Month: June 2018

Dear Dear Deer, Thoughts on Unintended Consequences

Dundas Island, BC 15-JUN-2018 – At Windy Bay, the Watchmen are two men named David and Tory. David is all teeth, practiced at dealing with visitors in his sixteen seasons, and is an eager talker.

Tory is handsome, tall, muscular with black hair streaked with gray. Between twenty-eight and thirty-two years old, Tory has been working in the Alberta oil fields for ten years. While Jennifer was speaking to David, he told me that he missed family; family was part of who he was. In the ten years he’d been gone, he’d only come back twice. He was home now and did not intend to live away again.

 As we walked from the watchman residence, we saw a couple of deer walking out in the open, grazing. Tory told us he hadn’t asked what equipment he could bring with him onto the island: he would have brought his compound bow; he intended to kill all of the deer on the island. Continue reading “Dear Dear Deer, Thoughts on Unintended Consequences”

Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes

An unnamed cove west of Welcome Harbour, BC, 13-JUN-2018 – We’ve crossed Hecate Strait twice now. Jennifer says it’s not too bad this second time. In the past she is thought of this as the worst possible thing that could happen. Now, she tells me you just vomit and get it over with, again and again and again. No pictures in this post, the waves are never as impressive in pictures as they are on the water, and the rest of the activities we engaged in are not pleasant to watch.

Hecate Strait, we were told by more than one person, is the fifth most dangerous body of water in the world. It is quite shallow, generally less than 80 feet, winds of 50 knots are not uncommon nor are four meter waves.

You pick your weather carefully.
Continue reading “Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes”

Water where it’s not supposed to be

Bag Harbour, Haida Gwaii, 6-JUN-2018 – It’s been raining in Haida Gwaii. As far as I can tell that’s all it does. The wind is variable: it might be good sailing wind, or 40-50 knots, which sends us and every other boat to find a safe harbor and hunker down. While in the safe harbor we use the dinghy when there are breaks in the wind.

When we first bought Caro Babbo I hadn’t considered a water maker. All the books and long-distance sailors I’d read talked about two things: a mister for rinsing after washing in salt water (everyone washed in their cockpits after stripping off their shorts or bathing suits – they don’t sail the waters we sail in*), and collecting rain water.

Continue reading “Water where it’s not supposed to be”

Gwaii Haanas National Park and Cultural Sites

Rose Harbour, Hadia Gwaii, BC, Canada, 3-JUN-2018 – We’ve been in Haida Gwaii for twelve days. Six of those days have been spent waiting for weather to pass. The two days before we crossed Hecate Strait we spent waiting for weather, so by my count, eight of the last fifteen days have been spent waiting for suitable weather to travel.

Some anchorages are more protected than others.
Some days waiting for weather have been on board in a harbor, or inlet, or sometimes little more than a dimple in a coast line out of the wind and waves, waiting. Waiting isn’t too bad. I get to spend it with Jennifer. We read, I cook, I do maintenance, but I haven’t been writing a lot – only one published piece in Three Sheets Northwest, which I haven’t seen yet. Continue reading “Gwaii Haanas National Park and Cultural Sites”