July 20th – 21st Culpepper Lagoon to Windy Bay
The next morning we watch as Endurance comes shooting
through the narrows not at slack time. Awhile
later he heads back out the narrows only to come shooting back in. We surmise that he has tried to exit but the
high, incoming tide was too much. He
waits quite awhile this time and exits much closer to slack successfully this
time.
We pull our anchors; Walt and
Odile pull their shrimp pot (six shrimp) and Pam and Carl tour the head of
Culpepper for some last minute photos.
Then we join the brigade of three power boats and our two sailboats and
we all exit Culpepper narrows successfully.
Our destination today is Windy Bay on Sheep
Passage. We motor down Kynoch then (head)
sail slowly up to the end of Mathieson Channel turning into Sheep Passage. We find very nice anchorage and tie up
together again. As we are doing this we
hear Endurance on the VHF with Prince Rupert Coast Guard. Endurance has been tracking a 40 foot
humpback whale that appears to be in distress with a cable and/or net and float
attached near its tail. The Coast Guard
advises Endurance to stay clear of the whale yet keep her in site if possible
until the wildlife staff can hopefully come out and tag the whale to see if
they can eventually remove the cable.
Last we hear Endurance is reporting that the whale has headed north and
Endurance will be headed to Windy Bay.
The next morning early Odile is summoned by two
people in a very small work boat, the wildlife staff. They arrived the night before, canvassed the
entire area and have not seen the whale or Endurance. Pam turns on the chart plotter and VHF in an
effort to find the AIS track for Endurance.
We do not see him anywhere nor have we heard him when we had the VHF
on. Now the question is……where is
Endurance? The wildlife people thank us
for our time and head back out to try to find either the whale, or Endurance,
or both. We hope that the two have not
collided with negative results.
This will be another rain day for us with rain
on the interior and gale force warnings on the outside. Carl of course goes fishing; Walt learns how
to tie knots appropriate for attaching braided fish line to monofilament
line. Odile quilts and I am typing away.
I also take time to make Laura MacPherson’s
quinoa tabouli.
We first met Cam and
Laura when we drove to Ucluelet BC with Barb and Craig. We went on Cam’s whale watching and Bamfield
tour in his motor boat. We asked if he
knew of any salmon fishing guides he would recommend and he volunteered to take
us out the next day. We went and had the
most fun and successful salmon fishing excursion we have ever had! He promised us a free rock fishing trip next
year if we wrote and had published a letter to the local editor extolling the
virtues of our day of fishing with him.
We did, and he obliged us the next year.
We took our boat to Lady Smith, Craig and Barb met us there in their
pickup and we all drove across Vancouver Island to Ucluelet, this time staying
in Cam and Laura’s Wild Edge Lodge. The
next year we anchored our boat at Ucluelet and had Cam and Laura join us on
board for dinner. She brought her
wonderful tabouli. The fourth year we only
got to visit with Laura. Cam was giving
a tour when he saw our boat tied up on the 52 Step dock, he radioed Laura and
she showed up at our boat with a copy of the recipe in hand since she had
printed it, set it aside and could not find our email address. We had a nice visit and she said to come on
by and pick raspberries since they had them in abundance this year. I have made salad each year since and it
always brings nice memories of Cam, Laura and Ucluelet.
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