Come On Up, the Fishing is Great!

Soon after leaving Cleveland Passage Anchorage we began seeing humpback whales. I thought I was looking at a boat off in the distance but 10 power binoculars revealed whale flukes. There were several different groups and none of them were close enough to photograph. Whales are awesome creatures like grizzlies are awesome creatures.

We planned to run about 23nm today to an anchorage that the Douglasses, who have written several cruising guides, say is an area that not many cruisers visit. It is called Sandborn Canal. It is quite well protected and beautiful. I don’t understand why more people don’t go there except it is a little out of the way if you are determined to make some distance.

The shrimp trap was set in about 365’ and we started looking around for a good fishing spot. The bottom is very irregular and the bottom finder was marking lots of fish. Ginger, who likes to keep track of all the different species of fish we catch, immediately began catching kelp greenling, male and female as well as buffalo head sculpins, big ones. We motored out to an underwater mount and found excellent fishing in 75 to 200 feet. We both caught our first yelloweye rockfish. They are beautiful, if rockfish can be beautiful.

After turning them all into fillets, we slipped into the canal to the end where there were commercial crab traps lining both sides of the canal. So, what do you do but set your own trap. Another deep anchorage but well protected. (N 57 degrees 16.096’ W 133 degrees 14.323’), 23nm/917nm.