Kayaking day 5

Woke to light rain. Helped put of a rain fly over the kitchen in case the rain gets worse. As we were waiting for breakfast and starting to pack we could hear a humpback whale blowing in the distance. Once we heard it everybody came down to look. We could see the spouts of mist from the whale but not any more than that. A couple blows later we saw the tail flip as it was going for a deep dive. One of the guides said we may not hear from it again for another 20 minutes.

Once we were packed up we took of towards the Browning Wall. This area was viewed by Jacques Cousteau and is known for its great diving. The wall goes down 700’ before it hits the bottom of the channel. We are here at low tide, a great time to view all the sea life on the wall. We saw hundreds of starfish and sea anemones of all different types.

From there we went back across the Goletas channel to follow along the Vancouver island coast. Just as we were getting ready to cross the channel a pod of transient orcas were passing through the channel. There must have been 3 – 4 orcas in the pod. We paddled up the island a bit and stopped for lunch on a small beach next to a small waterfall.

We continued on to our campsite on Vancouver island. Now we have to be alert for black bears because VI is large enough to support bears. All the other islands we had been staying on up to this point were too small to support large animals such as bears. When we got to our campsite there was a kayaker already set up. He was more than happy to have company because he had to scare a couple black bears off the beach before he could set up camp. I’m sure we made more than enough noise to keep the bears away.

This was the first time we actually camped on the beach. One had to make certain to move all the round stones from under one’s tent/sleeping bag. Fortunately most of the stones were flat so I did have a comfortable night’s sleep.

The trip up to this point has been great, tomorrow we are heading back to the real world?!?!

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark

British Columbia - Vancouver Island geography

Being a map nut from way back I don't know why I didn't include this at the start of the trip. I'm including a couple maps starting with the northwestern corner of the US and British Columbia getting more detailed with each map. Enjoy.

My thanks to Google Earth for their maps. Vancouver Island itself is over 200 miles in length.

Here you can see the overall locations of our lunch sites and camp sites. I grouped the days by color.

I've included our path for the trip. We took a water taxi to Hurst Island and started paddling from there. We circumnavigated Nigei Island going clockwise. We finished our trip at Port Hardy the launching point.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Kayaking day 4

The little light went on in my head today, I hadn’t included a map of the area we covered so this location is a mystery to you. Well better late than never. We actually started off in Port Hardy with a water taxi ride to Hurst island where we staged to kayaks and on to our trip.

We were told yesterday this would be our longest day on the water, somewhere around 12 nautical miles, almost 13 statute miles. Kara kept track of the details for us and it turned out it took us between 4 and 4.5 hours to cover that distance. It certainly helped having the current and wind going with us for a change!

The day started out and stayed mostly clear. During the morning there was wispy fog blowing through the trees. This was neat to see because we don’t have much fog in the desert. Once we got around to the Northeast side of the Nigei island we had the wind and current to our backs. One really needs to pay attention to what is going on when exposed to the open sea. We had 3’ swells which were going in our direction. It felt a little like the kiddie roller coaster where you are up high on the swell for a few seconds see all around you, then down to the bottom where all you can see are the swells immediately around you. Kind of like a Disney ‘C’ ticket ride. (For those of you folks that remember such things) Terry kept directing us when to stay close to shore away from the fast currents and when to go out because of the rocks just under the surface. I just kept in his tracks, or tried to since I was in command of the rudder on this day. While we are still quite far from any towns this side of Nigei island faces the Queen Charlotte Strait one of the main channels for the cruise ships going to and from Alaska and the BC ferries going from city to city.

We stopped in a little inlet to stretch our legs and lunch; fruit, Greek salad and dessert. The tide was going out by this time so we had to walk our kayaks out past shallow rocks to deeper spots in order to paddle off. At this point we stayed in the quieter water between the smaller islands for much calmer water.

