Ucluelet B.C. to Coos Bay

We've been hiding out at the Charleston Marina near Coos Bay after a multi-day passage from Canada. Highlights included some night time visits from Dall porpoises. They created some spectacular comet trails of phosphorescence as they swam alongside the boat. We also had an unsettling visit from a Minke whale one early morning as our favorable winds finally died. He (she?) swam under our bow and surfaced at our stern several times, and followed us for a while. The visit was probably driven by curiosity, but since we had bumped (gently) into a whale much earlier in morning, I had nervous thoughts of the Essex and Moby Dick running through my sleep deprived mind. It was at that point that we decided to call it a good run and head in for some rest and relaxation. Fortunately the whale didn't follow us in to Coos Bay!

As soon as the winds turn northerly again we plan to continue south.

A page out of Boat Life

Thanks to a personal delivery by Bobbie and John of goods from Costco, we had a busy day of provisioning in anticipation of the next leg of our travels.

 All cans get their paper labels removed (they mildew too quickly), and relabled with a Sharpie pen.

Boat crafts - a glass peanut butter jar gets it's own crash jacket.

Our first beach (in a long while...)

A few weeks ago we were able to enjoy a few days at an anchorage with easy access to a series of beautiful beaches.

A migratory group of Sanderlings with a few Dunlins mixed in, looking for lunch.

While we sat though some gale force winds at anchor, the same winds eroded the sand away, leaving these rocks on tiny pedestals. 

Professional Development, Serendipity Style

One of the aspects I like about cruising is the informal book exchanges you often find. These usually are just a small shelf at fuel docks, in marina offices, or at laundry-mats.  The unstated rule is to try to leave a book for one you take. The selection is not always diverse; there are plenty of Michael Connelly and James Patterson books to keep Matt busy, and oodles of romances, but my tastes for better or worse lean more towards literary fiction and non-fiction, which are not so plentiful. But by fate I have been finding some very good books to read, and they are often ones I would have never picked up had I been presented with more choices.  Although I haven’t been employed as a librarian for a while, I still consider myself one, and reading these books has been excellent professional development for me. Here’s a few of the reads I have recently enjoyed:

All the King’s Men  - Robert Penn Warren: Not to be confused with All the President’s Men, although it could superficially be called a political novel. I was blown away by the mood setting opening scene which describes a drive down a two lane blacktop. Narrated by Jack Burden, a former newspaper writer who is employed by Governor Willie Stark, this is a powerful novel about the rise and fall of the Governor, but with Burden's personal story reluctantly but gradually revealed. Complex and layered, with a grand cast of characters.

A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley: The story of what happens to a farming family when the father decides to legally sign over his land as a corporation to be controlled by his daughters and their husbands. The  tragic events that follow are inevitable and irreversible, but the resilience and inner strength of the narrator makes her a character to admire.

Please Look After Mom – Kyung-Sook Shin: Translated from Korean, this was a very emotional read about a mother who disappears at the train station having come from the rural countryside to visit her adult children in the city of Seoul. Poetically told from the character’s different view-points – the mother’s and husband’s as well as the children’s.

Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri: A quiet but beautifully written collection of short stories about the experiences of Indian immigrants. Lahiri has a wonderful way of making the opening sentence of each story a hint of all that follows.

10 Degrees of Separation

Our recent travels from 58° North to 48° North have revealed some subtle and not so subtle differences between ‘here’ and ‘there’:

·        We no longer feel like we are a knife’s edge away from hypothermia.  When we left Juneau in late March the temps were still typically below freezing and snow was not uncommon. We can now warm the cabin with our Dickinson heater in 30 minutes compared to the three or more hours it took before, and are down from sleeping under two comforters to just one. 

·         The water temperature now hovers around 59° F instead of 36° F.  We still consider our survival suits as a primary defense for abandoning ship but the plan will soon change to favoring the life raft.

·         In Ucluelet we are sharing the anchorage outside the boat basin with two other cruising boats.  It’s the first time we have shared an anchorage in two months.  Well, that’s not exactly true since we did hole up on occasion in Southeast with the occasional troller.  These pugnacious little boats fear no weather in their hunt winter salmon.

·         It’s been awhile since storm force winds have been forecast, although gales are still very common.

·         What can you say?  Once a village is connected to the real world with an honest to goodness road the food prices drop radically.  A half gallon of OJ has gone from $8 to $5.

·         Orange, yellow or green PVC foulies worn over Carhartt’s and hoodies have given way to REI de jour brands such as Marmot Precip and Arc’teryx softshell.  We’re the odd ducks in our XtraTuffs when everyone else is sporting Bogs.  Southeast’s practicality driven fashion is not the same as Tofino hip.

·         There is less wildlife but in some ways we actually consider this to be a blessing.  Further north there are enough Humpbacks in the water that they pose a true hazard to navigation, more so than the logs of British Columbia.  On top of that, there is no longer a brown bear behind every bush and though they are quite large up here, the black bears do not strike the same fear.