I had one of the most stressful passages ever on Friday night. Donna and I left Blaine at about 7:30 pm heading down to Bellingham. We had hoped that the winds that had come up would blow some of the smoke away.
We all know that it normally slows you down to travel at night during crabbing season, but what utterly fouled it up was that the smoke not only wiped out every bit of moonlight but also made using the spotlight absolutely impossible. Visibility was very nearly zero in many places, and turning on the spotlight only resulted in complete blindness.
And so we spent the whole time with both of us straining our eyes into the darkness, never daring to look away because the damned crab pots are everywhere. I had one hand on the gear lever and the other on the throttle, ready to do a crash stop if we ran into a buoy...the visibility was so poor most of the time that there wasn't time to steer to avoid the damned things. The AIS and radar helped a lot with the tugs and larger fishing boats, but...well, it was an exhausting, nerve-wracking experience. Donna had been planning to make us a late supper while underway, but we needed her eyes as well so no joy there. When we finally tied up at Squalicum at 1 am we were utterly wiped out.
We spent last night at Sucia but it was dreary and depressing. The smoke was so thick that the sun was completely invisible...just a dull apocalyptic glow from overhead. Ick.