Alaska 2024

May 2 - 11

 We left to start our trip to Alaska on May 2 with a weekend stop in Roche Harbor for the Grady White Club Ling Cod fishing derby! We started off in Port Madison for our first night on the way to Roche - a beautiful night at Port Madison SYC. As you can see from the pictures - we have a new Nellie!  We decided to get a Hewescraft Ocean Pro 22 for this trip to Alaska. We love the Grady but wanted a boat we can go ashore in and haul the family coming to visit in Alaska in an enclosed cockpit area.  We have 4 granddaughters now ages 6, 5, 2 and 6 months and they are all coming during our trip to Alaska for a visit so the new Nellie will work out perfect!

We had a great day fishing for Lings! Unfortunately Michelle's fish was 1/2 inch too long .  The Derby is for Ling Cod between 26-36 inches using the US rules since some of the fisherman were staying in the US for the competition.  We have a favorite spot over in Canada where the limits are different - you can keep Ling's larger than 36 inches so that is how Michelle's fish was DQ'd but still a great fish! It weighed 17 pounds and was 36 1/2 inches long!  Our boat submitted 4 fish (Jeff, Tamara, Steve and Michelle) and we took 4th, 5th and 6th with the others.

A fun weekend in Roche then off to Nanaimo to clear customs which was very easy using Nexus.  

The next morning we crossed the Straits of Georgia in nice water and decided to head up the outside of Texada - looking South was cloudy and looking North was beautiful - a bit lumpy with all kinds of weather systems moving thru but we had a good trip. We took a few days to get to Port McNeill - taking some time to explore in the new fishing boat and doing some crabbing and shrimping along the way.

We finished up this first part of our journey at Port McNeill where we are leaving the boat for a few weeks to fly home for the Billy Joel concert  in Seattle on May 24. We got the added bonus of seeing the family on Mothers Day and spending some time at home before we head back up after the concert to continue our journey to Alaska.

August 15-August 24

 

August 15 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER)– August 16

    We spent today cruising from Tofino to Barkley Sound.  Our first night anchorage was at Dodd Island in the Broken Group of Islands. We had good weather and water for our open ocean stretch and found a really protected bay for two nights.  Steve, Di and I went fishing and we got a couple of lingcods and Di got a keeper Rockfish. We caught several other fish too small to keep and also a yelloweye which you are not allowed to keep.

 

August 17 – Cataract Creek Cove

                We moved a few miles inland to Cataract Creek Cove.  We have been here before and we spent some time cruising in the jetboat up two of the local rivers. There are a lot of floating homes here and also huge oyster farms (lots of oysters on the beach!).

August 18 – Rainy Bay Cove

           We spent the day exploring the area and Steve and I went fishing where we were rewarded with 2 nice size silvers!  Its Salmon dinner tonight.

August 19 & 20

           We moved up to Robbers Passage to be close to Bamfield for our final leg around the island.  We explored the Passage and area around Bamfield including a trip to town for lunch and a walk along the boardwalk!  Steve and I had the opportunity to do some more fishing – it started off slow with a couple of small Lingcod and small rockfish but we ended our fishing by doubling up with 2 Kings. It was a crazy way to end the fishing part of our trip! Unfortunately I was not successful in netting Steve’s – I was too excited to get his into the boat and then get mine netted. I did not get under it enough, managed to knock it in the head with the net and it spit out the hock and got free at the last minute.  We turned our attention to mine which we netted so that helped the sting of not getting his into the boat! I felt really bad but he was great about reminding me that he had a good fight and it won the battle.  I think I will practice netting!

August 21 – Sydney Spit – We made the entire trip around the end of Vancouver Island and decided to spend the night in Sydney Spit!  It was an 11 ½ hour cruising day and we were all happy to drop anchor and relax for the evening.  It was a beautiful day of cruising – we had great water, weather and a whale show!

August 22 – Todd Inlet – We decided after our long day yesterday we would spend one more night at anchor in Canada before crossing over to Roche Harbor and starting our trek home.  We moved to Todd Inlet so that we could go to Butchart Gardens and have one more night together with Glen and Liz and Rick and Pam.  Butchart Gardens was fun – Steve and I have not been in over 20 years so it was a fun day.

 

August 23 – Happy 8^th Anniversary to Tyler and Amanda and 48^th for Chris and Tom!

   We said goodbye to our travel mates and headed for Roche Harbor. We stayed at Henry Island SYC Outstation and headed for home in sunshine and smooth water!

Our plan is to spend one more night on the boat close to home and go into our boathouse tomorrow so this is my last entry for the 2022 Trip around Vancouver Island.  It was a great summer aboard the Nelsea and many many manymore happy boating memories!