December 30th - Saanich Inlet (#54)

Monica, Jenny, Claire and I went for day of prawning and eating! We dropped our traps in the usual areas and then went over to Mill Bay to have lunch at Bridgeman's Bistro. While there we also met Cheryl who we had not seen for some time. After lunch we made our way back to pull all the traps and came home with just over 150 prawns. The weather was beautiful - sunny and not windy - and we all had a nice day out together.

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26 km.
Engine hours: TBD

December 28th - Saanich Inlet (#53)

Martin and I went for a day of prawning with a bit of crabbing and fishing for flounder while waiting for the prawn traps to "soak". The crabbing and flounder fishing was not very productive - undersized Dungeness or red rock crabs and no flounder. Most of our traps had no prawns but one trap made up for that a bit by having around 100! It was quite windy during the pulling.

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31 km.
Engine hours:317 P&S

October 9th - Sooke fishing (#52)

Kyle, Eric, Sarah and I went for a coho fishing trip off Sooke. It was Sarah and Eric's first time out saltwater salmon fishing and we managed to bring two nice fish in. We spent most of our time off Otter Point. Nice conditions and a good day out on the water!

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33 km

September 17th - Sooke (#51)

Kyle, Ian and I went for a morning fishing trip out to Sooke as we had heard good reports. Though the rain was at times hard, there was no wind, so Natural C-lection was pretty comfy. We wished for 3 hours and only had one bite which happened to be a hatchery coho. We saw a few others caught, but not that many.

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20 km.

July 14-17 - Puget Sound (#50)

I did a solo trip down to Puget sound to get a sense of how easy it was to cover a good distance and to check out a few places. I cleared US customs in Port Townsend by prior arrangement which was simple and straightforward. I then spent a few hours at the Pygmy boats kayak shop and chatting with John Lockwood.

The Port Townsend area - click to enlarge

I stayed at Shilshole Bay marina in Seattle which was huge (1400+ slips) but well equipped. I was able to take advantage of good pubs in Ballard and did some shopping. I went for a day trip to Blake Island State Park which is a a nicely set up marine state park in Seattle's back yard.

exploring the Seattle area -click to enlarge

The crossing of the strait was relatively easy both ways. On the way out I saw humpbacks twice as well as porpoises. Nothing on the way back. The only lumpy water i experienced was around point Wilson where the currents made for confused seas. The crossing to Port Townsend takes about 1.5 to 2 hours.

The overall trip - click to enlarge

Martin helped me to launch and retrieve Natural C-lection at the beginning and end of the trip in the most efficient manner. He drove the truck back home after launching while I went by water to the mooring. On the way back we did the reverse. It was very easy to launch and retrieve with someone in the boat while doing so. I also cleared Canada Customs by phone in Cadboro Bay which was nice and easy as i have now done it several times.

Launching and retrieving and clearing customs - click to enlarge

285 km and approx 210 l of gas.

May 20-23 - Pender and San Juan Islands (#49)

Monica and I took the boat up to Pender where we joined Jack and Mary at Ainslie Point Cottage for the weekend..We did ssome successful crabbing in Bedwell Harbour, a trip around South Pender and a day trip to Friday Harbor. A full tank took us 105 km...(loaded with either gear or people).

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179 km

May 8th - Saanich Inlet (#48)

Monica and I went for a day of prawning in Saanich inlet, combined with lunch at Bridgeman's Bistro. The prawning was better that the last two times with about 80 prawns total. 4 traps had no prawns...

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29 km

May 5th - Oak Bay and Border Bank (#47)

Martin and I went for a fishing trip on the Oak bay flats. We did a bunch of trolling, dropped a crab trap, and went to the border to try for halibut. The halibut fishing was unsuccessful, the trolling netted us one small chinook, but thew crab trap gave us 7 nice male Dungeness crab!

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53 km.

November 22nd - Saanich Inlet (#46)

Martin and I went out for a day of prawning and fishing in Saanich inlet. We dropped off the traps and then went an tried our hand for sole in Pat Bay. We caught a few nice little sole and then went back to pull our traps. Very few prawns, even though the traps were in the same locations as in previous years. But a nice day on the water...

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32 km

Sept 4th - Mill Bay (#45)

Monica and I went out into Saanich Inlet for a day of prawning. We dropped our traps off in the usual places and then went over to Mill Bay to have lunch at Bridgeman's bistro. After a nice lunch we went over to Brentwood College School to visit Cheryl.We had fun with the seals who had taken over the BCS docks! A beautiful day out, but very few prawns. One of the other fishers we spoke to said it had been poor as well...

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26 km

July 30 to August 2nd - Clayoquot Sound (#44)

Peter, Graeme and I went to Clayoquot Sound for 3 nights. We were trying for our annual flyfishing for coho but had very little success - 2 coho in 3 days! The three of us were able to camp and live on board without too much trouble as well as fish. I modified the bimini so that it can easily be raised out of the way when fishing and the new set up works well. We decided to go and visit Kyle in Hot Springs Cove so we made our way around Flores Island and spent a wonderful our in the springs - all to ourselves! We also got to check out Kyle's property. I was happy with how everything worked on board, and the camping was good - nice weather - but the coho fishing was disappointing.

