Kayaking day 3

We started out the day with heavy fog, just the way the previous day ended. I heard light drizzle on and off throughout the night. The first photo is at low tide. When we stopped the previous afternoon the water level was approximately the bottom of this image. We had breakfast; French toast with orange zest cut into the mix, back bacon which I have never heard of, it was all meat not the usual bacon, half meat half fat. Then we packed and started our day.

It was cloudy and foggy most of the morning until we turned the southwest corner on Nigei island when it started to clear. Once we made the turn all kinds of starfish, anemones and very large jelly fish started appearing.

We went on a bit further and stopped for lunch in what we now call eagle bay.

There were at least a dozen bald eagles in the bay. A lot of them were youngsters which had not turned white yet. This doesn’t happen until they are about 3 or 4 years old. We saw them taking flight from a tree on one side of the cove and land on a tree on the opposite side then return back again. All this under the watchful eyes of the parents.

The sun popped out as we were making the crossing to Vansittart island. Off in the distance you could see the mountains on the mainland of British Columbia.

You may wonder why I am referring to this island so much. As I mentioned in my last post it is one of the few islands with old growth forest. I was excited to hear this from one of my fellow kayakers. I read several books on the area so I would have an understanding of what happened. ‘The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed’ by John Vaillant is a good read on the history of the area talking about the 1st Nations peoples and how the Europeans moved in to start lumbering and how it took over. It still is a big part of the lives of the people in this area today.

After setting up our camp I wandered around the intertidal zone and up into a small forest. Here I came across a couple deer. They were as surprised to see me as I them. They didn’t run off, didn’t seem to be afraid. They finished munching on the grasses and wandered off looking back every few feet and taking another bite of the greenery. I’ve never been so close to wild deer!

After that we took an organized hike into the woods to hear about the forest. Some of these trees are 500 – 1000 years old; Sitka spruce, red cedar and hemlock. The trunks of some of these trees were 10’ in diameter. You can’t appreciate the size of them until someone is standing next to them. Most of them had the tops snapped off due to the fierce winds that hit the area in winter.
The night went between foggy and clear. We sat up for a while to watch the shooting stars, I also saw a few of the constellations I have not seen in a while because of living in the city. After all that I was off to bed. Fortunately I was told earlier that the deer are inquisitive and may visit during the night. I woke up during the night to light footfalls around my tent then I could hear sniffing just outside for a few seconds before the deer walked off. All in all a great day!

Thanks for stopping by.
Mark