the next set of audio diaries…
05.29.2008
05.30.2008
05.31.2008
06.01.2008
06.02.2008
06.05.2008
06.06.2008
06.07.2008
Archive for the 'may' Category
5/31, day 18, 15 mi, 226 mi total
woke up this morning to clear blue skies and all the landforms that were shades of grey yesterday revealed themselves to be green forests and rocky mountains topped with bright white snow. when we started this trip, we could see the cascade and olympic mountains, maybe 100 miles in the distance. coming up the straight of georgia, it was the coast range maybe 30 miles away. now the snow is less than 5 miles back from the shore we’re paddling.
conditions today were about as ideal a day as i could ask for. the winds were calm, the scenery stunning, the sun warm and the breeze on the water cool… i would have liked to paddle all day. but by early afternoon we had run into stuart island which constricts the channel into a series of rapids that can only be traversed at slack, so we headed up bute inlet a few miles to the nearest campsite. it’s not much of a campsite – we leveled out an area of rocks (and not pebbles, mostly fist-sized) to pitch the tent at the top of the beach. there’s a river full of snowmelt rushing into the sea about 50 feet away so i tried to get that swim i’ve been craving but chickened out when i waded in and it was SO cold. settled for a refreshing rinse in the river and did a little gear laundry as well… fresh water seems like such a luxury.
i’m feeling that kind of tired that you can only feel after having the sun beat down on you all day, so i’m off to bed.
teakerne arm
5/30, day 17, 15 mi, 211 mi total
we got our last look at the straight of georgia as we paddled away from camp this morning and headed into the maze of islands and channels that fill the space between vancouver island and the mainland between the straight of georgia to the south and queen charlotte straight to the north. the mountains are closing in on the shoreline, too, so it’s definitely a different feel.
didn’t make it too far into the maze today, but took a good sidetrip up teakerne arm a few miles. we were enticed to detour for the waterfall by glowing descriptions in our guidebooks and as promised, it was beautiful. it’s also supposed to be great for swimming as the falls and the lake it falls out of are warmish… capt vancouver and his crew spent a couple of weeks anchored in the cove and menzies, the botanist, wrote, “they rowed over to the falls every day and used it more or less like a resort.” i liked the idea of that but we were chilly all suited up so couldn’t be tempted to jump in. i was disappointed, though; realized we’ve been out over two weeks and on the water every day and haven’t had a swim yet. i’ve been awfully tempted on a few of the sunny days but i can’t quite get over that fear of itchy dried salt when i know there’s no fresh water source to rinse off in…
by the way, the book i’m reading has a little history mixed in and i’m a sucker for the timelessness of place… i promise to stop with the capt vancouver quotes, though. soon.
5/29, day 16, 11 mi, 196 mi total
lost. the mail came in about noon today but there was no package for me in it. i was disappointed, but there’s no way i wanted to sit around town for another day so we left forwarding instructions with the very friendly postmistress and pushed off. at least i’m confident that if it makes it as far as lund it will make it to alert bay.
paddled across the mouth of desolation sound just before camping this afternoon. when capt vancouver was charting this area, he wrote “… presenting as gloomy and dismal an aspect as nature could well be supposed to exhibit. our residence here was truly forlorn…” and gave it the name desolation sound. it’s known as one of the best kayaking areas, but it’s a dead end so not on our route. makes me envy the cruisers who can take side trips to explore all the little places along the way.
the next set of audio diaries…
05.24.2008
05.25.2008
05.26.2008
05.27.2008
05.28.2008
5/28, day 15, 8 mi, 185 mi total
literally. we’re in lund, bc, the northern terminus of hwy 101 that runs the entire west coast of north america.
a nearly ideal resupply stop for a trip like this… we pulled up on shore next to the docks this morning and within about 100m found (in order) the bakery, post office, laundromat, payphone, general store, public showers, kayaking outfitter, and pub. we’re camping for free tonight in a park that was about 1/4 mile walk up the road.
we were planning to paddle a few miles out yet this afternoon so that we could camp in the copelands islands park that we’ve heard is amazing but… we were also hoping to meet up here with the replacement for the digital camera i killed. and since the weather has been so good, we’re ahead of schedule and ahead of the camera. so we’re crossing our fingers that it arrives tomorrow. if not, we’ll carry on and hope it catches up with us by our next stop in alert bay. those things never work out as simply as it seems they should, though, so i’m really hoping customs isn’t holding it hostage and it arrives tomorrow.
grey seal, grey rock, grey morning
5/27, day 14, 12 mi, 177 mi total
cloudy and calm this morning… good paddling. found myself staring at the shades of grey in the smooth water, decided “inky” was the best description for it.
