Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

March 16th (Monday) Today was a spectacularly, beautiful day!! It was the nicest day we have had, probably since around the end of September last year. It was clear blue sky; the sun gets quite high in the sky now, well above the mountains, and we get sun well into the evening.  When the breeze calmed off in the afternoon it became glassy calm, and it was warm enough to sit outside on the dock in just a light, long-sleeved shirt. I was barefoot, and Jason was in a t-shirt; it really felt like a perfect spring day.  While we were outside enjoying the weather, we saw a marten come out of the bush and onto the rocks along the shoreline. He went hopping along from rock to rock, and stopped occasionally to look around. He was so cute from a distance, and we are very glad that the marten has stopped coming around our boat. It has been a long time now since we have heard any little feet on our deck at night, and there have been no signs that it has been around at all....

March 15th (Sunday)  On Sunday we were off to work again. It was day seven in a row, and we were looking forward to taking Monday off.  It was another beautiful sunny day, although there was still a steady, northerly wind blowing out of Cousins Inlet. From inside it looked warm outside, but stepping outside the wind whisked any warmth away and made us shiver.   I started the morning off by making our next food order on the Save On Foods website. Dorothy had come by to see us yesterday and let us know that the website was being overloaded by people who no longer wanted to go to the store to shop, due to the Coronavirus. The website was not prepared for such a high usage, and so apparently Gladys had spent several hours on Saturday trying to get onto the web site to place her order.  We decided to try it first thing, so that if we could not get on, we would have all day to keep trying. This was our last day to place an order for the next barge.  Se...

March 14th (Saturday)    Over the course of yesterday evening, and overnight, the wind continued to increase, and the temperature dropped to -5. As our boat pulled on her lines and then sprang back against her fenders the noises were constant yet ever-changing between squeaking, creaking, and howling. Needless to say neither of us slept that well.  From the marine weather records, while we were experiencing the worst of the wind here overnight, Cathedral Point, which is in Burke Channel not far from here, received gusts of 131 km/hr, and had a wind chill of -20.  In the morning the spray-covered breakwater was white with a thick layer of ice, and anything with its back to the wind and spray was equally covered in ice. Unfortunately this included Kiki.  The back of both pontoons were covered in a thick layer of ice, and there were icicles hanging off of the outboard. Poor, cold Kiki.     Although the wind had decreased somewhat by mo...

March 13th (Friday)  Friday dawned a beautiful, crisp day. Although the morning seemed relatively calm we could see the wind out on the water, and every now and then a gust would hit our boat. It was interesting because one gust would be on our nose, the next gust a while later would be from behind, and then a gust a little later would hit us on the side. It was the first time that we had had such changing winds here.   When we went out to go to work we were amazed at the snow that was billowing up and off of the mountains around us. Looking straight up beside us, to the snow-capped mountain to the north, we could see snow being blown straight off the top in walls that matched the gusts. Looking over Ocean Falls and Link Lake at Baldy Mountain the scene was spectacular.  The splendid, smooth and powdery, snow-covered Baldy Mountain looked like it had glistening, white tentacles reaching up and waving around above it, hundreds of feet in the air. As the su...

March 11th and 12th (Wednesday and Thursday) Wednesday was doctor day in the town of Ocean Falls. Every so often, less frequently in the winter because of the weather, but more frequently in the summer, a doctor and team come by boat to Ocean Falls for the day. The clinic acts somewhat like a walk-in clinic, and people who live here get a chance to see a doctor.   On the main floor of the municipal building there is a room that is equipped with a medical table, some doctor’s tools, first-aid supplies, and an AED. This is where the doctor sees patients, and there is also an area that is set up like a waiting room.  Jason and I were working upstairs, and because it was Wednesday, which is mail day, I went downstairs in the morning to give our next blog letter to Dorothy, so that it would go out on the plane. As I came down I happened to come out of the door at the same time as the doctor and his team were arriving, so I met one of them, and said, “Hi” to the rest o...

March 9th (Monday) Our work on the municipal building is finally coming together. It sure has been nice to watch the place really start to look sharp. The colours that we are using are the ones that were already purchased for the project, however, we have used a white tint to modify the colours. The main colour that was bought was a very pink white. It was called "pink fluff", and was much pinker than the person who bought it thought it would be, so we used a lot of the white tint to try to dull out the pink.  We also used a bit of the tint in the blue paint so as to make it a nicer match to the white-pink colour that we are using for the walls. We think the colours look good together, but whether or not one likes the match, it sure looks amazing compared to what it looked like before.

