Bottleneck Inlet to Khutze and Lowe Inlet

Waterfall Point, Finlayson Channel

Rainbow in Khutze Inlet

It is still Winter here

Orca swimming alongside Spirit

Another view of Waterfall Point

5/11/2011

If the sun was shining this morning we had arranged for Sea Jay to take photos of Spirit at Waterfall Popint on Sarah Island. The weather cooperated briefly and we go the photos. We continued up Finlayson to Heikish Narrows, where we had to slow down and let three orcas go on by, one passing less than 5 feet off the side. We entered Princess Royal Channel and headed for Khutze Inlet, where we were surprised to hear "Raindancer" calling us on the VHF. They had seen us on the AIS and were also anchored at the head of the inlet. We proceeded in and got anchored at 1215 and then set a crab pot. After only 4 hours we had seven legal and large Dungeness crabs to process. About one hour later, another vessel "Seawolf" arrived without a depthsounder. We got in the tenders and scouted out a safe place to anchor due to the steep shelf and shallow water of the Khutze River delta. The safe place was right on top of our crab pot, so we pulled it to find three more crabs.

Dinner was a pork tenderloin, au gratin potatoes and green salad on board Spirit, shared with Mike and Kathy from Raindancer and Jim and Cheryl from Sea Jay.

Today's run brought our log to 471 nautical miles.

5/12/2011

The next morning there were six more crabs that we kept. After pulling the pot, we started to raise the anchor and the chain jumped off the windlass wheel and ran out the entire 400 feet of chain and was then stopped by the nylon snubber line at the end. However, the line was so long the chain was under water and heavy, so heavy three men could not lift it up to put back on the windlass. Some creative engineering with hooks, knots and the windlass allowed us to finally retrieve the chain, and then shorten the snubber line to prevent such an occurrence from happening again.

By 1045 we were underway for Lowe Inlet.

We passed by Butedale, which looks even worse than last year, with more areas of collapse. Butedale falls were running very strong. The weather varied from sunny to rain, but we had timed our departure to take advantage of the currents in both Princess Royal Channel and Grenville Channel. We ran into one rain squall in Grenville Channel that was so heavy and dark we turned on our running lights. However, by 1730 we were anchored in Nettle Basin in Lowe Inlet in front of Verney Falls, which were sending foam and current halfway across Nettle Basin.

We joined for a dinner of crab fettuccini on Raindancer and then spent a quiet night at anchor.