With bated breath, Roy pulled up the crabnet first thing this morning. It contained a lot of seaweed, one teensy weensy crab that immediately jumped back into the water, and the plastic bag. Inside the bag, the bones had been picked completely clean; there wasn't the slightest morsel of fish on any of them! So much for our crab feast.
That was an appropriate start for what turned out to be a rather weird day.
The rain had stopped, the clouds parted, the water was smooth as glass, the sun was warm. We made excellent time and entered Hardy Bay a little after two. But we violated one of our cardinal rules: never enter a harbor without a good chart. All we had was a small-scale chart of the overall area and the sketch in "Charlie's Charts", but it was a clear, calm day and an open bay with few (we thought) hazards, so we took a chance. We knew there was a shoal near the upper end of the bay, marked by (we thought) two buoys. We felt so confident when we entered the bay that Roy had me pretend a floating log was him overboard. I was supposed to take the boat next to the log and stop. I made two passes, came close to the log and slowed down both times, but slamming on the brakes was another matter. The poor guy died of hypothermia before I could rescue him.
We saw the two buoys ahead. According to the sketch in "Charlie's Charts", we were to turn right after passing the second buoy, so that's what we started to do. (Roy was at the wheel by then, thank goodness.) The way ahead didn't look right. Fortunately, Roy glanced to the left and saw two more buoys! It turned out the shoal was marked by half a dozen buoys, and we were going between two of them, headed straight towards the shoal! We were in only 18 feet of water. Roy swung the boat to port real fast and got us back where we belonged.
We are now in a time crunch. There are only three weeks left of August, and we're still 540 crow-flying miles from Skagway. During the past three weeks, we came 520 miles through the water, but in terms of latitude changes, we only came 300 miles. We have to be on our way home by the end of August or risk getting caught in storms, so we decided the sensible thing to do was to leave Jofian at a marina in Port Hardy and take the ferry to Alaska. We could get to Skagway in a week on the ferry, spend a week sightseeing, and be back in Port Hardy by the end of August.
I radioed Quarterdeck Marina to see if they had a slip for us. They assigned us a slip for tonight but said they could only rent on a day-to-day basis; they couldn't assign us a slip for three weeks, so there went that plan. They told us to tie to "D" dock behind a white powerboat with blue curtains.
We eased slowly into the marina, saw "D" dock, and headed towards it, but it turned out there are two "D" docks here and we were headed towards the wrong one. So Roy had to hang a Uie. We could see a white, blue-curtained powerboat at what seemed to be the correct "D" dock, but we couldn't see a space behind it, and there didn't appear to be much space to maneuver in, so Roy decided to anchor outside the marina and Royak in to check out the situation. We saw three or four other boats anchored on the far side of the log boom, so we went over there and anchored in a mere seven feet of water.
Just as Roy was leaving, a guy in a dinghy came by and warned us the tide was going out and we'd soon be high and dry. Roy told him he'd be back in ten minutes to move the boat. Then Roy took off. So there I sat, all alone on Jofian, watching the minutes tick by and the depth drop. When Roy had been gone half an hour, we were in six feet of water, and I knew I should start the engine, raise the anchor, and move Jofian to deeper water. (Our draft is 5 1/2 feet.) But would Roy be angry if I moved the boat without his permission? Should I or shouldn't I? Yes, no. No, yes. While I vacillated, the tide continued its inexorable lowering. At 5.7 feet, I knew it was now or never, but just as I resolved to move the boat, I spotted Roy in the distance, so I waited for him. That was a major mistake. By the time Roy reached the boat, it was too late. He gunned the engine for all it was worth, but Jofian was fast in the mud. I had blown my golden opportunity to play the heroine and rescue Jofian from humiliation.
While we were eating lunch, the boat began listing to port. We decided we might as well take the laundry in in our Royaks, since it would be several hours before the tide turned and rose sufficiently to float the Jofian.
By the time we bagged the dirty clothes and got our Royaks in the water, Jofian was tilted 25 degrees to port and walking or even standing was a challenge. Roy took advantage of the unusual situation to scrub the exposed hull. He also took some interesting photographs.
Carried the laundry to the laundromat and strolled around a few blocks while it was washing and drying. This seems like a very nice little town.
The dryer with the towels and what-not in it didn't heat up; when I opened the door, everything was damp, so I transferred the stuff to another dryer and tried again. This time, it dried in a hurry. The attendant came in just as I was about to leave. When I told him what had happened, he refunded my $1.25 without hesitation.
It was ten o'clock when we got back to the Jofian, and her decks were again horizontal, so we moved to deep water and tied to the log boom.
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