Stopford Bay, Broughtons

Anchors up around 8am on this cloudy day. We were back over at the Echo Bay Marina dock about 20 minutes later. Yesterday, the harbor master let me dock for free. Today with all three of us, he said he was suppose to charge $10 for day dockage. Guess I got a good deal yesterday for being by myself… We hiked the trail that I hiked yesterday, but all the way around the bay this time. Saw a few things I missed yesterday. Chip (the marina dog), was with us again. Continuing on the hike around the bay, there is Echo Bay Marine Park. Mostly an open field with a playhouse, tree swing and outhouse. There was an old engine on the grounds. Got to see the top side of the beached boat hull I uploaded a photo of yesterday. The trail ended at Pierre’s floating cabin rentals dock ramp. Unable to go see the dock or rentals however, as the ramp was detached from the main dock. Coming back, Bill and I decided to cut across the tidal flat at the end of the bay, while Mike went back around on the trail. We left Echo Bay at 11am and headed towards the Broughton Archipelago marine park. Our route took us through Cramer Passage, Solitary Islet, and then into the Archipelago. We started with visiting Grebe Cove where there use to be a logging operation. There were still some logs and chains on the shore. After that we went down Arrow Passage and Spiller Passage, through the marine park.Alot of small islands and islets. Mike was already a ways behind us as he spent more time in Grebe Cove. Between Spiller Passage and Misty Passage, I split off from Bill, as I prefer to get to our end of day anchorage by 4:30p. I continued up Misty Passage, where I almost caught up with Mike, as he had gotten ahead of us when he turned back to the north before we did. But then he continued a different direction, putting him about a half hour back behind me. I continued on Old Passage, Indian Passage, and then rounded Broughton Island on Fife Sound, Raleigh Passage, Penphrase Passage, Sharp Pass and into Cyprus Harbour for Stopford Bay. Yes, there are a lot of different waterways in this area. Lol. Rounding the SE corner of Broughton Island, near Notice Pt, I came by what looked like a sunken float house. There have been a lot of commercial fishing boats out setting their prawn traps, and I saw one closer today, Interestingly, they don’t put a buoy on each one, but attach a long single line to the buoy, and then attach maybe a dozen prawn traps along that line. They also anchor out at night near their traps. We had one anchored in Kwatsi Bay near us the other night, and tonight we have one in another section of this harbor. There is also another boat in here with us, and I’m not sure if it’s a large trawler or a small fishing boat… The nights lately have been down in the upper 40’s and the afternoons finally reaching the low 60’s. Most the clouds today were gone by 2 or 3pm.Bill arrived here about an hour after Mike.Read more