September 4, 2008
Greetings from Desolation Sound. Since leaving Echo Bay, things have been great. That very morning outside of Echo Bay we caught two salmon in under an hour (honest Sam, it was so easy). It was amazing. Two is the daily limit so we had to move on. A couple of days after that, we transited Johnstone Strait. We got lucky with the weather & had a lovely day with little wind or current running against us. We also had sun which was a novel experience for us. Actually, the weather has been pretty good for awhile now & it makes everything wonderful.
We are now in the Desolation Sound region. We spent the last two nights in Teakerne Arm. The attraction is a small waterfall & a freshwater lake that you can swim in. We woke up to fog but it burned off by mid-day. The air temp wasn’t that hot but I decided to go for a dip anyway. At the lake I met a family from San Francisco. They rent a cabin on a nearby island. It was nice to catch-up with Bay Area people. The coolest part about Teakerne Arm didn’t occur until after dark. I went outside to take a look around & noticed something weird going in the water. There were huge schools of little bait fish swimming and jumping all around the boat, which is normal enough around here. What made it really cool was the phosphorescence (caused by bioluminescent plankton) that the fish triggered as they moved through the water. These are tiny organisms that collect by the millions near the surface of the water under certain conditions, and light up brightly with flashes of light- esp when agitated by movement in the water. Kind of like underwater fire-flies, but much smaller and more numerous. There was no moon out so it was quite dark on the water, and flat calm. The surface was covered with millions of little dancing sparks of blue-green light. Everywhere the fish swam around the boat- they left trails of twinkling light in their wake. It was really fun to watch. The next night we decided to have a little fun. Pete rigged a lure on one of the fishing rods and jigged it through the water. You could see the lure all lit up under the surface about 8 feet down (the water was very clear here). Many of the medium size fish followed the lure around and you could follow their path through the water by the trail of light they left as they swam. Suddenly a large thing came out of the dark (looked like a big ball of light approaching from the depths) and swam around the line. Couldn’t tell for sure what it was, but we think it was a harbor seal. Very neat to see it all lit up & swimming around. We collected some sea water in a clear bowl and you could make it light up like fireworks just by stirring the water around with your fingers. We have seen phosphorescence before at sea, but never like this- a real treat. The other amazing nightly event has been the stars. They are very clear here as there isn’t a lot of ambient light and they reflect a perfect mirror image on the surface of the water. We have also seen lots of shooting stars.
Today we are anchored at Prideux Haven – one of the most popular anchorages in Desolation Sound. There are quite a few boats around but it’s surprisingly quiet and the view is spectacular. We kayaked around & then hiked to another cove. We haven’t done as much hiking on this trip as we would have liked (mostly due to the steep, impenetrable forest that lines most of the shoreline here) so it was enjoyable to get out and walk a bit. Not to mention the sun was out which always helps.
September 6
Ahhhh. The last few days have been blissful. We spent a second day at Prideux Haven because the weather & scenery were so nice. We did more kayaking & exploring and even found a little nook where the rocks helped warm the water enough to take a dip. A bit chilly but not too bad. And though it’s salt water we didn’t feel too salty afterwards. It’s amazing how clean everything is here. One thing we noticed, with all the rain we had, our boat actually got clean. No dirty streaks or grime on it like back home after it rains.
Another thing we liked about Prideux Haven was we got a couple more hauls of prawns. Things had been pretty slow with the prawn fishing but we got enough here for shrimp scampi, shrimp pad thai & shrimp cocktail. We have been eating well. The first time we went to check the pot we went in our kayaks. We usually haul the pot up from the whaler & it’s much easier to do as it’s a bigger boat & you’re higher up and have more room & leverage. You have to put shrimp traps down between 200 and 300 feet which takes a lot of work to haul up by hand – esp when sitting in a kayak. Pete hauled up the trap while I kept the 300 feet of line from turning into a tangled mess. Since we hadn’t been catching many prawns we figured we’d just go and check on it – we weren’t expecting much..when the pot came up with over three dozen prawns, we were a little unprepared. We had brought a little Tupperware and they wouldn’t all fit in it. So Pete came up with the idea of putting the rest of them in the front hatch of my kayak. We lashed the kayaks together and Peter emptied the contents of the trap into the front of my kayak while I tried to hold us steady. It worked pretty well (we only lost 2 overboard) though it was strange to have them jumping around in the front of my kayak. We’ve also been catching these other strange looking creatures – they’re similar to prawns but scarier looking (see photo). We will have to look up what they are. They have long thin claws (kind of like a crawdad), a body and mouth parts like a small crab, and a thin shrimp like tail. I guess we will call them Frankencrabs - for now we are not eating them.
Today we left our anchorage early & headed south across the Strait of Georgia. The weather was beautiful & we had an easy time of it. We arrived at Hornby Island around three and it is a very nice place to be on a warm, sunny day. The prevailing North-Westerlies blow offshore here, so you can anchor close in to a very nice sandy beach at the head of the bay. The water was clear and clean, and temps were in the 80’s with a light breeze. We set the anchor, dropped the kayaks in the water, and paddled over to the beach. A couple of things seemed different. The first was that we noticed houses on the side of the hill. How odd it will be to see lights in houses tonight – it’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen this much civilization. The other strange thing was all the people on the beach. It wasn’t crowded but still, it was more people we’ve seen at once since Prince Rupert. Guess we better get used to it. A funny (in retrospect) thing happened while walking around the beach. We cut across this field as we headed to the bathrooms. There was this little bridge & suddenly something slithered across it. I jumped (according to Pete) about a foot off the ground, did a little jig & yelped all at the same time. Snakes bring out the best in me.
Tomorrow we plan to stop in Nanaimo & get some fuel to tide us over until we arrive back in the U.S where it should be less expensive than here. We also need to buy groceries and check email/post to the blog - so it should be a busy day. After that we have a few more days of fun but then we need to start checking the weather for our trip down the coast. Going south should be easier, especially this time of year, but you never know.
I’d write more but the sky is turning all sorts of beautiful colors & a loon is calling in the background. A hot chocolate with whipped cream is calling my name (& Pete’s too) so I must mosey.
Until later.
