My daughter Jennifer and 9-year-old grandson Hayden were in town for just a few more days so we had time for one more overnight trip.
For this trip I decided to go to Helm Bay in Western Behm Canal. I have been there many times but not recently. There is a float there in front of the cabin. It is basically a dock, but it's not connected to shore with a ramp, so technically it is called a "float."
Here's a screenshot of our track from the Garmin InReach website.
We did not come directly home from Helm Bay but made a stop at Loring. More about that later in the post.
When we got to the float there was another smaller boat already there. It turned out to be someone I know from City League basketball. They had the whole clan there, brothers, father & mother, and some small kids. The weather was sunny, warm & calm at first, but that was soon to change for the worse.
I always tie up on the outside of the float there because I know that at a minus tide there is very little water on the inside. This is what it looked like on the inside of the float the next morning at a -2.5' tide.
Hayden loves to fish, and I try to encourage it as much as possible. I get these herring jigs that have 6 very tiny hooks on them, with little beads and feathers around them. I put a couple of split shot weights on the bottom to give the rig a little weight. He catches lots of fish of various kinds. And of course, he has to put them in a bucket for a while, but I always make sure he puts them back before they die.
Last summer Hayden had no issues holding or touching his fish but this year he seemed to be a little squeamish about it. But we encouraged him, and he eventually agreed to show off one of his fish.
Hayden mostly caught little Perch, but once in a while he'd get something a little bigger. He managed to hook this little trout.
I got Hayden a net with very fine mesh, and then taped it to my boat hook so that it had a longer handle. He liked to scoop up jelly fish and other things & critters that came floating nearby. He started catching these little green snake like fish. Since we have Starlink now we looked them up and found them to be called "Pipefish," a relative of the Sea Horse. He caught several of these in the net.
I think this one might be a pregnant Momma Pipefish.
Since we were on a float with no ramp to shore, we had to take Nova to shore in the raft. Hayden enjoyed helping with that and I really appreciated his help. When we got to shore, I could stay with the raft while he would take Nova on leash up into the grass.
If conditions were good I would let Hayden drive the raft, which he really loved doing.
Our perfect weather didn't last long. The wind kicked up and came in with a vengeance. We were getting blown into the float and I had to use extra lines and put on every bumper that I had on board to keep Faraway from slamming into the dock.
Here's a short video that shows just a little of what it was like when that wind came up. You can see the Sea Sport in front of us really rolling around. Their whole group was in the cabin at that point in the day.
It stayed that way throughout the day and through the night and into the next day as well. The man & woman from the Sea Sport spent the night on the boat, as of course, did we. We got rocked around all night, and the bumpers were grinding all night. I asked them how they slept, and the response was "We didn't."
The float was heaving around quite a lot with all that wind, and we all had to have our sea legs in order to move around on it.
As evening approached it seemed to calm down just a little. We decided we could manage a fire on the dock, as long as we all stayed in the protection of the boat.
At one point the next day Jennifer wanted to go across to a nice little beach. So, I ran them over there in the raft and went back to pick them up a little later.
On Saturday we really wanted to get out of there and move on, but the wind had other ideas. I really wasn't sure how I would safely get away from that float with that strong wind driving us right into from the side. We kept hoping it would subside even a little, and eventually the wind died down just enough to convince me to give it a try.
Shortly after lunch we got everything ready, stowed the raft, and made a hasty departure. I had to gun the engines a bit more than I normally would in order to get us away from the float.
I thought that crossing Behm Canal over to the Revilla side would be a rough crossing, but it was not.
We had hopes to go into the Naha dock for the night, but when we got over there, we found the dock to be plugged with boats. So, we pulled into the Loring dock, which was wide open. Loring is much more exposed to the weather than the Naha dock is, but we managed to get in there without any problems.
It was still windy, so I tied up so that my bow was facing into the wind, which was blowing in from Naha Bay.
The dock at Loring is long, and there are no bull rails along the sides. When the wind is blowing hard the dock undulates and heaves like the Galloping Gertie Tacoma Narrows bridge. For old people like me who have lost almost all their balance, navigating this dock is a challenge.
Here's a short video that shows the wind blowing in from Naha Bay. Note the bow line on Faraway - more about that a little later.
Despite the wind it was warm, and there was a little beach right near the dock that had some protection from the wind. We all made our way over there and spent some time enjoying the sun.
Nova had a great time too. I never knew that she was a digger.
Hayden found an old inner tube on the beach there and he had a great time with it.
Our plan had been to spend the night there. But later in the evening after dinner the boat started heaving horribly, much worse than before. The starboard aft corner started slamming on the dock and I was concerned about damaging the boat. It felt and sounded like someone was hitting the back corner of the boat with a sledgehammer.
Even thought it was late, we made the decision to run to town. We left the Loring dock at 8 PM.
I did not realize why the motion of the boat on the lines at the dock had changed so much until I went to untie the lines and I discovered that the previously noted bow line had snapped.
People in town, non-boaters mostly, seem to refer to North and South in the Narrows when it is actually more like East and West. Jennifer took this shot as we were heading into town, with the sunset directly behind us. That looks like West to me.
We got into the slip at about 10:30 PM after logging about 54 miles for this trip.
Boating with family, making memories - it doesn't get any better than this.
Comments