We anchored at Bull Harbour, which is on Hope Island at the northern end of Vancouver Island. I suspect the island was named as such because the mariners who named her were hoping for good weather to make a safe passage around Cape Scott the following day. (We were too.) The harbor was named as such because way back when it was full of bull seals. Not so today. We saw nary a one.
But what we DID see was millions and millions of jellyfish late in the afternoon swirling and surrounding our boat. They were fascinating to watch, what with all of their twirling and swirling, and their sheer numbers! It was like being in a thick soup of wiggling, writhing translucent sea creatures. (Thank God we hadn't tried to go swimming!) I took several videos of them that I hope to share with you after we return home. Quite an amazing sight, I assure you.
Later that evening we played some Scrabble and then turned to our respective books to do a little reading before bedtime. After a bit of reading, we both realized something was thumping on our hull. It wasn't real hard knocking, not terribly insistent, but just a bit timid. I thought perhaps one of the people from the neighboring boats was tentatively rapping on our hull to get our attention, but we couldn't see anyone out there. It stopped for a bit, several seconds or so but less than a minute, and then started again. How odd!
Brad threw on some shoes, turned on the foredeck lights, and wandered topside in search of the mysterious source of the thumping. Nothing. He came back to the stern and knelt on the swim platform, looking through the water at the rudder. Nothing amiss there that he could see.
I said, tongue in cheek, "Maybe the jellyfish are knocking. Trying to get us to come out and play? Or maybe they are trying to crawl up the side of the boat to colonize some new territory and they keep falling off and thumping as they fall???"
Perhaps I shouldn't have verbalized this thought because we both started thinking of the possibility of sinister intentions of unbeknownst sea monsters lurking below us, just waiting to "get us". (Kind of like telling ghost stories to each other when you are a kid.)
Brad said, "I'll start the engine and go forward and backward a bit to scare off whatever is doing it." I didn't like that idea and talked him out of it as I feared we might foul our prop on whatever was underndeath us.
I thought the sound had something to do with our steering linkage but as yet I couldn't prove it. Since our boat had drifted right over our anchor, (it was dead calm outside), we thought perhaps the anchor rode had wrapped itself around the rudder somehow, (either that or the sea monsters were trying to crawl up our anchor rode.) So Brad pulled up about 30 feet of rode but clearly it wasn't wrapped around the rudder. However, while he was up at the bow pulling on the rode, I was at the stern and noticed that the thumping sound was becoming more rhythmic. I asked Brad, "Did you center the wheel before turning everything off after we got here?" Through the window, I could see the wheel turning ever so slightly. Just as Brad was answering me, the autopilot started beeping and it displayed "PT". Ah! The dastardly culprit had at last revealed itself! Brad had forgotten to turn off the autopilot and our helpful buddy "Auto" was just trying to steer us ineffectually to parts unknown! Whew! The sea monsters were NOT out to get us after all. We had a hearty laugh at ourselves and went to bed.
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