Back to Bruce

We’re back in the bay at McNabb Creek, side tied across the rickety logging float from Bruce’s work-in-progress.  This is turning into one of our favorite spots.  We like Plumper Cove just fine but it gets bumpy whenever the wind blows in Georgia Strait and it gets busy on the weekends.  This little corner of the world seems to be well sheltered and even today when there are wind warnings out for everywhere, including Howe Sound, you sure wouldn’t know it judging from the glassy water around us.

Its hard to convey just how close to the rocks our bow is by the time we get tied up here.  When we came in there was about a 20 foot aluminum river boat tied up at the end of the dock so we had to slide in between them and the shoreline.  The rocks drop off really fast here but it still felt like I was about to run up on the beach.  First the shoreline disappeared completely behind the Defever prow.  So I asked my shore advisors (there were several on the dock) whether I was far enough ahead.  “About another 8 feet to clear his engines!”  I knew I had room but it still was really hard to put the engines in forward.  It felt like for sure I’d feel a “crunch” at any moment but we slid into place with at least a couple of feet to spare.  Once the frenchmen in the aluminum boat left we adjusted the spring lines to move a little further from the shore.  We might have been OK at low tide but we wouldn’t have had much to spare.

The advantage of being so close to shore is that we can set the dish up on land and run the coax to the boat.  That meant I could monitor the Canuck’s big choke last night and taunt the resident Cow Bay Canucks super-fan.  About a week ago I told him it was really going to suck to be him when the Canucks got blown out in the first round but I didn’t really think that was going to happen – I just wanted to bother him.  They’ve gone down so fast its really not even fun tormenting him about it any more.

When we left Plumper Cove it was partly to escape the bumpy water, partly so we could fish our way up Howe Sound and partly to visit Bruce.  Once we got underway we decided it would be prudent to check the fishing regs and it turns out we can’t really fish for anything anywhere in Howe Sound.  The regs are very complicated to decypher and there are a few species that we could keep but for simplicity its probably easiest to just consider Howe Sound closed.  We have had a good visit with Bruce so it wasn’t a wasted trip.  He’s pretty well invisible to society – no phone, no email, no address – so unless you find him you can’t visit him and planning an encounter is flat out of the question.

Today we’ll likely move back to Plumper Cove because we need to be ready for a quick decision on crossing back over Georgia Strait.  I’ve got flights booked to St. Louis next Sunday which is still a long way off but not when the Strait is between us and the airport.  There’s wind warnings out for everywhere and for as far into the future as they predict so that’s annoying.  Even though we know that the forecast will inevitably change and the reality may not match the forecast its hard not to worry about how we will make it back across in the time we have available.  If we’re sitting in Plumper Cove we can be across into Silva Bay in under four hours from the time we make the decision to go so we’ll sit there and watch for a break.  And SWMBO will probably take a precautionary Gravol when we do head out.