Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

September 19th (Thursday) Jason and I had been eagerly looking forward to going back to work on our trail. So, this afternoon we headed out armed with our garden clippers, handsaw, and flagging tape. The tide was low when we landed ashore, so we were out on the mud flats down from the grassy area where we had landed before. The mud turned out to be quite sinky, and as we carefully, and as light-footed as possible, made our way up to the grass line, Jason stepped in a particularly sinky area, and sunk right up to his knee. Luckily when he managed to pull his foot out, his boot came out too. Of course his one foot, and lower leg, were now wet and saturated in mud, so I paddled back to the boat to get him a change of pants and socks for our hike, and grabbed a set for myself just in case it happened to me when I re-landed ashore. Luckily the tide had risen enough by the time I got back that I was able to land on the grass and avoid the hazard. We followed our trail until our last orang...

September 17th and 18th (Tuesday and Wednesday) As I have mentioned before, we have been getting isobar radio fax weather forecasts, and from those we have been formulating our own forecast for our area. So far we have been right! Yay! We had forecasted showers and wind becoming nicer through the day for yesterday (September 17 th ) and nice for today (September 18th.)  Yesterday we had some gusty wind and rain showers in the morning, and then the clouds slowly broke up until it was perfectly clear sky by night time.  In the evening we watched for bears along the shoreline, and we saw both the single bear and the mom with one cub. Unfortunately they both only stayed on the shoreline briefly, they sauntered out through the grass, walked along the stream, and then back up into the grass. I was ready with my camera and big lens, but did not get much of a chance to get any good pictures.  After dinner we put on our jackets, and sat out with a cup of hot chocolate enjo...

September 16th (Monday) We spent the morning around the boat again, doing some cleaning. We also revised our own weather forecast. Being anchored in Eucott Bay we are unable to pick up any VHF weather stations because of our distance from the closest transmitters, and because of the high mountains around us. We have semi-consistently been able to make contact with the weather-fax station in Alaska with our SSB, and we have been formulating our own forecasts based on them.  Depending on reception the quality of the images we get can vary greatly, but we try to get the surface analysis, 24 hour forecast, 48 hour forecast, and 96 hour forecast, which are all isobar charts. From these we have been able to have a pretty good idea of what type of weather we will be getting, although the inlets also get a lot of localised weather that we can not account for. In the afternoon we headed ashore in our kayaks.  We had decided on three routes that we would like to build trails...

September 15th (Sunday) It was the first day of the migratory game-bird hunting season. Since we first arrived in Eucott Bay we had been paying attention to where the different groups of geese were hanging out, and how they reacted to our presence when we went kayaking. Although we could also hunt ducks, geese offered us a lot more meat per life, and there were also a lot more of them, so for now at least, our focus was on geese.  We had observed that when approached, the geese in a particular area consistently seemed to take off and fly through a certain corridor over the grassy area. So, we decided to try to take advantage of this pattern.  Jason paddled ashore, and got out with the shotgun. I then towed his kayak back to the boat so as not to leave a foreign object ashore for them to avoid. Once J was well hidden I paddled along the shore, and we watched as group after group of geese took off and flew down to our chosen end. Jason then repositioned to a concealed are...

September 14th (Saturday) After waking up on-and-off last night to the sound of the continuous pouring rain, we were surprised that it was quiet when we awoke in the morning. We were even more surprised to see some patches of blue sky. It was a beautiful morning as the sun rose above the mountains, and the morning light shone on the wet rock faces, making them shimmer.  After doing some chores around the boat in the morning we headed up one of the streams in our kayaks. We paddled as far as we could and then pulled our kayaks up on the grassy shore and tied them off to a tree, as the tide was still coming in. We scared a group of ducks out of the grasses as we landed ashore. We followed the stream and had to cross it several times as it weaved back and forth. We saw several groups of salmon in the stream, and it had all of the perfect characteristics of a salmon spawning area.  Coming around a bend in the stream we found a curious area that appeared to be an old or...

