A Day at the Beaches at Calvert

November 24th (Sunday)

It was a wonderfully, beautiful day; one of those days that is one of the reasons we chose to stay on the central coast for the winter. In the morning the sky above us was clear and towering cumulus clouds dotted the horizon. The light from the rising sun illuminated the edges of the clouds to the east, and this illuminated edge remained longer than it would at another time of the year because of how long the sun now remains at such a low angle. 

Two separate cumulus clouds passed over us, each being preceded by wind and then a passing heavy shower before the sky was blue once again. Last night the stars were out when we went to bed, but during the night we awoke to the sound of a particularly strong gust of wind and the sound of driving hail. A few minutes later, and it was quiet once again. As the second rain shower passed over us in the morning, we sat it out in our cockpit all ready to head ashore. Amazingly this was the last rain shower until after sunset, shortly after we got home. How perfect.
We got to West Beach just after the tide had started to go out, so it was still very high. We could tell from where the still foam-filled pools of water sat on the sand that the water had recently been lapping at the end of the trailhead. It was the highest we had seen the tide. 

We sat, on a newly deposited log that was propped up on a throne of sand, and watched the beautiful foaming sea. Such incredible power, wave after wave coming in, building and building in height as the sea floor got shallower, before finally it crested with the spray from the top blowing back, thundering its power onto land. Looking out, the sea was a chaotic mess of rebounding wave directions and flying foam, off of all of the reefs and rocks giant towers of spray flew into the air as the waves crashed in.
We headed up into the trail and made our way from beach to beach, seeing how the waves were different at each area. Second Beach is different from all of the rest in that the top part of the beach is a solid sloping wall of tossed up logs and rocks that have been rolled smooth by the waves. Every other time that we had been to this beach the water has been below the rocks and we had simply gone down and walked along on the sand. 

Today, however, with the high tide, the waves were still crashing onto the rocks. We made our way along the rocks, above this line, listening to the incredible sound of the tumbling rocks as the waves would crash in upon them and then pull out, rolling them all against each other. At one end of the beach there was also a stream that flowed out, and it was flowing strong from yesterday’s rain. It was a beautiful sound as the water flowed out underneath and through these beautifully tumbled rocks.
The river on Fourth Beach was flowing much slower than it had been yesterday, and we were easily able to carry on to Seventh Beach. The trail that goes from Fourth to Seventh Beach cuts into the forest and away from the sound of the crashing waves. When you were nearing the beach we still could not hear the waves until we began to climb up a bank. At the top of the bank the full roar of the crashing waves met our ears, and we got our first glimpse of the sea, before climbing down the exposed side of the bank through Salal Bushes and out onto the beach. 

Today the view was spectacular. The lighting was perfect, the tide was at a perfect level so as to show off the breaking waves the best, the distant clouds were majestic and the sun was warming. We sat and watched, taking in the view of the crashing waves backed by a beautiful landscape of the unique rolling and rugged terrain of Calvert Island. At times, when the waves broke perfectly in the right area, we could see right through the emerald green water. It was beautiful.
After lunch, while exploring Seventh Beach, we found our slack-line posts that we had put in in July, and they were still holding strong. One if them had stopped a couple of big logs, which were now lying jumbled up against it. I was quite surprised that with all of the high tides and stormy weather that they were still there and strong. Maybe we will get to use them again.
We made our way back along the trail and stopped again at West Beach to enjoy the view.
Back at home we made crab and fish cakes with two fresh crabs and some frozen salmon.
Overnight the strong southeast winds of our gale had changed to strong westerly winds, and throughout the day they had calmed off, to leave us in a peacefully calm night at anchor.  What a wonderful day!