Making tracks
31 July 2020 | Meyers Passage
Mark
We've had a string of nice days and have take advantage of them to make some serious tracks down the coast.
We departed Prince Rupert and had a lovely 65 mile day sailing with sunshine and following wind and seas. Anchored last night in a
spectacular little place called Lundy Cove. As soon as we dropped the hook, I dropped a fishing line and immediately hooked into
something that was large enough to begin stripping line off my large ocean rod. Not necessarily wanting to deal with a large fish after the
long day, I was not too disappointed when the line went limp as he'd gotten off. I messed around just a little longer and couldn't hardly
get the line down without it being hit by a black rock fish and when I did get it down to the bottom, it was fish after fish of some other rock
fish. Luckily, it wasn't very deep and so each one I released sped away down to the bottom. Lundy cove is just outside a saltwater
lagoon surrounded by granite and at high tide the ocean spills into and out of the lagoon over the boulders in addition to it's normal outfow
spot. In short, it was yet again, another spot I'd like to spend at least a couple days exploring. But, we found there is weather coming our
way, and we really should make some mile and get away from Queen Charlotte Sound. And so it was that today we left Lundy at 0800
and headed south. Listening to the VHF weather, we found a discrepancy between the French version - which was predicting FIFTY
KNOTS SE, and the English version on the same VHF weather, predicting 15-20 SE. We had really wanted to stop in McMicking and
stay, but that would put is with another 45 miles to go against the SE winds on Friday and since the velocity of those winds was
somewhat in question, we opted for a quick 1 hour treat to duck in there and take a swim, before heading on. After eventually ducking
into Laredo Channel, we rode the last of the flood in and over the shallows - seeing 20 feet at one point. This coincided with the fact
there is only 5 feet at mean low water, so our timing was just right. Once through, we dropped the hook just on the other side, shut the
engine off and ate dinner. Basking in the calm and clear night, we just found the forecast for Queen Charlotte Sound has now been
upgraded to a full gale. It is good to have made the prudent decision.