First days at Calvert Island

June 20th (Thursday)
We woke up to a beautiful sunny day! 

We did some last minute chores with the ease of having fresh running water, and then left Dawson’s Landing, and headed down Darby Channel. When we got to Fitz Hugh Sound we decided to do some sailing. It was more as something to do on a beautiful windy day rather than as a way to get to our destination, as the wind was directly against us. 

It sure was nice to be clipping along to just the sounds of the wind and the water, and it turns out that without our engine running we seem to be able to sneak up on sea otters. We saw a whole bunch of them in a group, just floating around. From a distance we thought they were logs, then maybe birds, then we realized what they were just a bit before they realized that we were approaching. They flipped over and dove, and then all popped up behind us and stuck their heads up looking after us. So cute!!!  

Later as we tacked our way back and forth across the sound we saw a humpback whale. As we watched it surface and blow, it started sticking its long side arm fin up in the air, and then smacking it on the surface. It did this several times, then turned and swam and blew, and then rolled over and did it again. Super neat to see!!!
Just as we made what should have been our final tack to get into Kwakshua Channel leading up to Pruth Bay on Calvert Island the wind changed from North West to West, and was now coming from the exact direction that we wanted to go. As we started having to actually sail backwards in order to make progress toward the channel entrance we started the motor and dropped our sails. 

We came down the channel, and made note of some areas that would be good depths for our prawn traps. Then after we had been anchored for a bit we headed out to drop our prawn traps, and then went ashore to the docks provided by the Hakai Institute.
The Hakai Beach Institute is a research institute for environmental science, and is run by the Tula Foundation. They generously allow boaters to tie up their dinghies to docks that they provide, walk through their property to the park beaches, and they also provide wifi free of charge. Very nice of them! 

We walked the trail across to West Beach, the biggest of the sand beaches on the island. It was beautiful! Everything we had anticipated! It was sunny, the tide was going out, the sand stretched on and on, with sand dunes up from the beach in one section. The sand was warm on our bare feet, and it squeaked!!! Squeaky sand! We hadn't found that again since one beach in Nova Scotia from the time before last when we were in Nova Scotia. When we walk barefoot through the sand, and scuff our feet, the sand squeaks. It’s the coolest thing!! 

Tomorrow it is supposed to be a sunny day as well and we are looking forward to a whole day of exploring the many beaches that the island has to offer!! Yay!!

June 21st (Friday)
Happy Solstice! Well it was not the sunny day that they had forecasted, but it also did not rain. It was cloudy all day, with a few light drizzles and also not particularly warm, but we had a wonderful day nonetheless. 

Map of Trails and Beaches on Calvert Island

We took a good picnic lunch with us, and headed to shore. There are seven beaches to the south of West Beach, all connected by trails. The tide was going out until close to 11:00, so we went from beach to beach along the shore below the high tide line as much as possible. We enjoyed exploring the many tide pools, rock faces, and splits in the rock that had been worn away by the crashing of the waves. 

The beaches themselves were amazing! Everything we had imagined when several years ago we found Calvert Island on google earth and spotted the many beaches, and decided we wanted to go there. Each beach was unique, some long, and some short, some had a steeper slope with piled up smooth and round tumbled rocks and massive amounts of driftwood. Others had a very gradual slope, and with the tide out, the sand stretched forever. 

There was a cool area at a point where two beaches, 5th and 6th beach, developed a third beach in between them at low tide, that connected out to an island. 

4th beach we named Eagle Beach, because there were so many eagles.They were on the beach and in the trees and flying by. On the way back we discovered why. There was a very large piece of what we assume was whale blubber rotting on the upper beach. The eagles where enjoying the feast. We also found three Abalone shells all on this beach. 

We took one of the trails that went up to a lookout on the top of a hill. The lower forest here is like other west coast beach forests, but you don't have to gain much elevation, and you get into a tundra like area. The trees are short and few, and it is mainly shrubs and grasses with bare rock interspersed with areas of marshy wetness. The hills roll on into the distance, but are often separated with deep crevasses. It was neat to hike up into one of these areas, and see what it was really like. We had seen that type of area from the water, and decided we wanted to do a hike into it another day, so it was good to get an idea of what it was like. 

Tundra area

We stopped on 7the beach for our picnic lunch, and since it was not warm we got a little fire going, and enjoyed our lunch with the heat of a fire. Along many of the beaches we had been seeing little marten prints, and while having lunch we got to see one of the martens scampering along the shore. 

We had also been walking along with wolf tracks. There were at least two of them, and their tracks were below the high tide line, so they were fresh from the morning. We saw where they had dug a hole, and also ran and done circles. It is easy to imagine them playing on the beach as the tide went out. We sure hope we get to see them!
Although on the map the last trail is to 7th beach, we could see three more beaches past the next rocky point. At low tide we would have been able to walk on the sand to them, but that was no longer possible. Although we plan to come back to them tomorrow, we were also curious if there might be a trail. 

We found and followed an old, and not often trodden trail, up from the far end of 7th beach, and followed it as it headed up and away from the beaches. When we got up into the tundra like area it became harder to follow the trail, because it was very old and not well marked. We ended up often more following the wolf prints that were left in muddy sections. We did manage to follow it far enough to be fairly sure that it would take us to the further beaches, before we decided to head back because of the time. 

We walked higher up on the beaches this time to explore the upper areas, and we look forward to more exploring.
When we left through the Hakai Institute land we talked to four people, and it is interesting to hear what they are up to. One of them was telling us about an ocean "glider" that they just retrieved that they had sent out offshore 25 nautical miles to collect data about the ocean water at different depths as it slowly dove and resurfaced. 

Two other people told us about research they are doing into one type of seaweed that is apparently related to Japanese nori and harvested by the first nations communities. Apparently it had a dramatic loss in stock over the last few years, and they are trying to figure out why. Very interesting.
While walking the shores at low tide we had found an area that was especially full of fairly large Black Turban snails. We decided to collect some to try with dinner. We kept them in a bag in water through the day and when we got home we put them in a pot with a bunch of water. When we were ready for dinner, and had water up to a boil for them, I turned to the pot of snails and could not help but make a noise from the surprise that I saw. Jason was out at the barbecue, and I called him to come and see at once, although in retrospect there was no rush. The poor snails were making an efficient albeit slow get away. They were literally climbing out of the pot, over the edge, and down the outside. It was funny that this did not even enter our minds as an issue, and we would have been quite surprised to find an empty pot if we had left them until morning. It gave us quite the laugh!