Ship Wreck

Wednesday August 5^th – Today we are going to meet the Edgewater dealer in Fishermen Bay to take a look a 17’ center console.  With our new 48’ American Tug on the way we now have the opportunity to pull a smaller boat once in a while and the 17’ Edgewater may be just the ticket!  At 9am we met Brian Krantz from Inside Passage Yacht Sales for a demo of the boat.  The wind was still howling and it was way colder than we have been used to this summer (62 degrees) but it would be a great test to see how the boat performs.

The little boat performed really well in the choppy seas, much better than I expected but we all froze our butt’s off!  After the demo we went back to the boat and all had hot chocolate while we pulled anchor, motored out of the bay, and set a course for Stewart Island’s Reid Harbor right on the Canadian border just a short 13.38nm away.

As we entered the bay I noticed a nice open spot to set anchor.  After reviewing the chart, I noticed a weird symbol right where we were anchoring.  I mentioned it to Julie and Skylar but thought “whatever” and promptly started lowering the anchor anyway.  Just after the anchor was all set, Skylar said “I looked up that symbol on the chart and it says Caution Area, Ship Wreck”.  Oops! Maybe I should have paid more attention.  Some skipper I am; my 14-year-old son has to read the chart for me!  “Ok, well we’re here now, hopefully the anchor comes up tomorrow”.

Stewart Island is pretty interesting.  It doesn’t have a ferry service so the only way to get there is by private boat or small aircraft.  However, families have lived on the island full time for the past 100 years or more.  There is a tiny school that still runs today however, some years there’s kids and others there’s not, they have all either graduated or move off the island leaving the school empty that year.

The Turn Point Lighthouse is about a 5 mile round trip hike and we’ve never been out to it because Ava has always been too little to make it that far.  This is our year!  We dinghied to shore and started our hike.  Julie came up with a wonderful plan to bribe our kids in exchange for a peaceful hike for us parents.  The kids would be given 5 pieces of licorice when the hike was completed.  However, for each time they complained (Skylar had it good because he doesn’t complain on hikes) 1 would be taken away.  We’ve never seen Ava hike so good in her life!  She didn’t complain one time and those little legs kept up with us the whole time.

That evening, as the sun was going down, Skylar and I went fishing just outside of the bay for some salmon but didn’t have any luck

Trip Log – 127.13nm