Hartley Bay July 6,7,2010

Hartley Bay July 6, 7 & 8

We left Europa Bay and made the three hour run to Hartley Bay which has a great anchorage inside of Promise Island. Once we were securely anchored at about 5 Pm we tried our hand at fishing just outside the head of the Bay. Colliers caught two nice Coho at the same time with and an eagle suddenly swooping down trying to snatch Linda’s Coho while Nat was reeling his in. Nat netted both fish at the same time with the same net. This is a story for the grand children for sure. We got three nice cod and Stewarts got one nice cod so we were all happy kids at Hartley Bay and were treated that evening to a Coho salmon dinner compliments of Doug and Gail. Next day we got up at the crack of 10 am and Doug and I went fishing. Just as we got to the head of the bay on a western point of Promise Island we ran into a pod of Orcas numbering 8 and they put on quit a show for us for over an hour. There were no save the whale idiots to bother us and the Orcas and we sat there silently and watched them play and swim by. It was a wonderful experience. later in the morning Doug caught a nice young Coho and then as we were reeling in he discovered he had another very tired Coho on his line and it was a tangled mess on my line as well. i pulled him in by hand and Doug netted his second Coho and limit for the day. Not bad for a mornings work.

That afternoon we went into town and fueled up the dinghies and went for a stroll on the board walk. The whole village is elevated up on wooden side walk and a hill side with a river running through it into the Bay. The locals were very friendly but as usual the native culture seems to have no respect for their surroundings with junk laying everywhere and zero care for the yards. I found two nice bicycles laying in the weeds that seemed to be abandoned as if they were used for a while and then just run off the wooden side walk and left for eternity to rust in the salt air.

Later that afternoon Nat took us all to a beautiful white beach near our anchorage. This beach was white with clam shells and presented the opportunity for a swim in the icy clear blue water to cool off from the now 90 degree late afternoon heat. Just beyond the beach was beautiful deep and dense forest with large cedar trees and plenty of smooth round logs to sit on.

We concluded our evening with crab cakes that Cheryl made from scratch. Her first effort at creating this dish was very tasty.

My repair to the damaged shaft bonding brush is working well and today we will start up Grenville Channel with the first stop in the channel at Lowe Inlet.

I have a new jet pump being shipped from Vancouver to Prince Rupert for the Seadoo and plan to have it installed on Monday. Oh did I mention that I went up the Khuntz river a few days ago and sucked up some rocks into the SEadoo. It does not like eating rocks.