September 13th (Friday) It poured rain for most of the day, and when it wasn't pouring it was still raining. In the morning the other three boats that were here left, so we had the place to ourselves.  We went ashore for a soak, and I decided to drain and refill the bathtub. Once it was refilled, I had a bath and washed my hair. Pretty luxurious to not only have a hot spring pool to soak in, but also to have a bathtub to wash in, and then to be able to drain the water. While we were soaking it sure did rain, and since the pool was under a deciduous tree the drops were even bigger landing in the pool. The largest of the drops made bubbles that sat momentarily on the surface before disappearing.  Raindrops on the hot spring pool. Floating on my back in the pool I could feel every cold raindrop that landed on my exposed skin, it felt quite neat. Standing up in the pool to cool off a bit, we enjoyed the rain and sporadic gusts of wind. It was very lovely. From the ho...

September 12th (Thursday) Today was a relaxing day. After sleeping in and enjoying our morning tea we headed ashore to the hot springs. Because it was raining it was hard to know what to wear. I ended up going ashore in my bathing suit, shorts and a hoodie, and my pvc raingear and gumboots. We took a towel and stuff ashore with us in a waterproof bag. At the edge of the pool we decided that one of our waterproof bags would be for dry stuff, like the clothes that we had worn, and the other bag would be for semi-wet stuff that we didn't want to get fully wet, like our raingear.  Once ready, we stepped onto the rung of the ladder and slowly lowered ourselves into the pool until we were standing, stomach-deep in clear, fresh, hot spring water. Slowly sinking deeper and deeper, until we were up to our necks, we let out a sigh of pleasure.  The pool is constructed with the frame being giant boulders that have tumbled down from the cliffs above. They lay leaning against each...

September 11th (Wednesday) We were up at 06:30 and left Forit Bay just after 07:00. We headed up Dean Channel with the flood current, but there was no wind. The forecast had been for SE 10-15 knots, becoming 15-25 knots later in the morning and then 25-35 knots in the afternoon. We had been hoping to sail up Dean Channel, but instead we motored over glassy water.  It was a beautiful cloudy morning, and for the most part the clouds were high around the mountains and we got to enjoy the vistas all around us.  As we worked our way deeper up the channel the mountains got higher and more rugged. Many parts of the mountains were bare rock slabs, shear cliffs, or jagged ridgelines. In the area close to Eucott Bay the waterfalls thundered down the rocky cliffs, often visible from way up the mountain.   The further we went up Dean Channel the more the colour of the water started to change to that of a turquoise glacier blue/green. Approaching the entrance to Eucott Bay i...

September 9th (Monday) After sleeping in, we headed out salmon fishing. I was hoping to get to have sushi with sashimi for my birthday dinner, and we were hoping to top up our freezer before leaving the area. The amount of salmon activity was way less than the last time that we were out fishing, and although we caught a couple at first, they were quite small, and we let them go.  Jason and I each also got one sizeable bite, but they got away. Jason's was the most frustrating, because it got away just a net's length away from the boat. The salmon was fighting its way in, and right at the last second it did a jump and spat out the hook.  In the end, we managed to get three keep-size Coho into the boat, although they were all much smaller than we had been used to. I think it was nature’s gift to me for my birthday, because I caught all three of them. The majority of the fish seem to have left the area, and each time that we have caught salmon here we have wondered if they wou...

Here are a few pictures that Sheya took of a bald eagle. Note the fish in the talons of the eagle.

(Sheya's mom writing:  During our recent visit, Sheya gave me some pictures that she had not managed to send over the internet which she thought you might be interested in viewing.  I will send these out over the next while.) Plentiful marine life at Von Donop Lagoon on Cortes Island. Rock crab at Von Donop Lagoon. Sea anenome. A close-up view of the inside of the flower of the above sea anenome.

September 7th (Saturday) Jason and I slept in and rested for the day. We also made water a couple of times, as we could still only make water for half an hour at a time with the low-pressure pump in order to prevent it from overheating. Thankfully, our new pump has finally arrived at the post office in Shearwater, so we will get it when we are there next. We have been watching as the birds that we see in our area slowly changes, as many of the birds have begun to migrate south. We no longer see very many Red Throated Loons, and we never hear them, and we have started to see more grebes, especially the Red Necked Grebe. We also got to watch as many schools of little fish surfaced all over our bay throughout the day. The water was glassy calm, and we could tell where the fish were because it would start to look like it was raining in one area, but it was the fish coming up to the surface. Sometimes there were just one or two schools, but at other times they were everywhere, including...

