Almost to Bella Coola

September 21st (Saturday)
It is amazing how fast time flies! Three months ago it was the longest day of the year, three months from now it will be the shortest day of the year. It will be very interesting to see how short the days get up here on the Central Coast of BC, and how it affects our lives.
We woke up to the sound of the rain just starting to fall, and we fell asleep to the sound of it still raining, and because of the weather we had a lovely day of relaxation. After receiving our weather-fax isobar charts, we analyzed them and wrote out our four-day forecast. We concluded that we would likely have a pretty nice day on Sunday, and then we would likely get some more rain before it got nice again. There was a big low-pressure system further north, but it looked like it would mostly dissipate before getting down to us.

We headed to the hot spring to enjoy the cool rain and a soak. It was lovely. I had a bath, and we relaxed.
It is funny, because ever since we got here the smell of rotting salmon has been ever present. Some days it is almost completely gone, and then another group of salmon spawn and die off, and the following day the smell could be a lot worse. It also depends a lot on the level of the tide, and where the floating dead salmon get washed ashore. Sometimes we will be at home and suddenly catch a whiff, and we look out and there is a rotting corpse floating right by the boat. Sometimes there will be none close by, but a gust of wind will carry the smell to us from afar. It has never been too potent, but it comes and goes in wafts. The worst is when we walk right by one rotting in the grass on shore, and then it can be pretty foul. 

Today there was one washed up in the grass down from the hot springs. The tide was going out so it was stuck there until at least the next high tide. As we enjoyed the relaxing hot water, from time to time, we would catch a whiff and chuckle. Here we were, enjoying the earth’s natural fresh clean hot water, soaking with a stunning view of the mountains, waterfalls cascading down, the sound of the rain and the background roar of the waterfalls, and the smell of rotting salmon.
We enjoyed the hot springs for a couple of hours before paddling home for a relaxing afternoon.

September 22nd (Sunday)
It was calm in the morning, and although we had a passing rain shower, for the most part it was dry. We headed out in Kiki, as we wanted to get into an area of cell service to look some things up, order some items, and make contact with some people.  

According to the coverage map for my cell phone provider, the best service would be about 17 nautical miles away. Although this is a long ways, it is only about an hour by tender if it is calm, or an hour and a half if it is choppy.  With our sailboat it would be about a 2.5 hour trip depending on the tides, and we would want to time them right. That would then become a five-hour round trip, so we decided to take Kiki. 

Well aware of how inlets can quickly whip up a nasty chop if the wind picks up against the tide, we headed out early. The morning was calm. Dean Channel, just in front of our anchorage, was the calmest we had seen it since being here. "Oooing" and "aweing" at the many waterfalls and rock faces that were below the low-lying clouds, we made a bee line for the most part, stopping occasionally for a picture. 

We wanted to make a speedy trip there, and then we could doddle and explore on the way back if the weather was still good.  The trip across Dean Channel, through Labouchere Channel, and then up North Bentinck Arm is full of nooks and corners, and in the two locations where a third arm meets, the colliding currents and winds can stir up quite the chop. 

Our weather was quite varied on the way there. There were two separate weather cells down two of the channels, one moving towards us, and the other away from us. The joining of the winds combined with the current and waves rebounding off of Masechie Nose created an area of confused seas, but overall the trip was good. 

Once we were into the area, marked on my coverage map as having service, we kept an eye on my phone, but there was nothing. We continued on and on until finally we got service, just 4 nautical miles away from Bella Coola. That made the trip somewhat longer than we had been hoping and planning on. At this point we would have actually gone to Bella Coola had it not been a Sunday and everything was likely going to be closed. 

We stopped on a small rocky beach area where a river was flowing out. As we were busy on our devices we saw a bear on the riverbank across from us. Jason watched as he grabbed a salmon from the stream, then looking at us with the fish in its mouth, and so cute with his ears perked up, he turned and went into the forest. 

We also took the time to watch the many gulls and turns. 

Some of them would fly over the stream, then stop and hover, before diving into the water to grab some kind of food.  From my pictures we have identified these as Bonaparte's Gulls in their winter plumage.
As the morning became afternoon it was clear the trip would not be as quick as we had hoped. Not only had it taken us longer to get into an area of cell service, but we were also taking longer completing our list of "to dos," and it did not help that we had forgotten the actual list and so ended up forgetting one item. Oh, well.
Before we were ready to head back the skies had mostly cleared and the wind had picked up, blowing towards us up North Bentinck Arm.  The mountains around were spectacular with the remains of receding glaciers and their rubble fields visible.

As the sun came out, the ocean water glowed turquoise and the rock faces glistened. It was beautiful. 

We started our journey home against the wind and building chop. To begin with it wasn't bad, we were able to read the waves and judge the spacing and steepness and either accelerate or slow down as necessary to create a relatively smooth ride. As we proceeded, however, the waves got larger and steeper and became the perfectly spaced distance so that it was impossible not to pound through them.  It became very unpleasant. We discussed the option of pulling in at a beach and waiting for the wind to decrease, but we had no way of knowing that it wouldn't simply increase, so we pounded on. 

The progress was slow and painful, so we took breaks from time to time just bobbing on the surface, but finally we got to Masechie Nose and were happy to find that the wind was coming up Burke Channel. As we turned around the corner the wind and waves were now going with us, and although the waves were quite big, the ride was comparatively smooth. The further we got the smother the sea got, and by the time we rounded the next point the chop felt like glass to us. The rest of our trip home was easy, but we were tired and sore by the time we got home.