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229 km, 172 l, 1.33 km/l or 3.13 mpg (port engine 272 hrs, starboard 274 hrs)

July 24-28 - Ladysmith and northern gulf Islands (#43)

Monica and I went up to Ladysmith to participate in the C-dory gathering there. We had a great time getting together with other C-dory owners and then went over to Pirates Cove for Sunday lunch and then Silva Bay for Sunday night. We then made our way down to princess Cove on Wallace for Monday night, exploring the cliffs of Valdez on the way. When we left Ladysmith there was a very darl cloud behind us over Vancouver Island. The heavy rains in Victoria and area missed us!
I was able to test the Torqueedo and the Kaboat, both of which worked well. The key for using the Torqueedo is to keep the power to under 150 Watts and then one has plenty of range and a reasonable speed. The Pelican 45 quart cooler works very well as a food cooler.

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the kaboat track around Wallace - click to enlarge

232 km,

July 18-20 - Quatsino Sound (#42)

Kyle and I went up to Quatsino Sound for some Chinook fishing and stayed in Robson Cove in Koprino Harbour. We made several trips to Kains Island, offshore and also to Cliffe Point looking for fish. The first 3 days of fishing were hard, with just a few mostly small fish being landed. However, on our last night we lucked out at Cliffe Point were we had 3 double headers of 15-20 lb Chinook and several more singles. We spent a lot of time on the water and had to go into Winter harbour twice to get gas!

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376 km, 319 L so 1.2km/L average (2.8 mpg)

May 15-18 - San Juans (#41)

Monica, Jenny and I took Natural C-lection over to Friday Harbor for the annual c-brat get together. We joined up with 43 other boats for a couple of days of meeting old friends, making new ones, look at boat mods etc. A great pot luck was had on Saturday evening! There were 9 Canadian C-dories present which was a record for this event. On the Saturday, I went to the swap meet, checked out West marine, and then the three of us walked over to the Friday Harbour Marine labs where they were having an open house.
After Friday Harbor, we made our way around the South and East of Orcas and had a nice lunch an a walk on Clark Island before making our way to Shallow Bay on Sucia, where we met up with 8 other c-brats. We had a nice happy hour together with the others aboard Sam's Safe Harbour (37 footer!).
We had several good porpoise sightings on our way back home.
We used the West Marine Scamper II as our "tender"/dinghy and it worked quite well.

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trip length 151 km - not sure how much gas I used yet!

March 1st - Coyote Bank (#40)

Dan, Jon and I went for a Halibut fishing trip to Coyote/border bank. The forecast was good, with little wind. We basically headed due south from Oak Bay after dropping our crab taps and spent the morning bouncing the bottom in search of a halibut bit. No nibbles! But a great morning on the water, with the boat and gear working well. I think we were as close as 200 m from the border at times!
On our way back we were happy to discover that several nice legal male dungeness crabs had found our traps, so we came home with 10 good crabs.

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41 km

Feb 14th - Haro Strait (#39)

Monica and I went out south of Discovery Island to try for Halibut. We tried anchoring in two different spots, but only managed to catch some dogfish! Conditions were good and it was good to show Monica how the boat operates for hali fishing. Anchor retrieval worked well.

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35 km

February 1st - Haro Strait (#38)

Danny and Kyle went in Danny's lifetimer and Pete and I were in Natural C-lection for a halibut fishing trip out in Haro Strait. We initially headed for the border, but conditions were a bit rough, so we ended up anchoring a few miles off ten mile point. All my anchoring gear and tackle worked well but no bites for either boat... maybe next time!

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33 km

December 30th - Mill Bay (#37)

Claire, Laura and I went for a day of prawning in Saanich Inlet. We launched frpm Tsartlip ramp mid morning and dropped most of the traps between 11 and noon. After putting the traps down, we went over to Millbay where we had a nice, relaxed, lunch at Bridgemans Bistro. We started pulling the traps up around 2 PM and were back at Tsartlip Ramp by around 3:30 with around 240 nice prawns! We averaged about 30 prawns per trap using fish carcasses as bait in the 3 hour set. The tide was quite low, so it was a challenge getting the boat back on the trailer. Managed to snap the winch strap! The last foot or so of the strap gets degraded by sunlight over time. The day was cold but clear and sunny with great views of Mt Baker. Inside the cabin of Natural C-lection it was plenty warm enough even without the heater. I nice way to finish off the year of boating!

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26 km.

October 4&5 - Pedder Bay (#s 35 & 36)

Jack and I went for two magnificent days of fall coho fishing out of Pedder Bay. Conditions were calm both days and the fishing was decent. We came home with 3 coho on Saturday and 4 on Sunday. On Saturday we also had a view of a humpback cruising through the area!
You can see that we came pretty close to the US border, though we just stayed on the Canadian side!
Some of the ocean-going freighters put up a sizable wake...
The boat worked well and I love the autopilot.

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92 km

September 29th - Mill Bay (#34)

Pete, Graeme and I went for a day's prawning in Saanich inlet. I decided to try dropping some pots in Brentwood Bay and had some success there. No success in Coles bay and some success off Ardmore. 200 prawns overall in about 3 hours fishing. One trap had nothing in it and another had nothing but squat lobsters - about 15-20 feet deeper than the others...We went over to Mill Bay for lunch and had a nice meal at Bridgeman's Bistro. After lunch we tried bucktailing and trolling a spoon in the hope of coho off Cherry point, but no luck. Conditions were wonderful all day! We had fun checking out the big sea lions on the buoy in the middle of Pat Bay.

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42 km