Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

November 2020 (Part Three)   Between our hunting trips we were back at work, and during the middle of November we had the highest tide that anyone in Ocean Falls could remember seeing.  The very high tide was accentuated by a storm surge.  As storm-force winds pummelled the outer coast, water was pushed inwards up the inlets.  In Ocean Falls it added about four feet to the top of the already high 18-foot tide. Water pushed up Martin River and flooded people’s front yards, and the particular area where the yacht club’s dock ramp is secured to land was under a foot or more of water.  Old moss-covered boards floated away from the area of the old sawmill as the water touched the bottom of the crumbling docks.  It was quite impressive to see!   Since our first hunting trip, Ken had been back out to the same area and stayed in the wall-tent with his son who was visiting. Unfortunately, they also did not see any deer, and th...

November 2020 (Part Two) Over the next few days we were up early, and out exploring and looking for deer at dawn.  Some days we came back to camp for lunch, and other days we packed a lunch and spent the day out.  Either way, we were always out again in the evening, hoping to see a deer.   On the first day of exploring we checked out each branch in the road and walked along many old clear cuts scanning for deer and looking for tracks or fresh buck rub.     Buck rub on the tree. While Jason and I walked the road from the shore to our camp yesterday, we had seen a lot of fresh buck rub and we were very optimistic.  Many of the alders right around our campsite were rubbed clean of bark by bucks; some were so recent that no fading, discolouration, or drying had occurred.  We were sure that there were bucks in the area.   As we made our way along the main road, exploring each branch as we came to it, we got to a large washed out section of th...

November 2020 (Part One) November was a very busy month for us here in Ocean Falls.  Our time was split between working and deer hunting; pretty much when we weren’t working, we were either getting ready to go hunting, or gone hunting.  It was a fun month with lots of camping and exploring, but unfortunately we did not get a deer.  At the beginning of November, on our first time off in the month, we had the biggest thunder and lightning storm that Jason and I had seen in a very long time.  It seemed like thunder cell after thunder cell just kept moving through the area, and we could hear and watch as each system passed by us.  It was very neat to watch the lightning show, and some of it was very close to us.  Some of the thunder cracks were a little too close and loud for comfort, and we could not help thinking about the rock face of Caro Marion looming over us.  With the thunder and lightning came heavy hail, torrential rain, and strong winds, and we ...

September 29th - October 18th What a busy few weeks!!  The search for a truck for us to buy continued since I last mentioned it, and in fact it started to somewhat consume our time.  As the sale of the vehicle we were currently using approached, it became more and more important that we find a truck to purchase, but many times it seemed that there were very few reasonably priced trucks in good condition for sale, and what few there were, got bought up too quickly for us to pursue.  Now that we are living in a house for the winter it is quite important that we have a truck so that we can go and gather firewood.  As Kiki was our “truck” last year, now we need a real truck for this year.   We were lucky that my parents in Victoria were willing to help us with looking for a vehicle, as it was quite a challenging task to do from Ocean Falls.  There was one truck that looked good, the ad was posted at 10pm on a Friday night, my mom called about it on Saturday mor...

September 25th -28th (Friday to Monday)   During our time off, since the weather was so wet, we worked on stuff inside the house.  First we finished cleaning the areas that we wanted to focus on, which were the hallway, living room, dining room, and kitchen.  We repaired some cracks and holes that were in the walls, and we secured some of the ceiling panels that were starting to droop down.  Then we started with painting the ceiling.  When we had cleaned the ceiling we had gotten a lot of dirt off, but it was amazing how much nicer everything looked right away with a fresh coat of white paint.   We put on two coats on the ceilings, and then they were done.     The walls in the hallway were a dark red colour, and it was too dark for such a small area with little light; it was way too much.     In order to cover over the dark colour we had to do two coats of primer.     Even though it was just the primer,...

September 24th (Thursday) Our back yard smells amazing because of the constant fragrance from our yellow cedar wafting out of our woodshed, and we have five Stellar Jays that come and ask for food.     Sometimes one of them will come and sit on our windowsill looking at us and tapping on the glass asking for food.     Other times they will sit on our deck and squawk to get our attention.     One of them is super friendly and will even hop right up and take food from our hands, the other four are more timid, but they all stop by to say, “Hi”. We were also paid a visit by a large black bear that decided to come up onto our back deck to get out of the rain.     We had no idea that it was there until Jason saw it out of the back door window.     When Jason yelled at it, it looked up, looked at us, and then slowly lumbered its way out onto the outer part of our deck, out into the rain.     I worried that it may feel trapped, since t...

September 23, 2020 (Wednesday) The next few posts are from our six days off of work between shifts, and it rained every day.  We had a storm move through on the Central Coast that brought strong winds and very, very heavy rains.  It was a perfect week to be living in a house instead of the boat.  It was between 8 and 13 degrees outside pretty much the whole time, and it poured rain.  In the boat we would have been struggling with moisture, but instead, we were enjoying the spaciousness of a house.   When we went to check on the boat, instead of the hatches dripping, windows wet, and the underside of the bed damp with condensation, we found that everything was dry.  It was amazing how much of a difference it made that we were not there cooking with our propane stove, which creates moisture just from being on.  It sure will be better for the boat with us living in a house this winter, and it will also be better for us....

September 12th – 14th (Saturday – Monday) Lots more time was spent working on our woodpile.  On the weekend we finally got all of the rounds that we had stored in the shed, split and stacked.  Monday morning was a major time for us, as it was moving day.     We spent a few hours packing up some things from the boat, and then headed to move into the house.     We did not want to move too much into the house before we had done more cleaning and some painting, but we needed to have everything there that we would want in the near future.   Then in the afternoon we went out to gather more rounds of wood.  We wanted to get as many rounds as we could, and we managed to get two full truckloads brought back to the house.   The tree that we were working on was hard to access for getting the pieces out.  The tree was a yellow cedar windfall that had ripped the roots right out of the ground when it fell.  It was lying off of...

September 10th and 11th (Thursday and Friday) Two more nice sunny days!  What a treat.  We spent a bunch of time over at the house splitting and stacking our wood.  Our woodpile sure is growing and it smells amazing.  In the afternoon on Friday we left work around noon and headed up to the lake.  We went out to Triple Falls where we spent the afternoon relaxing.  It sure was nice to have some more summer-like weather.  The water was noticeably warmer than it had been two days ago.  Jason was doing some fishing from shore when we noticed a small, strange, eel-like animal swimming along the surface.  At first we thought it was a snake, but soon it swam back down to the bottom.  We watched it for quite awhile, and I used my underwater camera to take a video of it.  It had two red patches on either side of its neck area, and after getting home we identified it as a Lamprey.  It...

September 9th (Wednesday) Our first day off after our 8-day shift, and it was also my birthday.  I enjoyed what felt like a nice long sleep-in as compared to getting up at 05:45 for work, and then Jason gave me my birthday presents and made me a delicious brunch of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and sausages.  Then we were off to the lake.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and glassy calm as we planed our way along the lake.  We went down to the south end to check it out and explore, as we had never been down to that end before.   As the sun got hotter we wanted to enjoy it, and to go swimming, so we headed to our perfect picnic and swimming area of Triple Falls.  There we enjoyed a fantastic afternoon of relaxing and swimming.  The water felt quite a bit cooler than it had the last time that we were there, so our refreshing swims were brief. One time, as I was coming out of the water, I saw a bumblebee struggling on the surface....