Over the Bar

Today was a trolling day. That means motoring along at around 3kts instead of 5. The day was also distinctive because there's a bar at the entrance to the inlet. And we're not talking sports bar. We went over it when the tide height was 17.4' and the depth sounder measured 18'. If we do a little math we get .6' x 12in/ft comes to 7" of depth at zero tide. To get out of here tomorrow the tide goes from 3.6' at 7:40 to 17.7' at 14:00. Mid-way is 10.6' at 10:50. That's close enough. Quijote's keel drops 6.3' below the waterline. The tide tables have charts that help with interpolating values of a sinusoid, but when I use them to get a more accurate answer for the exact time when the depth of the water exceeds the depth of the keel, I end up adding a fudge factor anyway, just for peace of mind. It's also comforting to know that if I do get my keel stuck in the mud, at least the tide will be rising so it won't take long to be lifted free. The bar appears to be made of gravel, so it's also nice to know that it won't do much damage to run aground.

Let's put all that aside for now and share the big news: Chuck pulled in a lingcod! That's the first fish caught in this trip. He was pretty excited. One of the take aways from the advice given to us by the dude that gave us the fish on Friday was that we were traveling too fast. Today we backed the throttle off to about 2.5-3.0 knots, instead of 4.5-5.0 and whatdoyaknow We caught one. Chuck caught one. We'll post a photo of the persistent predator in the blog as soon as we have cellular coverage or WiFi.

We have beef stew to look forward to for dinner tonight. It will be cooked in the pressure cooker using one of my instant pot recipes.