Half-way

Thursday, May 17, 2007
We are now about half way to Alaska. We left Shawl Bay with our clean clothes and about 200 prawns; not very big, but very tasty. We made a six hour hop to Blunden Harbor and left the next morning, May 14th, to cross around Cape Caution. The weather report sounded great, and it was! There was no wind and the ocean rocked us gently with low, almost unnoticeable swells. We arrived at one of our favorite anchorages, Fury Cove, after an 8 hour crossing. It has become tradition for us to spend two days in Fury, usually we need to recuperate after the crossing... We had great, sunny weather and enjoyed walking on the white shell beaches finding Kodak moments. There were two boats with us in the anchorage each night. There was also a marine biologist who was doing a survey of the beach for the nearby First Nation village. He is researching and testing clams in order to make the beaches available for winter harvest by the First Nation tribe. From Fury, we cruised NW up Fitz Hugh Sound to Fancy Cove in Lama Passage.
Our great weather had departed overnight with a rain storm, and we found some rough water just outside of the anchorage. As we moved farther up the Sound the weather and the water both improved. We anchored in a tight little spot behind a tiny island in the cove where we had been in 2005. It turned out to be an amazing afternoon... Bob spotted our second black bear of the trip on a nearby shore. It was the fattest bear we have ever seen. As it disappeared into the trees, we noticed a Sand Hill Crane standing as still as a stick within a few feet of the bear. Later Bob was looking up at the head of the cove and saw a wolf! He (yes, he showed us that he didn't pee like a puppy when he marked a tree) walked the whole shore of the bay and we got several Kodak moments from that. We also spotted one of the big cruise ships cruising slowly by in Lama Passage. We didn't even feel the wake in our snug little anchorage. Later in the afternoon, we heard a helicoper overhead. They buzzed us a couple of times; even low enough to return my wave. Don't know the purpose, but they completed our interesting afternoon.
The crew of Last Class