Day 18- Flora and fauna summary; Bob

Before the trip started, I wondered  how much wildlife and interesting plants we would see.  Here is the situation as of Day 18.  Keep in mind that it is still relatively early in the warm season, more Spring than Summer.  Obviously the flora and fauna may change a lot as we get further into the trip.   The binoculars are picked up many times per hour.  We are not keeping any "list" of the species we see.

Birds are the most common wildlife and gulls tie with ducks as the most common birdlife.  Eagles, particularly bald eagles with their white heads, are easy to pick out and we might see 5-15 per day.  We hundreds of ducks and gulls per day. We saw beautiful red-throated loons last night and pairs of merganser ducks are seen a couple of times per day at least.  We sometimes see great blue herons and the occasional Kingfisher.  No grouse or owls have been seen, but we do hear owls.  Shorebirds, like Oyster Catchers are not visible so far but I did see a hummingbird.  We hear robins frequently, and I have heard Northern Flickers when anchored.  Crows are quite common. 

Trees are growing everywhere on land.   Here, the ground is very rocky with a thin layer of mossy soil.  Somehow the trees grow, even on rocky islands   As we went inland the trees were more towering, and we have seen huge cedars, Douglas Fir and Hemlock in addition to what I think is Sitka Spruce.  Earlier in the trip we saw the deciduous Madrona tree, but I think we have passed the northern range of it now.  The trees grow right up to the edge of the intertidal zone but never touch the salt water.  There is a perfect horizontal layer of tree branches above the water - like it has been clipped.  When we hike, we see 3-4 species of ferns, Devil's Club, huckleberry bushes (no berries yet), lots of salmonberry bushes, and what seems to be mountain ash and perhaps a wild rhododendron.  Tons of moss and lichen carpet the rocky forest floor making it almost impossible to walk where a trail is lacking.  Alder trees are pretty common, and grow where the fir trees have been disturbed.  Skunk cabbage can be seen in low spots.  In the intertidal zone, we see lots of rockweed and some beach grass.   Kelp beds are starting to appear.

What is the most common mammal?  We have seen seals more than people.  Usually we just see their heads, but in the last few days we have found them sunning on rocks.  We see deer tracks, but no deer.  We have seen 2-3 black bears and one grizzly.  No moose or mountain goats or Dall sheep.  We have not seen raccoons or smaller mammals, except for one very dark squirrel.  One Humpback whale, and few small porpoises were spied on the 1st day.  We look forward to seeing our 1st confirmed otter.

Bumblebees are pretty common, they even are seen out near the boat.  Small flies are common on land and make quite a racket.  A few mosquitoes have been seen.  Dragonflies and striders are common around lakes.  Butterflies are not rare.

We see small fish, no large ones.  Ditto for crabs.  We saw a very small squid last night - about 10 inches long.  Jelly fish are common.  We see lots of shell evidence of clams and scallops.  Barnacles are everywhere in the intertidal zone and we also see oysters pretty frequently.  Mussel beds are not uncommon.

Finally, we saw a half dozen frogs on a hike yesterday.  These were quite small but quite active, about the size of a matchbox!

 

Day 17 = Time travel musing; Bob

What to think about on a lazy afternoon during this long sail?  Today, it felt as if the Quijote was back in time and we were travelling up the BC coast a few hundred years ago.  There was nothing in my view to indicate we were in he modern age - except of course for our boat itself - which surely would have been as foreign as an alien spaceship to anyone we encountered back then.  What if I could take but a single object back in time from the Quijote, say to the middle ages…. what would the preferred object be?

A radio would do one no good - there was no electricity or anyone to receive the transmission.  A sharp folding knife would impress and certainly be handy but was not that huge of a leap in technology.  A manual clock might do it, but every timepiece here is battery powered.  A signal flare would dazzle but it would be for one event only.

I think a simple portable lighter might do the trick.  It is useful, portable and even when empty would be a dazzling object.  If you have another idea of what to take back in time from our sailing ship, feel free to suggest it in the comment section!

Day 17 - The Broughtons; Rod

Our days in the Broughtons have been lovely. We entered through Spring Passage on a fine, sunny, windy afternoon after a long day from Port Harvey. Leaving Port Harvey that morning, yesterday it was, we chose to leave somewhat later than usual so that current through Chatham Narrows was at slack. (As a side note… I found it curious that slack in the narrows occurs hours before or after high or low tide. This puzzled me for a while because we're used to thinking of the currents in Puget Sound going slack as flood turns to ebb or visa versa, roughly at a point in time that corresponds to high or low tide. Look for more on the reason this is not so in these channels in a future post.)

