Today’s plan was to meet up with our friends on Dawnbreaker down at the Koeye River inlet. The Koeye River is a very good place to watch grizzlies, and the anchorage there is decent for a temporary stop in relatively calm conditions. It was beautiful in Codville Lagoon this morning, but the further south we went, the more fog we encountered.
Entering the bay at the Koeye River Inlet:
Dawnbreaker was already anchored and their dinghy was gone, so we assumed they were already up river. We launched our dinghy and headed out to meet them (and hopefully spot some brown bears!)
Long house on shore:
Airship, anchored:
Our Torqeedo had other plans for us, however. It quit abruptly as we were headed into the river and gave us an error message. E23. Kevin messed with it for a few minutes as we were pushed around by the waves coming in from Fitz Hugh Sound. I turned us around and started rowing back toward Airship while he worked to see if he could recalibrate and clear the error, but to no avail. We got back to Airship and brought the electronic tiller part in and did some troubleshooting and determined that somehow, water had gotten in where it shouldn’t be. We messed with it for about an hour, and decided to bag it on the river trip. Being stuck up river with grizzlies and only oars didn’t sound awesome and it was 2pm already. Our plan was to get to Fury Cove so we could do our Cape Caution crossing tomorrow…and we still had about 3 hours to go. We tried radioing our friends to let them know the deal, but didn’t get ahold of them. (We figured we’d just get them on the radio once they were back.)
Back out in Fitz Hugh Sound the fog cleared a bit and once we were past Hakai Pass the seas calmed to rippled for the rest of our cruise down to Fury Cove. We’d seen the occasional humpback in Fitz Hugh, but mostly too far for much detail. Just outside of Fury Cove as we were about to turn in…humpbacks! Several of them were directly in our path.
We watched them for about 10 minutes and then just as we decided we could get past them easily and go into Fury Cove….they started bubble net feeding. This is the very first bubble feeding we’ve seen all summer, and happens right here in front of our anchorage! I took way too many photos. Hopefully that’s what you want to see right now:
The bubble circle just before the whales come up through it:
This close to Airship:
You never know where they’re going to come up. (Actually, you do if you watch the birds.)
We watched them for over an hour. The light was so great…bubble feeding at golden hour! We watched across the channel as another boat (Bonaventure, heading to Seattle) made its way toward us (with spouts and breaching and tail-slapping humpbacks between us and them…busy whale day today!) They stopped when they got close and we both watched the bubble feeding for a while before heading into the cove to anchor.
We’re the only two boats in here, and it’s just gorgeous.
Oh and…guess what? We can hear whales from our boat!
Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty chill, so we’re planning to leave just before sunrise (6:30am or so) for what will likely be a foggy crossing of Cape Caution.
Laura, those were awesome photographs. What an opportunity. So glad you captured it and shared it with your readers. Did you figure out how the motor. problem happened? (I have the same motor. ).
— Anne
Thank you Anne!
Re: the motor…some water got into the control board in the tiller. We think it leaked in through/around the decal that covers the display and the push buttons. We dried it out well and it seems to be working without error, but it’s under warranty and we’ll be having it replaced (since it’s made to be in and near water). 🙂