Hiking in the Heavy Rain on Calvert Island
November 22nd and 23rd (Friday and Saturday)
The gale arrived overnight of the 22nd, accompanied by heavy rain. I found out that Pruth Bay, where we are anchored, the Calvert Island Lookout, Mt Buxton on Calvert Island, and Koeye across Fitz Hugh Sound, all have weather stations operated by the Hakai Institute. The live and historic data is presented online and available with recorded wind speed and direction, gust speed, precipitation rate, temperature, etcetera, all of which is refreshed every couple of minutes. It was neat being anchored in Pruth Bay, with wifi from the Hakai Institute, to be able to check the wind and gust speeds for those different locations during our gale. Although we were not as well protected in the anchorage from the southeast winds as we had hoped, and we did get gusts of over 30 knots in the anchorage, the lookout, which is close by on the exposed side of the island, was getting almost 50 knots. The anchorage here has good holding in mud and a nice depth of 40 feet, and so although the wind did stretch out our anchor rode, 225' of chain plus rope, we held fast and had a gentle ride.
During the blustery deluge we bundled up in our layers and rain armour, and went ashore. It is wonderful to be somewhere that even when it is stormy out we can still go hiking. With the trail system and beaches here we are able to wear our PVC rain gear and go hiking, something we can not do at most anchorage.
Our stormy walk was wonderful!! Because of all of the rain, many of the trails were rivers.
Before we left for our hike we had checked the Pruth Bay weather station, and the precipitation rate was 1/4" per hour. The trailhead from West Beach leading towards Second Beach and beyond was one branch of three that lead a larger stream down to the ocean.
The boardwalk leading to Second Beach was floating on top of the water, and when we walked across it, it sank back down onto the ground before popping back up to the surface behind us.
We hiked up to the lookout, and as we came out from behind the lee of a rocky knoll at the top, we were greeted by the force of the wind and a driving wall of water in our faces. Unable to look out from this area because of the driving rain we turned our backs to it, and watched the little cats' paws tearing across the little lake that was at the top. We sat on a bench that was in the lee of the knoll and watched as the sheets of water hurdled past us on either side.
Back down in the relative protection of the forest we stopped regularly along the trail to look out at the crashing waves.
When we got to Fourth Beach we were unable to go any further. What had always been a little stream flowing out onto the beach was now a raging river. We tested the depth in a couple of places, but it was too deep. We did not want to risk it flowing over the tops of our boots and having to hike home with wet and cold feet.
Even down close to where the swells were crashing in, even though the river had split out into two arms and was spread out over the sand, there were still areas where it was too deep to walk across and too wide to jump.
By the time we got back to West Beach the tide was low enough for us to observe the walls of muscles. We were amazed by how many little crabs were living in amongst the muscles. They were nestled deep down, closer to the rocks than the surface, amongst the fibrous strings that the muscles use to attach themselves to the rocks.
As it was getting dark we pulled up our crab traps on our way back home. We kept five, seven-inch Dungeness. For dinner we had fresh bread and fresh crab. We then spent some time cleaning the rest of the crab and packaging it for the freezer.
The gale arrived overnight of the 22nd, accompanied by heavy rain. I found out that Pruth Bay, where we are anchored, the Calvert Island Lookout, Mt Buxton on Calvert Island, and Koeye across Fitz Hugh Sound, all have weather stations operated by the Hakai Institute. The live and historic data is presented online and available with recorded wind speed and direction, gust speed, precipitation rate, temperature, etcetera, all of which is refreshed every couple of minutes. It was neat being anchored in Pruth Bay, with wifi from the Hakai Institute, to be able to check the wind and gust speeds for those different locations during our gale. Although we were not as well protected in the anchorage from the southeast winds as we had hoped, and we did get gusts of over 30 knots in the anchorage, the lookout, which is close by on the exposed side of the island, was getting almost 50 knots. The anchorage here has good holding in mud and a nice depth of 40 feet, and so although the wind did stretch out our anchor rode, 225' of chain plus rope, we held fast and had a gentle ride.
During the blustery deluge we bundled up in our layers and rain armour, and went ashore. It is wonderful to be somewhere that even when it is stormy out we can still go hiking. With the trail system and beaches here we are able to wear our PVC rain gear and go hiking, something we can not do at most anchorage.
Our stormy walk was wonderful!! Because of all of the rain, many of the trails were rivers.
We hiked up to the lookout, and as we came out from behind the lee of a rocky knoll at the top, we were greeted by the force of the wind and a driving wall of water in our faces. Unable to look out from this area because of the driving rain we turned our backs to it, and watched the little cats' paws tearing across the little lake that was at the top. We sat on a bench that was in the lee of the knoll and watched as the sheets of water hurdled past us on either side.
Back down in the relative protection of the forest we stopped regularly along the trail to look out at the crashing waves.
The river of water had cut deep swaths in the sand.
We think that they were Flat Porcelain Crabs.
As it was getting dark we pulled up our crab traps on our way back home. We kept five, seven-inch Dungeness. For dinner we had fresh bread and fresh crab. We then spent some time cleaning the rest of the crab and packaging it for the freezer.
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