We came to Bob’s Landing on Balaklava island to camp for the night. There was a very small island between the camp site and us which formed a funnel for the water, you could actually see rapids from the velocity of the water flowing through the channel! Bob’s Landing was a former logging site so we had a large area of open grass to pitch our tents. Bob’s Landing is the first site we had to share with other kayakers. Up to this point we only ran into a total of 10 or so people the entire trip. After setting up I wandered up one of the trails to an area logged sometime ago. There were lots of tree stumps still lying around but also lots of small seedling coming up. Several others got back to their hot game of Uno. I don’t know who was winning but there was a lot of Uno trash talking the next day. By the time evening came it was windy and very cool. We all put on our wind/rain gear and the heavier fleece clothing because of the wind. I managed to stay up late enough to join the Bioluminescence Club. In order to join you have to stay up late enough for it to get dark enough to see the sea animals and plankton light up when being disturbed by throwing rocks into the water or stirring the water with a stick. Sorry no photos. During the middle of the night I pulled a couple extra layers on top of my sleeping bag because of the cool and damp.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

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

Kayaking day 2

The day started out clear in our little inlet but there was heavy fog in the Goletas channel where we did most of our paddling for the day. Looking at these two images you can see how far we had to move the kayaks because of the difference in the tide. (I don't remember reading that in the travel brochure) :-) You can also see the challenge of fitting all our gear back into the kaykas, we knew it had to fit since it fit the first day!

Even though Vancouver Island is only a mile or so across the channel we did not see it all day. We felt we were on a great adventure not seeing any land other than the island (Nigei Island) on which we were camping. We paddled against a stiff current and breeze most of the day. I took my turn at paddling from the back of the boat. I had to quickly learn how to turn with the rudder. This is fairly easy once I got the hang of it. It was harder getting my feet into the stirrups used to control the rudder than actually controlling the rudder.

We made it to our next camping spot in the early afternoon allowing us to set up camp then go down the island a half mile or so to explore the beach. You can see a few of the finds along the beach. On Kara's pinkie finger you can see the shell of a sea urchin.

It had turned nice by that time although the low fog remained. We saw many tide pools with crabs and sea anemones. Bald eagles seem to be all over the place. What started out as ‘LOOK THERE’S A BALD EAGLE!!!” turned into ‘There’s another bald eagle’ by the end of the trip, still a sight to behold.

By the time we were finished touring the beach we returned to our campsite just in time to watch the fog roll in. It was a heavy mist for the rest of the night with occasional drizzle. I don’t think we could see much more than 1/10 of a mile for most of the night. Kara and Sara with some help form Terry made our meal that evening. We just had to make do with our teriyaki chicken, cashew rice, broccoli, fruit salad and carrot cake. Once we finished eating Kara, our lead guide, laid out the trip for the next day. On to Vansittart island, one of the very few islands with remaining old growth forest.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Kayaking day 1 continued

As I looked through my photos I thought the first ones I posted would not do the trip justice. I am still considering the Flicker thing I’ve just been too busy to do it.

We camped at Port Alexander. There is a short trail over to another small port which goes through a dense forest. This area of Vancouver Island is considered a rain forest so the smells in this forest are a wonderful earthy smell. You just don’t get that smell in New Mexico. One of our guides took us on the trail, she pointed out more plants, mosses and mushrooms than I knew existed. What would be a normal 20 minute walk oblivious to all the life in the forest turned into a 1 hour educational trip. Here you can see Chicken of the Woods mushrooms. This was one of many of our finds.

We had to move our camp site off the beach and into the forest because of the 15’ difference in elevation between low and high tide. We also moved our kayaks on to the driftwood so they would not float away during the high tide. We set up our tents on the forest floor. The mosses are so soft you almost don’t need a mattress to sleep on. I did use one to protect me from the occasional stick snuck under my tent during the night :-)

I thought I'd include a photo of what a not-so-well dresses kayaker wears these days. It did keep me warm and dry though!

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Vacation is good!

