The weather has been absolutely fantastic and we are glad we changed our minds and decided to spend some time floating around the SJI’s this time of year. Gorgeous.

As Nick was hauling anchor in Deer Harbor on Wednesday morning, the windlass bogged down and stopped. Stuck! He finally saw that our anchor had grabbed a chain on the bottom. He grabbed the boat hook and with a fair amount of wrangling was able to get the chain off the anchor. Whew! As the anchor released, the boat hook went flying and floating away. I maneuvered the boat around while Nick grabbed at the hook with a long-handled cleaning brush. Success!

Yesterday Nick dropped the crab pots in the channel out of Garrison Bay – lots and lots of crabs – just not Dungeness. 😕

As he cleaned and stowed the gear there was a seal hanging around right next to the dinghy, really wishing there were a few choice morsels of bait to share. Maybe it was this seal that tried to climb on my kayak in the night. When I got up this morning I thought the kayak was gone altogether but it’s just partially under water:

This has happened once before, although due to a boat wake. Hard to haul these things out when they’re swamped!

Aris joined us on Wednesday and the four of us hiked up Young Hill and then took the dinghies for lunch at Wescott Bay Shellfish.

We dinghied through Mosquito Pass to check in with our Coorie Doon friends at the Fluid Motion rendezvous in Roche Harbor. (Possibly the largest manufacturer’s boat gathering in the world, over two hundred vessels.) They’d gone fishing with some other Ranger Tug folks and gave us Coho salmon guts for crab bait and a couple of filets.

And…more whales! We spotted two orcas inbound in Mosquito Pass. What made this sighting a bit different? We were in the dinghy! A little nerve wracking. Very exciting to have the opportunity to see whales up close…while hoping they didn’t get too close. They went by at a safe distance.

Off to Friday Harbor…