Last Anchorage Before Denver

Our last anchorage before putting the boat to bed for a bit in Pt. McNeill on Northern Vancouver Island was spectacular. The weather wasn't bad either.

Close to Queen Charlotte Strait, the birdlife was out of hand. Thousands of murres, sooty shearwaters and auklets. We had a visit one evening by two humpback whales, blowing and grunting all night.

Our only visitor was this local fishing boat looking for 'smokers'. I yelled back, "Salmon?!" And he shook his head and yelled, "No - cigarettes". So much for impressing the locals with our savvy.

The bay was open to the north winds, but only southerlies were in the forecast.

Great big kelp, land otters, shorebirds, and a sealion rookery around the corner kept it lively. We'll show it to you if you come out for a visit....

Weird wild BC

We were hip deep in the pucker-brush, whacking away with machetes to find the lost city of the K'luqx'ha'axtl, when we stumbled upon these wild shamanistic totem poles.

We're not sure who carved them, or even if they were carved by humans. We're leaning towards Bigfoot (spotted nearby since the 60's. Coincidentally when recreational drug use became widespread in the region), or maybe Aliens.

This little nook called Potts Lagoon is probably the first place to look for us if we ever drop out of society. A peaceful little cove with floathouses. We enjoyed two nights at anchor here. Our misty morning view of these charming cottages on the sea.
Unfortunately the woods in the area weren't spared from the greedy chainsaws. Mo and Chance wondering what this giant tree looked like before they got to it.

A good sail out. This is the perfect following sea to get Oystercatcher going about 4 knots.

Chance looking a little seasick, perhaps? Naw. just dreaming of running loose on the dumpster circuit with Olive, his old girlfriend.

As Fall weirdness sets in on the crew, they've taken to knitting. Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to stop once you've started. Maybe Bigfoot is interested in this hat (or Shrek). Check this link for some convincing footage of him. Definitely somewhere in Canada.

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We've mentioned Blain's lack of fishing luck. Still, smart locals know where to get their fish. This is the local maps of fishing closures in the area were were in. No fishing whatsoever in these red areas. None.

This is what Alaska needs to do everything in their power to stop from happening.

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Some of the cruisers we've met have been helpful, funny, informative, and generous. A few are inspiring.

We ran into Dick and his wife in Kwatsi Bay. They've been cruising summers in their "Cruisahome" for 30 years. Very self-sufficient 79-year old Dick told Mo that they don't even do laundry they whole trip. Instead, they just load up the hampers with all they have in their home closets.

The falls at Kwatsi and a short row and hike from the floats and a nice spot for lunch. This photo shows the downside of putting the camera on self-timer. We're not the only ones who have been usurped by critters. Check this link.

The Kwatsi bay docks are a low-key affair and hold a spectacular setting.

A very nice hide-out.

Viner and Bond Sounds - a bit of real Alaska in Canada

Here's what we're talking about. Old-growth forest magic. Viner and Bond Sounds.

According to Billy Proctor, the last bit of it left.

Chicken-of-the-woods mushroom bonanza. Trees dressed in gauzey sphagnum.

A wild-flowing river. Bear poop. GOOD stuff. Really really gooooood stuff - for the soul.

Actual bona-fide NATURE.

We bushwacked through the old stream channels and salal bushes. Stumbled on a huge silver salmon stuck in a tiny pool, trying to make it to the main channel.
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Some of our food harvests have been easier than others. We are keenly away of the state of Canada's fisheries, and we are in no danger of doing them in with Blain's fishing prowess, that's for sure. But we did finally find one secret shrimping place. We had been calling it starfishing - because that's all we seemed to get in the shrimp trap.

This was a nice haul. Dinner became a 'gumbo-laya' since we don't know how to make either, so we winged it and it wound up somewhere in the middle of the two.

This was another easy meal. Five minutes of digging for five pounds of clams. This hunter-gather lifestyle isn't so brutish afterall. That's a happy grimace. And a huge beach with millions of clams. It's no wonder natives along these coasts accumulated clam shell middens that measure 30 feet deep in some ancient village sites.

Our little haul.

The steaming.

OK, enough food photos. We just wanted to show that we weren't starving out here.

And to make you all go out and buy wild-caught salmon. It's really, really important where our food comes from, and particularly with seafood, because we are playing a whole-world dice game with the state our world's fisheries are in. Insist on wild-caught. Pay the extra. If your grocer sells farmed salmon - tell them why they should switch. Write a letter to your local grocery chain. Heck, if we could, we'd catch it for all our friends. Maybe our next boat should be a salmon troller.