i’m finding myself settling into the rhythm of this trip, and it’s different than prior trips. today is a perfect example… it’s a nice day and we could have paddled all day to reach lund, but then we would have been beat and trying to navigate a new town. normally, i wouldn’t be able to resist the pull. instead, we called it a short day and set up camp on harwood island where we had nothing better to do than nap and read and generally relax.
while dean went to fill water yesterday afternoon, i sat with the kayak and watched the endless parade of little sand crabs following the tide out. scurrying sideways, occasionally bumping into one another and flexing their little pincers until they got untangled, then scurrying away sideways…
played in some little tidepools when we stopped for a snack break this morning, watching the little barnacles and clams and anemones feeding… the 8 yr-old in dean couldn’t resist seeing what would happen if you put a sand crab in a little anemone.
little things that don’t seem worth mentioning, but they fill our days.
on the beach in gillies bay
5/26, day 13, 24 mi, 165 mi total
on stuart island last week, dean and i were talking about the things we were looking forward to on this trip… one of mine was days when we could just paddle, without worrying about crossings or currents or ferries… just paddle. today was one of the first days like that, and it was good. about a mile out of camp, we reached texada island and just followed it’s shore northwest all day. the stiff breeze pushing us along all day didn’t hurt either… we can usually make about 3 mph but this afternoon we averaged 5 and that included the time we spent paddling into the waves out of gillies bay.
tonight is the first of what i’m sure will be many beach campsites. the map claimed you could camp here but there wasn’t really any evidence that anyone actually had when we got here. we cleared some driftwood and tucked ourselves back against the forest as far as possible and it looks like we’ll be fine but we’ll be a little anxious until high water at 11p…
5/25, day 12, 13 mi, 141 mi total
we outsmarted the weather gods today! ok, not really but… the big event of the day was a 6-mile crossing from the balenas where we camped last night to sangster island, so we set 5a alarms and planned to paddle it in the early calm. but the wind was blowing at 5a so we pulled out the vhf and listened to the weather, which predicted the winds would calm by mid-day and then reverse direction to be at our back. so we promptly went back to sleep for a few hours and set out at the very pedestrian hour of 9a, just as the sun broke through and the winds died out. and we didn’t encounter anything more than a few ripples all the way across… it was fun to look left and right from the middle of the straight and see nothing but flat water meeting sky.
sick of hearing about the daily weather yet? me too, but it seems to be what our lives will revolve around most this summer…
it was a beautiful day of paddling, but nothing that really stands out. the islands are still largely privately owned around here, but the settlement has been much more sparse since we got north of nanaimo… saw a couple of seal pups on a rock today…
by the way, yesterday when i wrote that i could see the northern tip of texada, over 30 miles long… yeah, that was actually lasqueti, about 8 miles long. like i said, still working on judging distance out here…
my body seems to have worked out most of the kinks with this whole paddling thing and i really just have some sore tired muscles now. about 90% of which are on my left side. how does that make any sense? i’m paddling equally with my left and right… i am right-handed, but it’s not like i’m a baseball player. did all these years of writing really build up my biceps and deltoids?
on a related subject, the gloves are back. in a bad way. being on the water all day means full sun exposure… except that i’m entirely covered except for my head and my hands and my hat shades my face and neck, which really just leaves the back of my hands to bake in the sun. i’ll try to take pictures of the contrast, but until then just know that it’s bad.
5/24, day 11, 18 mi, 128 mi total
spent a good part of today paddling past whiskey golf, the canadian military torpedo test site. ah, how many days can you say that? and a name like whiskey golf (not gulf) instills so much confidence… granted we saw nothing but a “do not cross” line on the map a few miles off the coast; according to the marine weather radio, they were active all day yesterday but i guess they get saturday off.
feels great to have pushed away from town and got a good day of paddling in after the long string of short days and zeroes. we’re on south ballenas island tonight, a couple miles east of vancouver island. sitting here in the middle, we can see snow-capped mountains on vancouver island to the west and the coast range towering over the mainland to the east.
as we were paddling out this afternoon, i could clearly see the next 30-odd miles of our route. from here, it’s about 6 miles across the straight of georgia to lasqueti island then up the west side of texada… still working on judging distance out here. it’s hard to believe it’ll take us a couple days to reach a point that looks just across the way, while so many of the intermediate details are completely hidden until we’re almost on top of them. our navigation is mostly really easy because we’re almost always along shore but i’m certainly learning to appreciate what a skill marine navigation really is…
saw a couple of bald eagles today in what dean claimed was some sort of “right of manhood” locking talons and twirling through the air… heard the sea lions at the winchelseas when we paddled by 2 miles off… lots of seals barking here, too. i haven’t seen them yet but i think they must be on north ballenas.
