Greenway Sound to Laura Cove

Low ceilings greeted us again this morning. We are on our leisurely schedule timetable which means we’re not going anywhere till early afternoon. 

I walked the docks and took some photos of the marina. Karen continued to devour all matter of books. Originally we talked about going for a hike up the old logging road on Ick Mountain, but that plan fell victim to the desire to “rest a bit more”. We did a little provisioning in the marina store and spent some time with Tom and Ann. Today was the last day for the marina’s helper, so we talked with her as she waited for the floatplane to take her back home. 

The beautiful docks at Greenway Sound 

The main "highway" at the docks 

We way farewell to Tom and Ann and their summer helper  

Life on the Greenway docks  

As the morning turned to afternoon, the skies cleared and the sun made an appearance. That was our signal to bring in our lines and set the bow toward Laura Cove. 

Not much more than an hour later, we were snug in the little cove, stern tied to Broughton Island. There was one boat in the Cove when we arrived. It was an older cruisernamed Rockfish, made by Uniflite . It was anchored in the center of the cove. This presented no problem, as stern tying is the custom when it is crowded here and we had plenty of room to do so. 

The trick with this stern tie is that it was high tide. It is always preferable to stern tie at low water so you get a good look at the rocks, but that is not always possible. I poked the bow in close, taking note of water depths and comparing them to the amount of water we were going to lose at low tide. This computation gives me a target as to where I want the boat to end up and from that spot, I can calculate where to drop the anchor. 

Since it was not low tide, Karen did not have to do her usual “Mountain Goat” act of scampering up the rocks to find a suitable spot to tie to. Rather, she could reach our intended dead tree trunk from the comfort of the dinghy. 

We carefully watched the rocks as the water receded and later took up some anchor rode to move the boat 20 feet further from the rocks, giving us an extra margin of clearance. The nice thing about Laura Cove is that the rock ledge drops precipitously, giving you a nice line of demarcation between the obstructions and clear water. 

Dinner was followed by Karen reading and Bob working on photographs for the blog. All is well today and we look forward to exploring Laura Cove tomorrow.

Jennis Bay then to Greenway Sound

This morning was typical of the region, cloudy. However, the overcast quickly dissipated and we welcomed first, the sun, and then the blue skies. Also, the forecast predicted more clouds for the afternoon; we all embraced the warming rays and set about enjoying the day.

Karen grabbed a book and found a comfy place in the sun to read. I tagged along with Tom as we went to check his crab pots and shrimp and prawn pots. Gathering these sources of protein is a major pastime in these parts, whether you are a boater or a resident.

Tom is no exception. Every day, sometime twice a day, he checks his pots. Today's harvest was small, a couple of dozen prawns and two rock crabs.

Tom pulls in his first prawn trap

The crab trap, however, was empty. Empty of crab and of bait. Tom suspected that the bait bag was at fault, letting the tempting morsels of prawn heads drift off. So, a new bait bag was secured to the trap and back over the side it went to lure more of the tasty Dungeness crabs for the next day.

There was one casualty of the day. My “go-to” 18-200mm lens was rendered inoperative when I slipped and fell getting off the boat. My plan is to make do with my remaining lenses since getting a replacement out here would be a time consuming and somewhat expensive undertaking.

We loafed around Jennis Bay for the rest of the day, waiting for high slack tide so we could go back through Stuart Narrows. When the time came, we said our good-byes to the Allo family, promising to send them lots of pictures of the joyous time we spent in their company.

On the way toward Stuart Narrows, Karen spotted “spouting” near a small island. We were treated to the rare sighting of two Orcas feeding, a big male and his female companion. We had not seen Orca since 2005, so we were very excited and I got a decent picture of the male as he surfaced to take a closer look at us.

This is why we lug the "monster long telephoto" on these trips

Our destination was Greenway Sound to say hi to Tom and Ann, do a little laundry and take on water. Since Sullivan Bay was on the way and we had never stopped there, we took a very short detour and tied up at their docks to see what it is all about.

Kids will be kids

Sullivan Bay is unique because in addition to having a restaurant, store and fuel docks, they also have a number of floating homes.

Sullivan Bay Marina

These give the place the look of “Manhattan on the water” versus the more modest marinas in the region. I was craving chocolate, so a Snickers bar along with a bottle of wine and some garlic rounded out our purchases at the store.

As we tied up at Greenway Sound, we were greeted with the ever friendly smile of Tom. He and Ann created this marina many years back and built it into a respected and renowned landmark in the Broughtons. They are ready to retire and have had the marina for sale for a couple of years now. But with high fuel prices has come less traffic for every marina this year. Hence, the offers are not flooding in, and Tom and Ann continue to wait for the right offer.

Tom invited us to watch Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech with he and Ann, so Karen and I grabbed a couple of beers and joined them in front of the TV. By the time we got back to the boat, grilled cheese sandwiches were about all we could muster the energy to prepare for dinner. Of course, we followed the gooey sandwiches with a Nanaimo Bar from Greenway Sound’s store.