Oh yeah! Ann and I have been yearning for some fresh fish and today didn’t disappoint us.

We left Roscoe Bay about an hour before high tide. It wasn’t as high a tide as when we came in so we had a couple moments of anxiety when the depth sounder showed 6.8 feet. That would be from the waterline, so about 8 inches or so under the keel. Whew!

Once out into Waddington Channel we set up our fishing line hoping for salmon. We were rewarded! Caught a small salmon, but big enough for dinner for two. Then we proceeded up Waddington Channel. As many of the inlets around here, it’s almost fjord-like. Sheer, vertical cliffs go up 1000 feet on either side. While it was stunning, the pictures don’t do it justice because it was a cloudy, flat day. Oh well. At the end of the channel – about six miles from Roscoe Bay is a little island group called Walsh Cove. We tucked in there for the night. The chart and guidebook showed it as a 30 foot deep cove with mud bottom. Should have been easy anchoring. BUT, it wasn’t! Actually it was more like 70 feet and solid rock. Anyway, after looking around at a couple spots, we settled for a spot where we dropped in 56 feet and backed to the cliff, where I went in on the dinghy and tied a stern line to a tree. After we pulled Charisma up to the cliff and tensioned the anchor chain, we are only about half a boat length from the rocks. Oh well. The water’s clear so we can see the bottom drops out and even though we can almost step off to shore, we still have about 30 feet under the stern. Crazy to be so close!

Once we settled in, I remembered there are supposed to be some First Nation petroglyphs around here, so off in the dinghy to explore. We got lucky and found them! Here they are – you’ll have to decide what they depict (when we have internet to send pictures)

On going back to Charisma, the tide was low enough for some oyster pickin’. On went the gloves (now that I know how damn sharp they are) and we got a dozen for cocktail hour.

Just picked oysters and fresh salmon. Our communion with this spiritual area, surrounded by petroglyphs draw by ancient people who no doubt also respected the spirit that makes this such an amazing place.

(from shortwave radio – will add pics when we have internet)

So, it rained all the first day we were here and all night. We decided to stay an extra day so we could climb the mountain – which is what we did today. 8 mile round trip and 2200 vertical feet. Was very worth it though. Amazing views from the top. To the south we could see all the way to Texada Island and Naniemo, to the west – Vancouver Island and Cortes Island. North and east were mostly blocked by trees, but we could see some bits of Waddington Channel and northern Vancouver Island. Definitely a fun hike/climb. Very steep at points. At the top there was a cairn with a couple jars stuffed with scrapes of paper with people’s names and notes who made it to the top. The oldest we saw dated back to 2011, but that was just from the tops of the jars. Anyway, we added our names and took a few moments for a nice snack, then back down. 4 hours round trip and the bonus – the cherry trees at the bottom. We collected a Tupperware full of beautiful, ripe, wild cherries. YUM!

Sent via SSB. We have no internet – will post pics later

We went over here yesterday. This is an interesting place for two reasons. To get to the inner bay you have to transit over a mudflat that dries at zero tide. That means at high tide, we need at least 6.5 feet for Charisma to get into the bay. Luckily for us, the high tide here is around 10 or 12 feet, so “theoretically” we can get into the bay with a few feet to spare. Yeah, we’ve heard that before.

We left Prideaux Harbor (Melanie Cove) about an hour before high tide. We were four miles away, so at six knots, we should be able to get here before high tide. We did indeed reach the outer cove before high tide. We very sloooowly went over the bar with a one knot current sucking us inward. Very carefully we watched the depth sounder go from 50 plus feet to 20, 15, 10 then 9 feet – which means less than three feet under our keel – not a lot of room for error, but we did it. Once past the shallow narrows, we saw 20, then 30 and we were in. Whew! Such a lovely cove inside. We’re very glad to be here. Once anchored and settled, we lauched Ann’s paddleboard and she set off to explore the cove.