August 5, 2013 ~ Sullivan Bay to Turnbull Cove

Last night “the girls” put in an order for cinnamon rolls at the store.  They’re baked fresh early each morning by the lady who lives next to the seaplane dock.  We had them for breakfast this morning, and they were delicious. She only has a certain number of pans, so there usually aren’t many available beyond those special ordered.

We still had our two crabs in the crab hotel, so we cleaned and cooked those as preparation for getting underway.  They will definitely be enjoyed soon.  Now, checkout time here is 12:00 noon, and sure enough I checked us out at the store right at noon.  That means I paid our bill – I think it was after 3 o’clock in the afternoon before we got underway.

Rebecca came over to the boat to visit in the morning, and we all ended up over at their boat early this afternoon as well.  They have decided to stay on an extra day before beginning their trip south.  I don’t remember the exact day, but I know Rebecca has to be back at work the morning after their return flight to California.

I did a few “pre-departure” chores such as filling the water tank, switching the electrical system back to batteries and inverter and getting the navigation stuff fired up.  While gathering up the shore power cable I ran into a bit of a problem.  It was laid between the planks of the dock where it crossed over to the power stanchion, and the weather has been so nice lately that the boards had expanded enough that I couldn’t pull it out – at least not without doing damage to it.  I got on the VHF radio, called Sullivan Bay and requested a crowbar at dock 4.  Joe, the young Australian helper, soon showed up with crowbar in hand.

The wind had picked up a bit, and John was there to help us get away from the dock if needed.  We backed out and headed out towards Dunsany Passage, between Kinnaird Island and the mainland.  As we crossed Patrick Passage one of the local fishing boats came chasing after us, slowed along side, and there was Rebecca on board, taking our picture with her Ipad.  They continued on ahead of us into Grappler Sound, where they were apparently headed to do some fishing.  We continued on at our leisurely pace just above idle, and as we cleared Dunsany, we saw Hopetown Passage off to the right.  This is one of the places that Erin had learned from Rebecca was good for shell collecting, but it was just about high tide, so today wasn’t the day for that.

We continued on into Grappler Sound, passing Rebecca and friends again.  We cruised alongside and got our picture taken with all our faces hanging out.  Maybe some of those photos will be in the email at a future date and I can include them.

We had a course plotted for Turnbull Cove, with a short side trip up to Roaring Hole Rapids to see if there was any excitement going on there.  This can be quite a waterfall here at times as the water from Nepah Lagoon exits over a very shallow and narrow passageway  Although the tide was now falling, it hadn’t fallen that much yet, and even the low tide for later that evening was at a plus 7 feet, so today wasn’t the day to see the rapids churning.  We looped around and headed for the entrance to Turnbull Cove.  We had been there just once before, and that was aboard Trav & Barb’s boat six years ago when we joined them for a daytrip into McKenzie Sound.

We entered Turnbull Cove and decided we would anchor here for the evening – after all we had already cruised for a little over 8 miles.  We circled around the perimeter, passing behind most of the boats already at anchor.  They were all spaced out a good distance from each other – the bay is a pretty good size, with some deeper water in the middle.  After almost a full circle we chose an area near the entrance along the east side for our anchorage.

This evening we all played Mexican Train, a dominoes game.  Then it was time to turn out the lights to see if there were any stars visible.  Oh boy – the sky was full of stars and we could see the haze of the Milky Way as well.   We noted several satellites as they passed overhead – one was especially bright and we speculated that it may have been the International Space Station.  We also saw a few shooting stars, always a treat.  The entire scene was just awesome, and it speaks to how huge the universe is and how small we are more than any words could describe.