Nothing in Sight

Thursday Aug 14^th – we woke up to some serious fog.  After waiting a couple hours for it to clear we finally gave up and took off at 10:30am in the fog.  The biggest hurdle was right outside the bay trying to navigate the narrow passage through the Chatham Islands.

With the radar and chartplotter providing a bit of reassurance, we inch our way through the islands then north up Haro Strait.  In the calm of the fog its always eerie to see boats show up on radar but not actually be able to see them until you’re right on them.  I suppose it would be kind of like flying an airplane at night – you’re almost totally navigating by electronics.  You get a little used to it the more you do it but its never really comfortable.

As we make it up to Sidney the fog broke and became a beautiful day.  Our destination today is Russell Island for a 2 night stay.  We arrive at 2:20pm, traveling 19.07nm having bucked a strong ebbing current the whole way.

We anchored off Russell and took the dinghy out to set the shrimp pot.  Some friends of ours with an American Tug 49 – who we happened to meet here last year – were also out setting their shrimp pot – funny to meet them again at the same place.  A relaxing evening kayaking, paddleboarding and we took the dinghy around the island.  Unfortunately no luck in the shrimp pot.

The next day was spent at anchor, hiking the island trails and pulling the heavy shrimp pot – by hand – 200’ – for absolutely nothing each time!  We took a nice dinghy ride to Fulford – a little town just up the inlet.  Hiked to a church and picked up a few things at their tiny grocery store.  Our friends invited us for drinks on their boat and we had a great time with them for the evening.