Sunday morning's apres-latte adventures found me dinghying toward the Unwin Lake trail, but distracted by the mist-clad sides of Tenedos Bay. I never tire of the variety I see at the water's edge in the fjords that shatter the Pacific Northwest into thousands of isolated islands and peninsulas. Rocky ledges make layer cakes of the shore, with a frosting of green and gold mosses oozing over the brinks of the stony outcrops. Skirts of oysters and mussels festoon the rock in shades of white and purple below the tide line, with grey rock and orange lichen above. Firs and alders and arbutus adorn not only the flat spots, but the sheer faces in twisted forms of infinite variety. Drape these scenes in wispy flows of morning fog, and you have a mystical land that can be populated by thousands of flitting fairies or dominated by a single, monstrous ogre, ...your choice. Today there was the added delight of great clouds of sea jellies drifting in the green water, filling the underwater scene with pulsing puffs of translucent white life.
I finally put away my camera and my imagination long enough to make it to shore where I tied the dingy to a branch above a rocky outcrop that ensured a reasonable reboarding at a lower tide. The hike to the lake was typical PNW, ...endless second-growth forest struggling to bury evidence of man's assault on its old-growth ancestors under creeping green mats of moss and lichen. The well-trod path to the swimming rocks laid twisted patterns of root and rock bare, but they facilitated rather than hindered the way to expansive viewpoints over the two-mile long lake.
Lake Unwin is a yachter's haven for warm water bathing, and I was game enough to indulge. Skinny-dipping is rumored to occur as well and, whether or not it was true before, I can personally attest to the fact now.
Foolish child-like indulgences aside, I got back to Mabrouka for a early-afternoon anchor weighage (my made-up word) and departure to another yachter's haven just a few miles further northeast. Navigating southwest out of Tenedos Bay, then north and west around Bold Head and outside of Otter, Mellville, Mary and Grass Islands, I cautiously negotiated the narrow passage between Eveleigh and the William Islands into Prideaux Haven.
Prideaux is a menagerie of coves and bays rimmed by rocks and saltwater lagoons. Aside from Prideaux Haven proper, the favored anchorages are in Melanie and Laura Coves. Access to Laura is separate, so I delved further in where I'd begun and selected a central spot in Melanie Cove for the night. Where I understand that these bays are jam-packed with yachts from huge and ostentatious to small and modest at the peak of the season, there were no more than a few within sight from any spot this early mid-September day.
After I assured myself of a secure set to the anchor, I cranked up the dinghy and toured the setting, venturing to the eastern end of Melanie Cove to look for a convenient landing spot. The tide was very low and the beach offered either an ankle-deep mush of smelly, algae-infused mud or a crust of viciously ragged oyster beds, so I settled on a prominent outcrop and clambered up the treacherous rocks to tie off my mooring line where the dinghy would still be accessible as the tide came in.
A few yards higher on the shore stood a two-pronged hint about the wisdom of my choice. It was a sign that read Dog Poo Island. Okay, number one: watch where you step, and number two: it's an island. I have managed to cope successfully with the first hazard many times in my short, simple life, but the second one required casing the joint before abandoning my dinghy for more than a hour or so. A circum-island inspection revealed that it wouldn't take too much of a tidal return to isolate me from my transport, so I abandoned Dog Poo Island for a less convenient, but less risky tie-up to one of the firmer shallows along the beach of the mainland proper.
My mission for the afternoon was to search out evidence of the defunct habitations of Mike Shuttler, one of the many adventurers that chose these isolated waters out of which to chisel an existence far from the choking hordes of civilization. Between 1890 and 1930 he'd labored to build a cabin, log the forest, and terrace the cleared areas to make way for the gardens and orchards from which he would make his livelihood selling fruits and vegetables to produce-impoverished neighbors and logging camps nearby. He also had a reputation as the local philosopher with his library of classic books and his voracious appetite for any reading material adventurous visitors of the day might lend or give him. M. Wylie Blanchett speaks very highly of his intellectual curiosity in her book The Curve of Time.
I didn't find much of Mr. Shuttler that afternoon or the next morning, although I may have come across what may have been the moss-ridden remains of a couple of his fruit trees. I'd like to go back and look more carefully for the terraces he built, though. Maybe next time.