Lowe Inlet

Yesterday was a long cruise in our push toward Prince Rupert, our last stop in British Columbia. We ended the day anchored in Lowe Inlet, another beautiful anchorage. Late in the evening 9 fishing boats came in and anchored around us, and left early in the morning.

On our way, we were accompanied for a good part of the trip by 3 Canadian Navy vessels obviously on training runs. They ran next to us, crossed in front of us, generally seemed to be trying things out.

Crossing in front of us to catch up to their sister ship

Once we were anchored, Larry was determined to get some crab. We have heard that a good location is in front of areas with fresh water outlet, like in front of this waterfall at the head of the inlet, so that’s where he dropped the pot.

At very high tides, this waterfall almost disappears and one could get caught on the other side, so there are warning signs to boats about entering.

This morning, he was rewarded! 6 Dungeness crabs in the trap – 4 females which get returned to the water to keep producing more crabs, and 2 good size males which we will happily eat. They were quite fiesty – the one Larry is holding had his claw ripped off by other other one while they were floating around.

Larry has learned the hard way how to hold them so they don’t clamp down on his fingers.

See the first crab’s claw next to this guy.

The cleaning station is one the back of the boat (in the cockpit). Larry very quickly cleaves the crab in half and removes the guts, then we store the two halves on ice until we are ready to cook and eat.