Day Five -Campbell River, Vancouver Island, BC to Blind channel Marina, E. Thurlow Island, BC. We made it through the Seymour Narrows without a hitch, following a tug with a large barge of what looked like salt (see picture). We needed to leave Campbell River against the tidal current in order to catch the tide turn at the beginning of the narrows (8 Miles away). And then ride the slack, then favorable current through the narrows and straits that we will be sailing in. The opposing current leaving Campbell River had our boat down to two knots at times; so one can see how important it is to move in this area with the current. It was a windy day today but strait on our nose, no sailing, motored all day. The weather was predicted for high wind 15 -20 knots coming down the channel at us, this creates dangerous standing waves as the wind opposes the current. Most of the day we had good motoring with just an unpleasant cold wind in our face. Winds were steady about 12 knots, add our boat speed and we had 17 - 18 Knots in our face. Later in the day we chose to steer from the pilothouse instead of the cockpit. Leaving Seymore Narrows and into discovery passage the standing waves stared to get worse and the ride was a bit bumpy. Late in the day we turned west into Johnstone strait and we really started to take a bashing. The opposing wind and current had large steep standing waves that the boat would ride up on, and than fall into the trough or into the face of the next standing wave, sending water spray over the boat. The inside of the boat quickly became disarrayed as things fell from table and counter to the floor. Donna holed-up into a chair with the poodles that were worried and confused about what was going on. Lucky for us we had only 45 minutes of the rough stuff before heading a new and better direction into Mayne Passage to go to Blind Channel Marina. Once we got into Mayne Passage we pulled out some sail as the wind was now favorable for sailing for the last half our of our day. We entered Blind Channel Marina at 6:15 pm, and what a relief to get out of that mess!
About an hour after we arrived, we were watching what looked like three bald eagle play fighting in the air. We then realized one was not an Eagle and the two eagles were not playing with it. One of the eagles grabbed the bird by the back and whirled it around a few times. The bird then spiraled down into the water behind our boat. The Eagles then went after the bird in the water but then broke it off because of the close proximity to our boat and us. Donna immediately wanted to launch the dingy and recue the bird. A lady from another boat came over to help. The current toward the dock was pushing the bird, so the dingy was not needed. It ended up being an immature Turkey Vulture. It was in shock but still alive so we put it up in the bushes under the dock. The next morning is was gone so either a fox had a midnight meal or it recovered and flew away.