March 5th (Thursday) All day it tried to snow. Each time that we looked out of the window at work, it was either raining, sleeting, or snowing. At one point it was truly snowing, and it was actually starting to accumulate.   Since we started working at the municipal building we have been able to access the building’s internet, and we have made contact with some friends and family again. I have been asked about how Kiki was doing, and I realized that I had not mentioned our last repair.  I believe that the last that I had mentioned was that we had put her back in the water after our first bow repair, and that we noticed that we had a second leak in the bow section. On a subsequent day, we pulled her back out of the water, and put her back into the shack. When we sprayed her bow section down with soap, the leak was incredibly obvious and bubbled away profusely. The leak was most definitely not there when we had searched and searched for the tiny hole around the sea...

March 10th (Tuesday)    On Tuesday we awoke to about two inches of slush. The ground and the trees were white, but our dock looked like it was covered in opaque gelatine.    It splashed as we walked through it, and it was a very slippery, wet mess.   At around 11:00 in the morning the Shearwater barge arrived into Ocean Falls. Gladys stopped by to pick one of us up to go with her over to the barge because we had requested to get some propane. I went with her while Jason continued painting, and I waited in the slush talking to some of the residents.  It was interesting to watch the whole operation of the barge unloading; first came everything that was on pallets, food, alcohol, lumber, etc. Once that was all unloaded and claimed, I was allowed to go on board the barge to get our propane.   The propane was in a propane truck, which was strapped down securely to the deck of the barge. Once the lady at the truck had connected ...

March 7th – 8th (Saturday and Sunday) Well there definitely has not been as much for me to write about since we have been working most days.  We spent the past five days mainly at work, and for the most part we have worked 9:00-5:00 days, except on Friday when we worked ten hours. We took these two days off of “work” to work on some of our boat projects, and also to relax. The weather was nice and sunny, although it was definitely not warm. We grabbed a couple of chairs from “The Shack”, and sat in the afternoon sun on the dock wearing our warm winter jackets while enjoying the sun’s rays.   We took our crab trap out in Kiki, and set it in about 150 feet of water. When Jason pulled it up the next day we had four nice-sized males. Yay. We cooked them up to have deluxe crab sandwiches for lunch at work. There is a toaster in the kitchen of the suite, so we are able to have freshly toasted bread, topped with thinly sliced raw cabbage and onions, along with crab ...

March 6th (Friday) On Friday we awoke to a perfectly, still and beautiful morning. Overnight we had received about 2 inches of snow.  It was wet and heavy snow, but everything was spectacularly beautiful; the clouds were high, and the sun was breaking through as it came up over the mountains.  We had a splendid view of all of the mountains down Cousins Inlet, and all was glistening and beautiful!   We walked to work in the snow, and looked at the poor, little, springtime flowers that were now almost completely buried in the snow.     We found only a couple of flowers with the tips that were just poking up through the snow.   It is funny to think, that it is just nine days until when we had been planning to leave Ocean Falls. This past week the weather has been storm-force winds, snow, rain, and hail. At this point we will just have to wait to see what the weather brings us come the 15 th , and we will decide then whether or no...

March 4th (Wednesday) In the morning, although the wind had died off, and the hail had stopped, there was a significant layer of hail accumulated on the dock.   We headed to work again. It is weird to be at work, but since we have been having mostly stormy and cold weather, it has been perfect for working inside and making some money. It is perfect for us because we are still in a quiet, remote, and beautiful area, our commute is just up the dock and a little ways down the road, we work on our own schedule, and the person who hired us is energetic, supportive, and enthusiastic.  It is always nice when she comes to check in on how we are doing and to see if we need anything, because she is so happy with our work and how much better the place is looking. When she leaves, Jason and I always have smiles on our faces, and it makes us want to get even more done on the place before we leave.   She has also been trying to convince us to remain in Ocean Falls to...

March 3rd (Tuesday)  It was a stormy, cold day. The wind blew up from the southeast, and even inside the apartment we could hear the howl of the wind and feel the shudder of the walls. We could see the flying spray and driving rain blowing up over the water, and at around midday Jason went to check on our boat. She was doing just fine without us, but it gave us some peace of mind to check on her; we could also see her from one of the windows at the end of the building.   When we walked home after work the wind was still howling, and it was hailing. As we walked into the wind towards the marina we had to hold our hoods down, and bend our heads forward into the wind so as to keep the hail from stinging our faces. As we walked down the dock we kept to the centre of it, and kept our weight forward and our heads down. By the time that we got home, our fingers were cold and stinging.   Inside the boat, our fridge, which is on sliders, had rolled out from unde...

