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.