Reflections by Kirk - 07/03/13

Things are different. We are a bit further north than the last time that I reflected. At that time, we were hunkered down in a very beautiful place in the middle of a very large body of water during some not so nice weather. We had first thought that False Bay on Lasqueti Island was a “First Nations” (or Native American for you south of the border folks) settlement. But then we embarked on a dingy ride around the bay and discovered that it was apparently a place with considerable wealth, big expensive homes, nice cars and a village center with quaint shops and a restaurant. This is all in a place that could not possibly have had a population of more than 100 people. As far as we could determine, the only way to get there is by private boat or floatplane. I was feeling a little unsure of myself, as we had made several decisions that delayed our progress further north.

We are now in what must be one of the more spectacularly beautiful places on earth and I feel better. The area between the north end of the Strait of Georgia and the southeast end of the Queen Charlotte Strait was carved by glaciers eons ago. The result, as you look at a map, is maybe 40 or 50 biggish islands. But I count anything that has a tree growing on it as an island. By my definition, there are thousands of islands in this area. Everywhere you look, unless there is a “big” island in the way you can see a multitude of islands. Every day we hear bald eagles talking to one another and ravens speaking whatever language they speak. Seals frequently poke their heads above the water to see what’s going on and porpoises pop up for a breath of the incredibly fresh air. We have now abandoned our hopes of getting to Alaska. It seems that we have just lingered a little too much longer to get that far. We will probably work our way a little further north to Fitz Hugh Sound, which we hear is just as beautiful, but a bit more remote than the Broughtons where we are now. The plan, which is always subject to change, will be to spend August working our way down the west side of Vancouver Island. Since we left about six weeks later than we had hoped, our time here in the NW corner of the North American continent is not very long and there is much to see. The notion of spending another season or more exploring up here has crossed my mind more than once. Then Kris asks how we would deal with the winters and I get stymied.

Time has taken a bit of a different dimension. It is really not dark until about 2300 hours (or 11 PM for you landlubbers) and I’m really not sure when it gets light as it is always light when I awake. We generally have a good idea of what day it is, but sometimes consult our devices, just to be sure. The air is fresher in a way that is really hard to describe, but it just is. The sky seems a bluer blue and the sun, when we see it, seems brighter. The weather has had some consistency for the past week. Cloudy or fog in the AM, clearing, then freshening winds in the PM and then continual light till very late in the evening. Because of the maze of islands, the winds have not been conducive to much sailing, but we have still had the sails up more than we anticipated.

The frustration with ATT is not that much different. We have just discovered that the awesome plan we thought we had entered into a while back in Port Townsend is not what was promised. Instead of the 5 GB of monthly data transmission that we thought we had, we find that we had zero GB of data and had run up a bill of $1,100. ATT understood our confusion, eliminated the huge bill and steered us to a better solution. So we spend some more money to get a measly 300 MB of data transmission via cell phone for emails and such, while in Canada. We now search the cruising guides for places that have WIFI (a different system that does not use cellular), which is where we are tonight, in Echo Bay on the NE side of Gilford Island (one of the big ones). Due to the remoteness of the area, there is not much cell coverage, so please be patient on hearing from us or responding emails and such.

Other than fish farms and some logging, cruising boaters are about the only source of revenue for this area so the marinas, resorts and fishing camps all have some special feature to attract people to them. Here at Echo Bay, the things are a pig roast on Saturdays, prime rib dinner on Wednesdays and a BYO happy hour every day. So back to the time is a different thing. Today is Wednesday, but no prime rib as they had a big feast on Monday for Canada Day and will have another one tomorrow on the 4th of July for the Americans. We never made it past the end of the dock for happy hour as we stopped to talk to some folks at a picnic table right at the end of our dock. What a delight this turned out to be. We met two couples from Gig Harbor WA, which is not far from Seattle. One couple is in the process of building a home here, and the other is helping with the construction. Both couples have been travelling up here by boat for over 25 years. We had a dinner of freshly caught prawn and crab enchiladas and a very educational, for us, conversation. The prawns, which were huge, and the crab were caught less than a mile from where we now sit. Turns out that one of the couples are good friends with good friends of ours. Small world.

The whole nature of our adventure has yet to totally sink in. It still has the feel of a vacation rather than of a lifestyle. We have spent much more time on boat stuff than we would on a vacation and have taken the luxury of lingering longer in places than we would have otherwise. But the notion of being wanderers or nomads still does not feel like what we are doing.

Live Long and Prosper