Hi all,

I’m made it back from my kayaking vacation. I can’t wait to go again! Had a great time. There were a total of 15 people including 3 guides. We were gone a total of 6 days and 5 nights changing locations each night. We were on the north end of Vancouver Island paddling the ‘Wilderness Islands Tour’ with Sea Kayak Adventures through God’s Pocket Marine Provincial Park in British Columbia. I plan to include links for each of the tour operators as the photos appear.

I have included some of my images from the 1st day of the kayaking trip. I have many more images to include but will send them out as I edit them. Along with the kayaking trip I did an Orca day trip and a Grizzly bear day trip. The day between I drove to San Josef Bay in the Cape Scott Provincial Park. In addition I stayed one night in Vancouver walking around Stanley Park. Each of these different trips will be a separate posting. (I have to make this last as long as possible.)


Enjoy the images

Here we are stacking all the stuff; food, water, kitchen utensils, personal stuff and wine to put into the kayaks.

Here's our transportation for the next 6 days. We used double kayaks so we had more room for packing than single kayaks.

The beach for our first lunch,

One of the areas we paddled through,

The evening view from our first campsite,

and the same view the next morning!

Overall the weather was great. We had fog a few days, a little light rain mainly at night and a few partly cloudy to sunny days. Temperatures were quite comfortable; mid 60's during the day and 50's at night.

Thank you for stopping by

Mark

Anticipation

Hi all. It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog. I’ve been busy working for Sue, my wife, she’s a big Michael Jackson fan so I have been hanging around Ebay trying to find a couple of his books at a reasonable price. I can find the books, the reasonable price part is harder to come by. I did manage to pick up ‘Dancing the Dream’ and I’m now looking for ‘Moon Walk’, his biography. There seems to be hundreds out there but there must be thousands of people bidding. You certainly wouldn’t think the economy was bad by the amount of $$ going out for these books!

I’ve also been getting ready for my trip. For those people new to this blog I’m going on a kayaking trip in British Columbia in a few weeks. When I made the original reservations in early April it was so far off in the future I was excited about the trip but now I’M EXCITED ABOUT THE TRIP!!!

Believe it or not I actually got out the manual for my camera and I am studying it! Hard to believe a guy would do such a thing isn’t it. I knew most of the stuff already but a friendly reminder cannot hurt. I also picked up a 100% waterproof camera case for my expensive point and shoot camera. A $60 investment to save a camera sounds like a good way to spend money. It’s supposed to go down to a 30’ depth. I don’t plan on testing out those specifications; the water is cold up there, about 50 or so! My hope it to keep the camera close so when I see something it is ready to go. I loaded up on memory cards and batteries for my camera so I should be ready. I picked up the case from Amazon but you can go to the manufacturer’s website by going to http://www.dicapac.com I hope to have a lot of photos for you to see.

I’ve also received an email from the woman that owns the shop that’s adopting out my bears. You can see some of them at ToonaRoona This may become a good news/bad news thing. It’s good that I adopt out some bears but now I get to make some bears to replace them. I’m hoping to get some great photos of other animals on my trip to use as models for needle felting.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mark

Happy July

Happy 6th of July! We made it through the holiday without any mishaps. The local paper had an article about people shooting their guns in the air and other people dying when the bullet came back down fatally hitting them. So we decided to stay in the house.

I’ve included a few early July photos of the front yard. A lot of the yarrow is blooming. They start out as red then move on to light pinks and whites.

The Echinacea is blooming.

The scutellaria is also coming in.

Over the next few weeks I will have to go out and deadhead the catmint so they start coming in again. It’s a fair amount of work but it still beats mowing the lawn!

My blackberries did well. I picked about 12 quarts of berries. I could have had a lot more but I would have had to stand guard 24 hours a day to keep the robins away. I think they got more berries than I did.

I did an inventory of all the stuff I need for my Canada trip. Just a few more items to pick up and I should be ready. I’m sure I’ll be running around on the eve of my trip picking up the last item. I do have my passport though.

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark