Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

July 4th (Thursday) It drizzled all night, which was not very motivating at all.  Around seven, however, the grey of the drizzle moved past, and a motivating patch of optimistic blue appeared. We gathered our things and headed to the beach. We had decided the day before that we wanted to be to 7th beach around 9 a.m., because that was the time for a very low tide. It was to be 0.15 metres.  We got to the beach on time, and after dropping off our packs at our spot, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours exploring along the fronts of the rocks around past the end of 7th beach, and on to 10th beach.  The area we were walking would have had water well above our heads with crashing waves at high tide, and we enjoyed exploring all the nooks and crannies of the rock, filled with all sorts of cool sea life.  We were surprised to see another couple out exploring, it appeared as though they had also timed their arrival for the low tide, and they also took their time po...

July 3rd (Wednesday) In the morning we headed to the beach with a project in mind. We grabbed the full-length shovel from behind the outhouse at the trailhead to West Beach, and hiked over to 7 th  beach.  Although it was surprisingly warm, it was also cloudy, and remained that way all day. We watched through the day as crazy dark clouds lingered offshore, sometimes they would form distinct clouds and rain was clearly visible beneath them, other times they would meld into one dark line. Luckily for us they remained in the distance all day, and it was actually perfect weather for working.  We set up two anchor points in the sand for our slack line. We basically dug a 4' deep hole, put in a vertical post and tamped the sand down around it. Then about ten feet behind it we dug a 4' deep and about 4-5' long hole into which we put a log about four feet long laying horizontal in the hole. This was our buried anchor for the post.   We had grabbed some old...

June 30th (Sunday) Today was a perfect summer beach day! Exactly the type of day we had imagined in our best dreams of Calvert Island. We hiked our way out to 7th beach and set up our day site in a spot we like, at the far end of the beach. The sun was behind a large cloud at first, but it came out in full strength within an hour.  We spent the day having a ton of beach fun. The beach, especially on a sunny day, is the perfect environment to bring out motivation and enthusiasm.   We played hacky-sack, skim boarded, played Frisbee, practiced karate, explored the rocky edge to the beach, went swimming, and did some boogie boarding with our skim board a couple of times. Playing in the waves was so much fun! The water was quite cold to get into at first, but once we were in, as long as we were playing, we stayed warm for a while before the deep chill finally set in. The waves were not particularly big unfortunately, but every so often we would get a set of three good sized...

June 29th (Saturday) Today was the first time we have had to charge our boat batteries. It was the first time that we have either not been on the move to charge while underway, or have not gotten enough sun in the last few days to keep our batteries topped up. We don't need much sun, but we had not gotten enough. As such it was a noisy morning, and we made water as well. It was also cloudy with a few sunny periods in the afternoon, and actually quite warm and a bit muggy.  Afterwards, we packed a picnic lunch, and headed to a beach. We got a beach fire going just for the fun of it. Even when it is warm out, it is sometimes nice to have a fire. The only annoying thing was that the beach was on such a gentle slope that since the tide was going out, we had to constantly go and send the tender out further so it would not become high and dry. This would definitely have been a beach where it would have been nice to have had the wheels for the transom of our tender so that we could hav...

June 28th (Friday) In the morning we headed out fishing. We went fairly early so as to avoid any wind that often picks up later in the morning. We were surprised that it was glassy calm. We put out our crab trap in the next bay over on the way out. When we got out to Main Guy Rock the water was still a milky glass. Only the continuous swells disrupted the inky surface, but they seemed much smaller than last time we were out, and in comparison we barely felt them.  The tide was high so there were no breaking waves over Main Guy, but it was quite obvious where it was because of the large number if birds.  It quickly became clear why they were all there. There were little fish being fed on by Dark Dusky Rock Fish, who in turn were being fed on by two large sea lions, and the birds were taking advantage of whatever they could get.  We quickly came to benefit from the Dark Duskys as well as they immediately bit on our jig, seemingly at any depth, as we would get them whil...

June 25th (Tuesday) We awoke to clear blue sky! Yippee, Beach Day!! We knew this was the forecast, so we were prepared, and headed out early. After taking Kiki to the Hakai dock, we walked the trail to West Beach.  We then continued on, taking a combination of the trails, beaches, and shorelines, along to 7th beach. We then decided to continue on, and we took the very old, and not well marked or trodden trail, up through the tundra area that we had partially explored previously. This trail brought us down to 8th beach, from which we were able to walk the rocks above the water, over to 9th and then 10th beach.   Although all of these beaches were incredibly beautiful, the question always became, "what’s around the next point?" and so we hiked on. We were only able to go from 10th to 11th without a lot of bushwhacking because the tide was out fairly low. We did have to bushwhack part of the way because of a large impassable crevasse in the rock, but otherwise we made our way...

