July 10 Eight Whales Before Breakfast
We spent the night before last tied up at Duncanby Lodge in Rivers Inlet. It was so nice to be in a luxury resort and have a delicious restaurant dinner, not to mention an extremely long, hot shower. The last time I had anything other than a sea shower (where you wet down, turn off the water, soap up, and turn the water on once more to rinse) was in Port McNeill and that was back in June! On our way out of the restaurant after dinner I picked up a copy of the resort's high-quality color brochure describing their 2009 fly-in fishing packages. Once we got under way early the next morning I flipped through it - and was surprised to see Tenacious in one of the photo spreads! We had been there last year and apparently they liked the look of Tenacious's sweeping lines at their dock, against the backdrop of a lovely sunset. (This link takes you to a slide show pqt3, and one of the 5 pictures in the show has Tenacious in it - the only sailboat you'll see... But the one in the brochure is even better!) http://www.duncanbylodgemarina.com/new_marina.html

We didn't have much time to enjoy the brochure or the photograph, because within minutes of getting off the dock, Patrick spotted a humpback whale. As it turned out, it was the first of many we saw that day. We saw two mothers with babies, and even saw a humpback whale breach! It was quite a sight to see a 50- or 60-foot, multi-ton creature launching itself out of the water to land with a colossal splash on its side. We counted 8 whales in less than an hour. After that I went below to make breakfast. We saw several more as we continued north up Fitz Hugh Channel. Patrick took this picture while I was videotaping one of them. That's me on the bow - the whale is in the water...

July 7 Takush Harbour
We're anchored in a tiny little bay in the wilderness at the moment. It's so calm and beautiful, but its also pouring rain. Yesterday we rounded Cape Caution, which is considered one of the 'gates' to passage up here. Since the Cape marks the area where boats are beyond the northern tip of Vancouver Island, it can be a challenging stretch of water; there is no protection from Pacific swells. A lot of boaters just don't go this farth north -- they don't trust either their boats or themselves to attempt it. This is our second year going around Caution, and we ended up in 4-6' swells, which was absolutely no fun. The cats agreed with me. The highlight of the passage was spotting our first humpback whale of the season, and it was a fine, big one. He was traveling south, and we were traveling north, so we soon parted. I think he was probably trying to get out of this dreadful rain...

We eventually made it out of the swells and in to Smith Sound, and in return for about 3 miserable hours, we came in to this beautiful little anchorage. Looking at the chart, I was amazed that Patrick had the courage to try to anchor in here. It's so small, and rather shallow, but the Captain knows what he's doing, and as a result we are all alone in this tranquil, private nook. There are lots of little 3-4" fish in this bay (herring maybe?) that jump out of the water like miniature trained dolphins. We almost had one jump into the dinghy!

I explored the islands yesterday. I've read that in the 1800s and early 1900s this place was the permanent winter village of a native band called the Gwasilla. By 1960 there were very few of them left, and they all moved to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. From the colossal volume of broken china and glass that are liberally sprinkled all over the place, they must have smashed every single plate, bottle and jar in the village before they left. I even found shards of the same china pattern here that I have seen at several other midden beaches - it must have been a very popular pattern! I also found older bits of depression glass, and even flow blue and other transferware china patterns from the 1800s. One piece I came across was marked with the manufacturers' name, Grindley Bros., England, on the bottom. I have pieces made by them among my antiques at home!

This morning on the beach I heard loons calling, and I was "buzzed" at least a dozen times by hummingbirds. Patrick suggested that in my periwinkle blue raincoat and knee-high yellow mud boots, perhaps they think I look like some kind of new flowering plant. I also spotted a band of gigantic maurading slugs (see picture.) They had to be 4 or 5 inches long. If these guys moved a little faster, I think they could beat you up for your lunch money! The islands are mostly covered with wild berry bushes that are all in flower now, along with the huge, lacy-white parasols of cow parsley. The hummingbirds couldn't be any happier. Rain and all, neither could I.