Day 387 Into O'Brien Bay

We're off the grid again so no pictures. Sorry. With luck we'll be back on the grid tomorrow.

We left Lagoon Cove about 1010 and motored--of course wind in the wrong direction--North to Knight Inlet through the "Blow Hole"-a short cut from the Marina to Knight--that we had passed the day earlier thinking it was too shallow, and over to Tribune Channel to head farther North off the beaten path. We looked into Watson Cove at the North end of Tribune as a possible stop but it already had a sailboat in there so we left them alone and headed West.

We are getting far enough not only off the path and North that we don't see too many other boats other than crab and prawn fishermen. There were only two other boats in Lagoon Cove the night we were there. The cruising boats that we do see, we have normally seen before as we head North. One of the boats we saw (Important Business) at the Dent Rapids was also in Lagoon Cove several days later. Each of us is heading North, some just farther than others.

We passed by water falls as we made our way West down Tribune Channel trying to decide wether we would stop for the night at Shawl Bay Marina(time to wash clothes) or stop for a day or so at O'Brien Bay in Simoom Sound. We finally opted for O'Brien(50 51.343N 126 32.881W) and we're glad we did. It's lovely and there isn't another boat in sight. We figure that they all opted for Shawl Bay Marina. We had the place to ourselves!!

High forested mountains all around and so quiet that you can hear your voice echo off the hills as you talk. The water so clear that you can just about see the anchor on the bottom and that is 40 feet down. We dropped anchor and set it well. The wind was shifting in the opposite direction of our anchorage(pushing the stern out away from land) so we decided to do a stern tie to shore.

Puff was put in the water and Dragon attached to make it easier. We'd already decided to spend an extra day here it is so pretty and with the motor on Puff, we can explore the area. We put the spool of stern line on Zephyrs stern and rolled out a bunch. I tried pulling Zephyrs stern around toward the head of the cove using Dragon at full speed while pulling the line attached to her stern. She was having none of this and instead of her swinging, that was all I did in Puff. OK, next we'll try using Puff as a tug boat and physically put Puff's bow against Zephyr's stern and push her around. That worked better and she finally started to swing back toward the head of the cove. Luckily, what wind there was had just about quit.

I took the stern line and headed to shore as quick as I could and found a tree to tie up to. The wind came back up--not much but some, and Zephyr started to swing back away from the cove. With the line attached to shore, Tracy put the line to one of the winches and ground and ground and slowly brought Zephyr around again toward the cove. It was becoming almost comical at this point. Neither of us could help but laugh at all the work we were going through just for a stern tie. We're just glad there was no one else to see us work so hard to get such a small job done. We'd have been laughed out of the Sound.

OK, the line is now to the shore and Zephyr is tied up. The object is to get the end of the line back to Zephyr so when we are ready, all we have to do is untied it from Zephyr's stern and reel it back onto the spool without having to go ashore. So I had to get more line off Zephyr and around the tree so I could get back. We pulled off a bunch and I took off in Puff. Got about half way and ran out of line. Back to shore and reel off more line. Back to Puff and now I made it 3/4 of the way. Back to Shore for more line. This time 90% of the way. Back to shore. Zephyr was beginning to drift away from the cove and that was why I hadn't made it. Reel in the line to bring Zephyr's stern back where it belonged and back into Puff and I finally made it back to Zephyr. Lines were made tight and the job was finally done. We'd gotten into the bay by 1600 and it was now 1840. A long time for such and simple job. Again, we're glad no one was around to see us.

I barbecued some steaks for dinner with a nice bottle of wine. It was so calm, we could actually put out our DirectTV dish and see some television. We held rock steady for over three hours in our little cove. It was a clear night so we went out and watched stars for a short time--it's cold out there. I'm still surprised that I can't see the Milky Way when I look up. Not sure where it went to but I'm not seeing it. Anyone have a clue as to why? I don't. I could see it all the time in Port Townsend even in their parking lot.

Well, we're taking a day off from traveling. It's nice to take a breather.