cleaned and ready to be cooked

So fishing, eating, and relaxing sums up our time in Broughtons. There was not much exploring on shore to be done, as there were bears (which we saw on shore!), and no trails to speak of. Despite the lack of onshore exploring, we did spend one night at Sullivan Bay Marina, which is like a little floating city block- each pier of the dock had a street name and floating homes lined the length of the marina.

At all the marinas in the Broughtons there’s a tradition that all boaters moored at the dock convene at the dockside Happy Hour. These events are fun as the people you meet are always interesting and there’s lots to talk about. Sullivan Bay was very unique and quaint, we were glad we got to check it out. For reference, it cost us $45 USD to dock Maya there for the night. We declined tie to shore power (we are loving our new batteries, btw!), which saved us an additional $10 cost. While $45 is on the higher side of nightly moorage cost, it was worth the price to have the experience at Sullivan Bay. For additional reference, our nightly moorage at New Castle Island Park in Nanaimo was $15.

Disco at Sullivan Bay Marina

We saw wild frickin' bears in the Broughtons!

At the end of about 10 days touring the Broughtons, with our fuel tanks just about empty, we pointed the boat towards the area’s biggest town, Port McNeill (pop. 2000). This would be our last chance to refuel and reprovision before we made our bid at rounding Vancouver Island’s Northern Cape and entering the rugged wilderness of the West Side.

That’s gonna do it for this blog post. As always, thank you so much for stopping by and following our adventure. Stay tuned as we ready the boat for our biggest challenge yet: Vancouver Island’s West Coast.

Coming back from a fishing mission

Happy hour- Queen Charlotte Strait off in the distance 

Home for the night- lovely anchorage

Disco!

Morning view on a calm day in the Broughtons