Nellie’s Rest to McClure Bay
/We rocked and rolled in Nellie’s Rest last night as the storm passed over. As the wind shifted to the north we did get some fetch. When OceanFlyer decided to sit beam to the small rollers, we would rock back and forth; not uncomfortable, just annoying when something you thought was dogged down started to make noise in rhythm to the pendulum motion. About 2am, there was lots of stuff rolling about and Bob got up to check – but found nothing. (We later found out it was his tripod rolling around the floor behind one of the chairs in the salon). After 4am, things calmed down for the rest of the night, enough for Karen and I to sleep more soundly.
Sometime during the night or early morning, the rafted “Ragdoll” and “Angel” moved further into the bay. I don’t think his ride was any better than ours, even with the new location.
Ragdoll and Angel in Nellie's Rest
About 8am “Angel” motored off for what we presumed was a day of tending crab and prawn pots. As we travelled this area, we saw his distinctive yellow or orange buoys marking the locations of his prawn traps. In general he was fishing in 150 to 300 feet.
Looking our from Nellie's Rest into Derickson Bay
OceanFlyer tucked into Nellie's Rest
We planned a couple of detours on our way to the head of McClure Bay (western side). We stopped at Blue Fiord Bight. It’s a one or two boat hole that is deeper than marked on the charts. It has a fairly low swale at the head, so we think it would have had less fetch but more wind than what we experienced at Nellie’s Rest. Next we took a peek at the Ultramarine Glacier at the end of the bay before making good our route to the McClure Bay. There were nice green flats in front of the glacier for kayaking, but overall it wasn’t a “spectacular” glacier.
We passed the cannery ruins on the way down McClure Bay on the east side. The cannery was destroyed, along with the caretakers, by a tsunami from the 1964 earthquake. Our final destination is at the very end of McClure bay. The entrance is pretty obvious on the chart and we saw no depths that gave us alarm. Anchoring opposite of the waterfall on the east shore in 23 feet, we occupied the center of the channel. My guess is you could get two boats in here, one to the north of the other with no problem.
Keeping a short 4:1 scope makes for plenty of swinging room. Current holds you mostly in the center as you move fore and aft with the current change.
We had a nice dinghy ride into the smaller bays to the south. We spotted many little streams and what looked like a couple of good places for bear to fish for salmon when they are running. There were depths here and there that would work for anchoring, but only with a lot of route planning by dinghy first.
Bob gave the water line and the hull just below the water line a good scrubbing, as Karen secured him in the dinghy with a fore and aft line. It was a good project for the halfway point in our travels. We had a good night, with some winds at time, but nothing remarkable or worrisome.