We had a relaxing morning at Lopez and Bob took some time to teach Rob Meldrum a few tricks for flying his new drone. He is taking about 15 EYC club members up to Princess Louisa Inlet for the Commodore's Cruise and is excited to use his drone and GoPro camera to get some great video of their trip and of Chatterbox Falls.
We, along with our cruising partners Jack & Moon Canon and Al & Sue Smith, departed Fisherman's Bay about 9:45 in order to catch a +3 tide coming out of the bay. Many a boater has found themselves stranded until the tide comes in if they are not very careful to stay inside the channel markers and come through when the tide is high enough. We had no problems and began a very long trip up to Silva Bay. Along the way, we stopped at Van Isle to clear customs. That was a breeze - just a phone call, a couple of questions, and we were all on our way.
About 3:00pm we decided more food was in order so we enjoyed a snack of crackers, cheese and meat as we cruised along.
As we were approaching Silva Bay, we heard a May Day distress call to the Coast Guard for a boat taking on water. As we listened to ongoing conversations we learned that a whale watching tour boat with 22 people on board was taking on water and sinking. They were preparing people to go into life rafts. We heard another whale watching boat was enroute to take the people off. As we were pulling into Silva Bay, we saw the Vessel Assist boat depart at a high rate of speed with pumps and other rescue equipment onboard. As of right now, we do not know what the outcome was for the boat but we assume the people were rescued okay.
We finally arrived at Silva Bay around 5:00pm. We made great time and arrived early enough to get settled, have some time to visit, eat dinner and visit some more. Larry and Cheryl Martin arrived this morning from their own separate trip and will continue on with us from here. There are not a lot of amenities at Silva Bay but it is a very friendly and lovely marina. They do have fuel, a restaurant, a liquor store and a nice little gallery for local artists to sell their work.
A nice gentleman, Mark Hall, who also had a Nordic Tug joined us for awhile and was happy to take a picture of our entire group before we settled in for the night.
UPDATE ON WHALE WATCHING BOAT: Jack spoke with the Vessel Assist owner who also manages the Silva Bay marina. He told Jack that all the people were safely transferred onto the other whale watching boat. A jet pump had exploded and blown a basketball-sized hole in the hull. Vessel Assist had two 4” pumps and two 3” pumps and if they kept the boat moving (by towing it) the pumps could just barely keep up. If they stopped towing it, the boat started to sink again. They did manage to get the boat towed in to a port and salvage it and no one was injured.
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