Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

February 13th - 25th, 2022   From February 13 th , when we returned home to Ocean Falls from our time in Mexico, until February 25 th we worked on our house every day, trying to get as much done as possible to make our place a nice home rather than a construction project.   In the living room the dark wood-looking wall paneling got removed from the wall, every surface to be painted got cleaned and sanded, drywall repairs got fixed and faired out.   These drywall repairs included replacing some pieces in one of the ceiling corners where there were the remains of what appeared to be old water damage.   The area had clearly been very poorly repaired in the past, and it all needed replacing and repairing again.   Once the last coat of fairing compound went on and was sanded, it was time to clean again.   With all of the dust removed we pulled up the cardboard that was covering the beautifully sanded hardwood floors, which Jason had sanded...

January 1st - February 12, 2022 Between January 1 st and March 27 th Jason and I spent less than two weeks at home in Ocean Falls.   After a lovely visit with my family at the beginning of January, Jason and I flew to Mexico for a month.   We rented a car and stayed in the very small Mexican town of Xul-Ha, about a 15-minute drive away from the Caribbean coast, and less than that away from the Belize border.   The place that we rented was only a three-minute walk away from a beautiful, turquoise-blue, freshwater lagoon, and we were in the water, either fresh or salt, almost every day that we were in Mexico.   For the entire month I never felt cold.   It was paradise, and the much-needed rest into the sun and heat that both Jason and I needed.   Having a rental car for the month allowed us to drive to places that we wanted to explore.   So, we drove a total of about 2,500 km,    visited six spectacular ruin sites,    went on sa...

De cember 31, 2021 On December 31 st we were booked to go out on the ferry with our truck, taking Jiji, our white paint, and a bunch of stuff from our house that we wanted to donate to thrift stores.   Our plan was to leave our truck at my parents' place while we went to Mexico, and then to bring back a truckload of supplies that we would need for working on our house when we got back to Ocean Falls.   Two days before our scheduled ferry departure, we got notified that the Northern Sea Wolf ferry, which would have taken us from Ocean Falls to our connecting ferry in Bella Bella, had been cancelled.      Since we had plans to see my brother and his girlfriend who were visiting from London for a week, and we also had plane tickets to go to Mexico, we could not simply wait and hope that the ferry would run the following week.   We had to get out from Ocean Falls to Vancouver Island.   This was the second week in a row that they had cancelled the Northe...

December 27, 2021 December turned out to be a very snowy month in Ocean Falls.   The locals who have been here for a long time said that in the last 20 years they had only once before had snow like we had this past December.   The weather was bitterly cold with arctic outflow winds ripping down over the mountaintops.   Ron’s house, where we were living, was very hard to keep warm in that kind of weather.   We hung blankets up over the windows, but the whole house seemed to be a sieve for the wind and the draft was impossible to keep out.   We kept the fire roaring 24/7, but still it seemed that even the living room, where the fireplace was, was never truly warm.   The front stairs up to the house froze into sheets of ice, and the road up to the alley was even more dangerous.   Other trucks had tried to make the hill only to slide their way back down the sheet of ice.   When our largest snowfall of several feet came, our alleyw...

December 2021 December came, and Jason and I started to really focus on working on our house.   It was such a large project that we took it one area at a time.   We focused on the upstairs first.   Behind all of the wallpaper we found many spots that required repair.   There were not too many large holes, but there were literally hundreds of screw, nail, and pin holes in the walls.   The walls became poke-a-dot covered as we worked to repair the holes. After buying the house we discovered that many items will ship to Ocean Falls for free delivery from Home Depot, and so, we began to order many items from them.   One item that we were very happy to discover had free shipping was one-gallon cans of Behr paint, so we placed our first order for six cans.   Two cans we ordered were to be white for the trim and doors, and the other four were to be tinted to a colour for the walls.    In about two weeks time our delivery of paint arrived, and we w...

October 29, 2021 For one of our hunting/exploring daytrips, Jason and I loaded our folding bikes into Little Red and headed over to Rattenbury Point on King Island.   There was a landing spot there that had been left from when the area was logged.   Since the landing was only intended for use by barges, and it needed to be able to withstand high tides and crashing waves, it was made with very big rocks.   As a result, even though we had intentionally timed our arrival with one of the two high tides of the day, the smooth road-like top of the landing was still about eight feet above our heads.   Luckily, the water was calm, and while I kept the boat close to shore, but away from the rocks, Jason hopped off of the bow and grabbed the first bike, which we had staged there in advance.   With bike in hand, he was able to scramble his way up the big boulders.   Then he came back down for the second bike, which I passed off to him.   Once both of our bicy...

Hello Everyone! Sorry that it has been so long since I have written anything for the blog.   Jason and I have been very busy with the new house, and we have also been away a lot.   I have considered the main highlights of the last six months and I have come up with some notable moments to share with you. I believe that my last post was about our Goat Mt. Hike in October.     November 9 - 15, 2021 In November we spent much of the month hunting, and despite the fact that we spent many days exploring different areas in from the nearby inlets we only saw one deer during the entire month, and it was a doe.   We did, however, have many good hikes exploring different areas that we had not seen before.   With the wall-tent left set up as a base camp in the area of Clatsy Lake, we spent many days hiking the roads and ridges around that area.   We also did some day trips to different spots along the inlet in the hopes of finding some sign of animal li...