14 Aug 22

There was a tidal gate to negotiate at Quatsino Narrows, before Coal Harbour; we needed to be through at HW slack at around 13:48. So, Massilia left at 09:10. Terri started a load of laundry, so we did not get started until 10:00. First, we motored out to Kains Island, because (for unknown reasons) there is good cell service out there. But, it was rough, with a SW swell working up into Winter Harbour Approaches. So, upon advice from “Massilia”, who had already turned up into Quatsino Inlet and still had cell service, we turned up the Inlet as well. However, on the way in, we got rolled pretty good a few times and all hell broke out down below. We finally got into calm waters and cleared up the debris below, when Terri noticed that nothing but air was coming out of the tap. I went below to investigate and found that the inlet hose to the freshwater pressurization pump had become disconnected somehow; not sure how that could have happened. Shortly after that, the bilge pumps tripped on via the float valve, which has never happened before. I looked in the bilge to find it full of water. A quick check of the forward water tank gauge showed that it was down to about 40 gallons, even though I filled it late last night; so, about 60 gallons of fresh water had emptied into the bilge; bummer. Anyway, we carried on slowly as we were a couple of hours ahead of schedule for hitting Quatsino Narrows at just before HW slack. So, we idled for a while and fished, but had no nibbles. We hit the Narrows at 14:45 and shot through at 11.1 Kn SOG, which was cool. After we got into Holberg Inlet, we noticed a bunch of prawn traps set, so thought we would try our luck. I deployed our trap in 100 m of water just outside of Coal Harbour. We were tied up at Air Cab Marina in Coal Harbour by 15:40. John had already been in touch with Stryker Marine in Port Hardy and the guy there agreed to bring his batteries straight down. He showed up with the new batteries at 16:30 and after we unloaded them and handed over the old ones to be recycled, he agreed to take Laurie and Terri into Port Hardy, so they can get some shopping done. I was going to go, too, but he only had a pickup and I did not fancy sitting in the back for 17 miles. The Admiral was not amused. They made it back to Coal Harbour at 19:45 with a full load of groceries and takeout Korean Fried Chicken and sushi we had ordered in Port Hardy.  

50-35.833’N, 127-34.943’W; Log = 24.0, Sum (2022) = 636.1 N-m; Eng hrs = 5.7, Sum = 3004.5