(Sheya's mom writing: Again, it seems that yesterday's post did not send the pictures. To view the pictures, when, and if this continues to happen, go to the actual web site of https://svredwitch.blogspot.com and hopefully you will be able to view them there. It is also from there, at the bottom of the post, that you can make comments to Sheya, if you wish to.) March1st – 2nd (Sunday and Monday)  On Sunday we took the day off of work, and had a nice day at home. We spent a long time on Spanish, as we are struggling with the past and future tenses. There are so many ways in which a verb can change depending on its usage, for example, for the verb “to talk” there seems to be seventeen ways in which the word can change depending on how it is used. It makes it quite the brain overload to try to keep them all straight.   In the afternoon the rain started to try to change to snow, and a layer of slush accumulated on the dock. By evening the trees across the c...

February 27th – 29th (Thursday – Saturday) The last three days were spent working. Each morning we did a bit of Spanish lesson time before heading to work and putting in a full day, as we have found that it is best to keep the Spanish words and phrases fresh in our heads.  The progress on the entrance and hallway area has been somewhat slow, as it is one of the worst areas. We scraped all of the loose paint off, but often when we started to sand the paint that had seemed well adhered, it would start to bubble, and we then had to chase it further and further with the scraper.  The hall area also had a lot of doorframes, seven in total, and so with the ceiling moulding and the baseboards, it was a lot of finicky, hand sanding.   We finally got the entrance/hall area fully scraped, and the first sanding done.   We applied the first coat of filler to a surprising number of dings, holes, scratches, and cracks, and then left them to be sanded later. ...

(Sheya's mom writing again: I see that the repost of the pictures still didn't come through with the pictures. Not sure what is up with those. I am trying one more time, but if this does not work, please go to the website of https://svredwitch.blogspot.com to see the pictures there. Via the actual website you can also feel free to comment on anything about Sheya's posts. She receives the comments via e-mail when she has internet access. She has responded to a question about the cost of the shipping, which was " It worked out to just over 60cents a pound for frozen items, just over 50cents a pound for other items, and a total of around $50." ) February 25th (Tuesday) In the morning, after a nice, long session of Spanish, I worked on getting the next set of blog pictures organized. Since it was mail day the following day, I wanted to get the next memory card of stories and pictures ready to take to the post office.   In the afternoon we headed out into the ...

February 26th (Wednesday) Around noon we headed over to meet up with Blair, Norm, and John. They had invited us to their Wednesday-lunch gathering at the Marine Ways. The Marine Ways is an old building that was built in 1927, and it is still being maintained and used for boat storage, and many other things.   After lunch we spent a while with Norm looking around his Treasure Trove.   Since he first arrived in Ocean Falls, over thirty years ago, he has been collecting unique items, some quite old and others newer, and he has accumulated quite the collection.       Some of our favourites were a set of glass bottles, each a different colour, that were shaped in a wavy form and fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces.  He had an automatic egg boiler that was from the 1930s. It was an electric unit that was made of stainless steel, and was to be filled with water. The water would then be heated, and there were baskets for puttin...

February 25th (Tuesday) In the morning, after a nice, long session of Spanish, I worked on getting the next set of blog pictures organized. Since it was mail day the following day, I wanted to get the next memory card of stories and pictures ready to take to the post office.   In the afternoon we headed out into the rain and cold. We first went to see Blair to deliver a California roll that we had made and kept for him last night. We had used the avocado and cucumber that he had given to us to make the California rolls with, and we knew how much he liked them, so we wanted to share one with him.   We then carried on to the post office, and after mailing the next blog set to my parents, we used Dorothy’s laptop to order some items that we wanted to have ready for pick up in Shearwater on our way north.  Because the internet at the municipal building is not fast, this took some time, and Tiger got some good loving cuddles.   We also heard from Dor...

(Sheya's mom writing: I am waiting for the next set of posts from Sheya to arrive in the mail. Here are some marine life pictures taken by Sheya earlier in their journey.) Shrimp Blackeye Goby fish Baby Dungeness crab

February 24th (Monday)  When we got up in the morning and looked outside, it was a beautiful, clear, still morning. We decided that today looked like it would be a perfect day for going kayaking on Link Lake. The forecast for the day had been for cloud and showers, but the day looked like it would be nice. We packed a picnic lunch, and headed out.   Our kayaks had been deflated and packed up since December when we first came to Ocean Falls, so they were all ready to go, and we carried them up in their packs.  Up at Link Lake we inflated them and headed out. It was a beautiful morning, even though a line of cloud had already begun to appear.   Once out on the main lake we paddled northward in the sunshine.  About one nautical mile along we met the wind line, and although it was not particularly strong, it had enough fetch to create a chop, and the wind sure made it colder, especially on our fingers.  It was still beautiful, ho...