As a rule, generally, we don’t say no when a fishing trip is offered but when a cousin offers to take you on his commercial fishing boat chasing lingcod there is no hesitation. Yes please, 100 times over even if it meant a 3am start to the day. Mother, brother, Aunty and husband all changed plans to make this special trip.
We met captain Barry as scheduled, some of us (perhaps only one of us) feeling less than cordial at the early start. Invited onboard, after a little shuffle of boats on the dock, we were greeted with enthusiasm with fresh coffee on the boil. Barry has been fishing the waters around Vancouver Island his whole life. This was his calling and he knew the channels by instinct. He guided his boat out of the Lady Smith harbour effortlessly chatting away to his guests. The sunrise greeted us with spectacular fashion.
We were chasing the slack tide change over on a passage between two islands, Galiano and Valdes. When we hit the spot it was all hands on rods. This was fishing unlike anything I have done before. You drop a heavily weighted lure off the side, reel it up a few winds off the bottom and then jig it up and down trying to catch the attention of the lazy fish below. Sadly, the only thing we caught was the bottom and, to Wayne’s dismay, a starfish! We didn’t care, it was a beautiful morning on a flat water with great company. We would happily take that tour again.
Barry had a deadline to get us back to dock for the next activity of the day and of course he had us there early. In an earlier blog, I spoke about cousin Mel, well her husband had lined up a real treat. He is a fair dinkum lumberjack who has spent much of his career heli-logging. This is where they drop the workers into to steep terrain by helicopter and collect them in the same fashion at the end of the shift. Well, he arranged for us to hitch a ride on the end of shift collection flight on a site behind Cowachan Lake. Spoiled much? I think so!
We met the pilot Adam on site, watched him take off to collect some workers and their equipment, in not time, had them back. We loaded in, flew towards some more workers who needed a lift, we were unloaded on the side of a mountain while he fetched the next crew up to us. Back in and headed to the airport where he would wait for the next shift end collection. It was a spectacular flight over the logging country down to Naniamo airport. Pinching ourselves that such an opportunity was provided us we headed back to Lady Smith where another boat was being prepared to take us out for another go at those lingcod. This time it was my favourite Uncle’s boat. Brother was going to just borrow but Uncle Gary couldn’t not come so with captain and gilligan on board we headed out again this time with Mel tagging along.
From sun up and to sun down we squeezed every minute into this day. The fish didn’t play for us on this outing either. It didn’t matter, we managed to get some Uncle Gary time who was in the middle of a health crisis with his beautiful wife. This time was precious and appreciated greatly. We zoomed past some ancestral homes on both of my parents sides on Saltspring Island and then back to port. Tired, spent, exhausted but happy. 19hrs of bliss 😊 I don’t recall my head hitting the pillow 😴
My Happy Travels 