Chatham Narrows is, well… narrow, and can be quite shallow, so we wanted to hit it with both depth and slack. We were able to time it so we entered ten minutes or so before slack at about mid-tide height, according to the tide and current tables. Our recorded minimum depth through the narrows was about 28 feet, so there was plenty of room to spare (Quijote draws 6.2'). Kay spotted our 1st grizzly there!  It was on the bank some distance away, but it was huge. 

There are range markers on the far shore going both directions; it is possible to position the boat in a way that the far and near markers are aligned, one above the other, to keep the boat in the center of the deepest part of the channel. We also put way points in the chart plotter for redundancy.

We glided through the narrows and into Knight Inlet without incident. From there it was a few hours out in the direction of Queen Charlotte Straight, dodging Islets with a 15 knot wind on our nose all the way.

We intended to spend three nights in the Broughton archipelago on our way through to Queen Charlotte Sound, but since the weather is looking favorable for getting around Cape Caution, we decided to bank a day and just spend two. The first was in Wadington Bay where it started off quite windy, but settled down as the evening wore on. The book described the anchorage as protected in all directions, but it didn't feel that way at first.

There was a large cabin cruiser anchored near the entrance to the bay and we thought it an odd choice of places to lower their anchor, since there are better, more protected corners of the bay available, but eventually we came to the conclusion that they chose the spot for the convenience of getting their dog ashore.

Our furst full day in the Broughtons, we were witness to a wonderland of tiny islands, remote craggy rocks, boundless forested hillsides, with occasional evidence of logging, aquaculture, and many crab pot buoys scattered about the marinescape.

We targeted Claydon Bay for the second night's anchorage, but noticed a small trail in the description for the Turnbull Cove, so we made a temporary stop to stretch our legs. The trail was short and sweet to a small dock with a picnic table on a picturesque lake. Kay found an abandoned paddle board and paddled around the lake for a while; Bob and I poked around in the woods along the shoreline enjoying the time on terra-firma.

Returning to Quijote, we found the cabin cruiser had followed us, again anchored near the entrance to the bay. We were half tempted to leave Quijote where she was, since the day was sunny, calm and quiet, and the boat was already anchored. But tomorrow was to be a long day and we'd be adding to that by staying put. The book also promised wildlife in Claydon Bay in the form of loons, herons and seals.

So we moved the boat and were quite pleased we did because we had red breasted loons, bald eagles, seals, and ducks to share the anchorage with, but no other boats. The loons clucked away in pairs, but started up a chorus of wailing when a bald eagle or a hawk flew overhead. The evening was warm and the water glassy as we enjoyed a meal of barbecued sausage, mashed potatoes and veggies, with a variety of bird calls filling the air around us. Perfect.

Day 14 - Slaying Dragons; Rod

It's a funny fact of recreational life that the better you prepare for slaying dragons, the fewer dragons there will be to slay. I guess that's another way of saying that the best way to beat dragons is to avoid them.

Reading about the lives that have been lost in Johnstone Straight, it's hard not to be intimidated by the idea of navigating through it. We're told to avoid large currents, large tidal exchanges, shoals, tugs, barges, heavy weather, spring tides, opposing wind and current, turbulence, and sea monsters. In crossing Seymour Narrows yesterday and Johnstone Straight for seven hours today, we avoided all of it - partly by luck and partly by doing our homework.

The first point of luck was high tide, 7am at Chatham Point on a day with relatively small tidal exchanges. Granted we might have chosen a different day if things had not been aligned so nicely. High tide allowed us to drag our buts out of bed at 6am and put ourselves in position to ride the ebb all the way to anchorage.

The second stroke of luck was a light to moderate SE wind that flowed in the same direction as the current. We even had the sails cranked out for a while.

We started the day in heavy rain and ended it in sunshine, at times fished through choppy turbulence and then glided across glassy water. We gave way to three tug and barge combos steaming down the straight in tandem, and later had the passage to ourselves. We motored and sailed, shivered and baked, ate well and socialized.

All the while we kept eyes out for dragons where none appeared. Yay verily.