September 5th (Thursday) It turned out to be a beautiful day. The forecast had been for cloud, but we woke up to sunshine. It remained sunny for most of the day, and clouded over with a high cloud in the evening.  When we pulled up our crab trap in the evening we commented on how crabbing here seemed to be more like doing a scientific study than crabbing, because we never caught any that we could eat. We caught five small crabs; three Rock, and two Dungeness.  We had already taken some bait out of the freezer so we reset the trap in a different area, although it seemed unlikely that we would actually get any food.  A picture taken a while back in the trip of what seems to be Dungeness Crabs mating. September 6th (Friday) After a busy morning of practical chores, we headed up to the lake in the afternoon  for a soak in the fresh water. It was a great way to relax.  For dinner we treated ourselves to an easy dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches with s...

September 4th (Wednesday) In the afternoon the sun came out and the warmth felt stronger and stronger. Eventually we decided that it was a good time to finish painting on the protective product onto our enclosure. Since the forecast for the next few days was for cloud, and then rain, we really wanted to get that done.  We spent about an hour working carefully around the windows with a paintbrush, and painted on the liquid.  When we were finished it was around 4 o'clock, and still beautiful and sunny, so we decided to head quickly to the lake for a swim. We thought that the sun would already be gone from the beach, but when we arrived we were very happy to find that, although most of the beach was in the shade, there were a couple of deeper Vs in the trees that allowed sun to still be shining on the beach. We hurried to get in the water while it was still sunny, and had a wonderful time bathing, scrubbing, and soaking. The water was cool, but incredibly refreshing and w...

September 3rd (Tuesday) The fog appeared to be clearing in the morning, and we were in the sunshine early. We pulled up anchor around 08:00 and motored out of Fancy Cove.  Just as we were exiting the bay Jason saw a big splash up ahead in the fog. Jason was at the helm so he kept an eye on where we were going and I kept an eye out for whatever had made the splash. It did not take long for me to spot the whale blow and then shortly after I pointed with excitement and exclaimed, "breach! breach! breach!"  The humpback whale was rocketing upwards into the air, then, falling sideways, it became horizontally air born before descending to sea level and beneath with a massive splash.   Jason looked just in time to see a flying whale. With wide grins on our faces we watched as the whale continued to entertain us with two spy hops and a back splash. What a way to start the day!! The lighting was really cool as we left Fancy Cove and watched the whale, as we were surrou...

September 2nd (Monday) When we woke up in the morning we were planning to catch the last of the ebb current to Codville Lagoon. It was very foggy however, so we decided to wait until the afternoon tide when hopefully the fog would have cleared. We had a relaxing morning of reading, writing, playing guitar, and doing Spanish. We had the last of the salmon caviar on toast for brunch as the fog was starting to clear.  The sun broke through above us before the fog cleared around us, and it was as though we were in a clear hole amongst the fog. Once the clearing started it did not take long for the sun to burn all of the fog away, and we were left under a cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day. While waiting for the next ebb tide we started cleaning the outside of our enclosure -- one of the projects on our list to do before winter.  Sunny weather was required for using the products to clean and protect the Sunbrella material of our enclosure. By the time we were done scrubbing ...

August 31st (Saturday) It poured rain last night and it was pouring in the morning when we woke up.  By the time we got up, however, it had stopped and there were a couple of blue patches, so we were hopeful for a dry day. Jason made us a fantastic egg frittata for brunch, my parents packed their bags and got ready to leave, and I packed them a dinner to take on the ferry. By one o'clock the clouds had darkened again and the rain had started. It started to pour rain as we were thinking to head out for the ferry, and even though we procrastinated for a while, the rain did not let up. We finally all piled into Kiki, bundled up in our pvc rain gear, with my parents’ packs in heavy-duty garbage bags.  The trip was a little bumpy from chop from the current, but we made it there in 28 minutes. My parents got their tickets, and we said our goodbyes. Jason and I headed back home, and although the chop created by the current had dissipated, the rain had increased. We stopped near t...