Crease Island and Freshwater Bay

Welcome back! In the last blog post we had just finished Johnstone Straight and were continuing through deeper into the Broughtons. The following blog post covers our travels in the maps below. This post is our travel in RED in the zoomed in map, where we stop at Crease Island and Freshwater Bay.

Map of area in lower map

Travel in this blog post is the red line and stars.

Video highlights from Crease Island and Freshwater Bay

Continuing our trek north we weaved our way through more channels to Crease Island, which was also noted for excellent crabbing. Again, Jenny went to work fishing and INSTANTLY had two large fish! Dinner and bait all in one! Woowhooo! We baited the traps and spent the evening relaxing.... we were finally in the Broughtons!

Jenny with dinner!

The next day came, and we're excited to pull the traps.... how many crab will we have?!?! None. We had no crabs! We only caught an alien booger thing and a giant starfish. Dang. That's ok, the previous night's fish was delicious. Anywho, we decided to pull up the hook and make our way to a "secret anchorage" that people had mentioned to us back when we were in the San Juan Islands. I'll let ya in on that secret.... Freshwater Bay on Blackfish Sound.

What the heck is that thing and what did it do to all the crab?

Something cleaned our bait fish

We caught a huge starfish

Maya at anchor at Crease Island

It's not mentioned in any guide books or noted as an anchorage in any maps so we were a little skeptical, but we pulled into the bay and dropped the hook just in time to see the show. And that show was wildlife extravaganza! We saw orcas, humpbacks, seals, and dolphins all at the same time! It was freaking nuts I tell ya! We took the dighny over to the action in time to have 150+ dolphins swim past us during, what we assume was a fish hunt. That was one of the most unreal things we have ever experienced! The pictures don't do it justice... we were so close to them! All the while this was going on, whale blow holes were going off and tails were in the air... birds circling everywhere too! It was amazing! 

Dinghy ride over to all the wildlife spectacle! 

Pacific Whitesided Dolphins

So many dolphins!

It was amazing!

Good morning from Freshwater Bay

Rita in Blackfish Sound

We stayed two nights in Freshwater Bay, watching wildlife from the comfort of our boat. It was simply the best! The second night, in the pitch black we both awoke so some sound outside the boat. We both got up and investigated.... there were whales surrounding us! Now we couldn't see them as there was no moon, but their blowholes were going off in every direction. Best we can surmise (SPELLING?!) is that the whales were sleeping around us! Totally unreal! After enjoying as long as we could we went back to bed... knowing we were sleeping with whales! So cool! 

Maya parked in Freshwater Bay

Humpback whales

Humpback

Jenny caught dinner again!

Maya in front of Flower Island in Freshwater Bay

Those seals are HUGE

Maya in Freshwater Bay from the drone

Disco in her spot

We could have easily stayed an entire week in Freshwater Bay- the wildlife viewing was that good, however the weather forecast was calling for the Fall's first storm. It was hard to leave Freshwater Bay, but the winds were expected to reach 40+mph out of the Southeast, which Freshwater Bay was exposed to. We picked up the hook and made our way to the area's only town, Port McNeill.

A passing cruise ship from our anchorage

Some cool geology must have happened around here

Disco with Blackfish Sound in the background

Thank you so much for stopping by! Please stop by again soon- in our next blog post we weather the first fall storm in Port McNeill and then continue exploring the Broughtons.

Storm approaching- time to get to Port McNeill

"Are we done with this boat thing yet!?"