Our travels so far

In the above photo, Matt belays me up the final pitch of Midden Mountain. Actually that's just the rope to our dinghy, but some of the rocky island landscapes we have explored remind me a bit of our alpine travels. It honestly makes me a wee bit homesick for the mountains. But finding middens, places where countless shells have been discarded by First Nations peoples of many generations, is something I get a kick out of. On Mound Island we explored a terraced area in the forest near a midden beach which had been shaped by a past Native peoples village. Lots of ghosts.

Yesterday, from Mound Island we went through Blackney Passage and had a great down-wind sail to Port McNeill. We really like it when we get the right wind and can sail as fast as we can motor. Wish it was like that all the time!

Today we did a town day in Port McNeill, which means showers, laundry, and a grocery run. The grocery store here was big, so we should be stocked for a while.

So, we are excited to head north to check out some bigger waters to sail, and for some remote places to explore.

Fishing for our supper

We finally made the plunge in Port McNeill and have outfitted ourselves with a fishing license, a net, a rod to go with the trolling reel that we found on the boat, and some colorful lures that we hope fish find attractive. We couldn't resist buying the flasher called "Purple Haze". There was one called "Monkey Puke" but we decided to wait and see how Purple Haze performs first.

Matt vaguely recalls one fishing experience as a young boy at a fish pond, and I have some fond (and I am not being sarcastic) memories of gutting trout and playing with fish eyes as a kid. But beyond that we really have no idea what we are doing. We figure hunger will bring out the fishing instinct in us. So wish us luck and hopefully we'll catch something edible. We'll keep you posted.

By the way, I am getting faster at winching in the anchor. My latest time was 24 minutes, so I think I am improving just a bit.

No gym membership required

This is our windlass. It's a manual windlass. That means that every morning, if we have anchored the night before and we wish to leave the anchorage, we have to move the windlass handle back and forth until we've winched up all the anchor chain we let out the night before. This can average about 260 feet for the deeper anchorages we've been encountering. This morning it took me 35 minutes to raise anchor. I am not proud of that time, but it was a calm morning and we could afford to be slow. It was also the first time I attempted to raise it all on my own. Matt is quicker, so if the wind is up he is the crew mate for the job. One of my goals this summer is to get buff by doing morning workouts at the windlass. It's a well rounded workout - it targets both my upper and lower body, as well as my core. And it can be aerobic as well. So stay tuned, I hope to be reporting faster times for my anchor raising in the near future!

Echo Bay Gremlin, or Is This Going to Give Me Nightmares?

I seem to have a knack for finding dead things when I walk in the woods, but Matt found this one first.

If anyone can identify what this once was please enlighten us. To give you a sense of scale, the head was the size of an apple.

Likes and Dislikes

A rare sunny day up Knight Inlet

Things we like

Fresh baked bread

Chocolate

Our Dickinson heater on cold mornings (and evenings)

Our propane stove

Pacific white sided dolphins

Bears, from afar

Tilly, our tiller pilot

Brian B’s music selection

Mist and clouds that hide clear cuts

Anchorages with good holding and lots of swing room

Stirring up phosphorescence in the water at night

The constant singing of Varied thrushes (they are everywhere)

Things we don’t like

Logs (specifically the ones that float in the water waiting to hit unsuspecting boats)

Bucking strong currents

The sound of anchor chain dragging over rock (it sounds ominous)

Docking

Clear cuts

Steep, rocky lee-shore anchorages

When birds fly away or dive before I can identify them properly

Things we like but don’t want to admit to liking

Strange unidentifiable sounds emanating from dense woods as we row by in our dinghy

Electronic charts

Our diesel engine

Warm sunny weather (let’s not jinx ourselves now)

Bisquick

Hungry as bears

This post is about bears and food. We’ve been fantasizing about food a lot, but also on our minds have been thoughts of bears. We are often hungry because we spend a lot of time outside and the cold temperatures and constant activity keeps our metabolisms revved up. The bears are even more hungry because they’ve recently woken up from hibernation. We’ve been on the watch for bears; partly because we are in the midst of bear country right now and it’s fun to spot them, and partly so that they don’t catch us unawares and decide we would make a good meal.

In Cutter Cove we were rowing up a creek in our dinghy to do a bit of exploring, and a black bear stepped out of the thick woods onto shore and startled us. The photo captures our momentary consternation. Matt briefly forgot how to row, and it appears I forgot how to work a camera.

At Glendale Cove we watched a grizzly and her three year old cub grazing on shore. Another cruising couple who knows the area well informed us his name is Spike. We think Spike kept shooting hungry looks our way. Needless to say, none of our recent exercise has included walks on land.

On our journey so far we have been able to restock food supplies about every seven days. This will decrease in frequency as we get to more remote places. At home I use to grocery shop much more often, so I have had to adjust my planning out here. Also, not having refrigeration adds another challenge. We are here early season too so the small stores we've visited have been lean on fresh provisions, which is exactly what we are lacking. It’s been making me become a more creative chef. I do a lot less recipe following and a lot more improvising. No one on board has complained about my cooking... yet.

I’ve just recently started making bread. We find fresh baked bread an ultimate comfort food on some of the grey cold days we’ve had up here. From the food locker I unearthed a jar of some Trader Joe’s red pepper spread. Since we don’t have a toaster I pan fry the bread in olive oil. Adding the spread makes for a decent bruschetta. It doesn’t seem like much but out here it’s very delicious.

We haven’t started to fish or crab yet, but it’s on my list. Wecantu even hooked an old crab pot on her anchor the other morning. Maybe she is trying to tell us something!

Reflections

Waiatt Bay got a little spooky in the evening. I’ve read about and have seen photos of shoreline reflections and how this phenomenon influenced Coastal Native art, but experiencing it first hand was downright eerie. The evening light was just becoming dim and the water was very calm. We looked at the shoreline sideways and another world jumped out at us. Totem pole imagery marched menacingly down the bay and gave us a mild case of the willies. We were completely sober just so you know. These photos don’t do it any justice. Once it got dark we sat inside our boat in front of the comforting flame of our Dickinson heater and were very glad we weren't camped out in the woods.