June 22nd (Saturday) Well the days are getting shorter now, and it seems summer may be over on the central coast of BC. Although today was forecasted to be somewhat nice, we woke up to a cold rain that turned to drizzle. We decided to leave more beach exploring to another day, and go fishing instead.  At first we fished off of a small island across from the start of Meay Inlet. We were catching smallish Rockfish, but it was promising. Then I caught a fish that put up a good fight. Just before it got to the boat it suddenly took off in a circle right under the boat, and my line broke. I think it must have cut on the prop of our outboard. We never even got to see what type of fish it was. Bye-bye first jig :(. Then J caught a Lingcod that was 25", so we let it go. Then we heard a sound, and looked to see a large salmon jump; it came well out of the water, and we could see its beautiful colours and distinct pink line of colouring. We went over and did some casts and then did some ...

June 20th (Thursday) We woke up to a beautiful sunny day!  We did some last minute chores with the ease of having fresh running water, and then left Dawson’s Landing, and headed down Darby Channel. When we got to Fitz Hugh Sound we decided to do some sailing. It was more as something to do on a beautiful windy day rather than as a way to get to our destination, as the wind was directly against us.  It sure was nice to be clipping along to just the sounds of the wind and the water, and it turns out that without our engine running we seem to be able to sneak up on sea otters. We saw a whole bunch of them in a group, just floating around. From a distance we thought they were logs, then maybe birds, then we realized what they were just a bit before they realized that we were approaching. They flipped over and dove, and then all popped up behind us and stuck their heads up looking after us. So cute!!!   Later as we tacked our way back and forth across the sound we saw a...

June 19th  (Wednesday) This morning we pulled up anchor, and left Fury Cove in the rain. We headed up Rivers Inlet, and rode the 2 meter swells up until the first bend, where they all lost their strength. We came up this way specifically for Dawson’s Landing, which is a small floating place tucked against the steep shoreline of Darby Channel, right where it joins into Rivers Inlet.  It is a service station for all of the fishing lodges in the area, and therefore was unusually well stocked. We have found that all of the places that we have visited for fuel so far have had next to nothing for supplies. Dawson’s Landing was actually quite well stocked, and we were able to replenish our supply of jigs, which was the main motivation for coming up here. We also stocked up on some other items, and even got some fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as filling up our diesel and gas tanks.   While waiting to fuel up we saw a humpback whale out in the inlet.  The owners w...

June 17 (Monday) It was a rainy day, and since we woke up still feeling tired it suited us just fine to have an inside relaxing day. We had the fire going, and Jason made us baked beans on the fire that smelled delicious. We enjoyed them with biscuits for dinner.  Jason's homemade beans. I have been working on sorting pictures. I try to stay on top of sorting and deleting pictures, going through the new ones every week or so. I always seem to manage to take so many pictures, but I think I have been doing an alright job of deleting. It is enjoyable to go through them and see the best of the ones from our last few anchorages. Over the course of the day most of the boats that came in yesterday left, and new ones arrived. By evening there were 12 other boats here -- our busiest anchorage so far of the trip. We would not have guessed our busiest anchorage would be here, where are they all going? They come one after another, anchor, spend the night, and leave the next day. So st...

June 15 (Saturday) Well, today was an excitement filled morning! We headed out in Kiki for some early morning fishing. The wind was light, there was no fog, just clouds, and the swells were smaller than the other day, and so we headed out to McEwan Rock. The rock had a lot of seagulls and eagles on it; probably about 15 eagles. We dropped our hooks and started fish, and soon we noticed a pod of orca whales out past the rock. They seemed to be heading in our general direction so instead of going out to them we continued fish and watched them surfacing. We caught a Kelp Greenling that got away right at the boat, and then we caught a Lingcod, which we let go because it was just under legal size.  The orcas had gone on to the opposite side of the rock so we puttered our way to the lower end and sat and waited, watching them make their way along. It looked like there were four or six of them, and one had a massive dorsal fin, so straight and tall! It looked like there may have been o...

June 14 (Friday) In the morning we made some hot tea, and took it with us in our kayaks for an early morning paddle. It was a beautiful sunny morning, no fog, which was a first in awhile, and also different than forecasted. We headed for the northern and larger of the lagoons here, and since the tide was low there was a waterfall flowing out. Bubbles from the waterfall heading into the lagoon. We were able to find a spot to get out just down from the turbulence from the falls, and portaged our kayaks, one at a time, over the slippery and somewhat unstable jumble of rocks covered in very sharp barnacles.   There are several different types of barnacles, I can't remember all of their names, but the ones that were at the rapids are the ones we have come to expect near areas of continual current. They are much longer and have razor sharp edges, much more dangerous than the regular seashore barnacle. We both got minor cuts from them, and we have decided that leather gloves...