Day 6: Homeward Bound

​We had an early start this morning at about 6:45am and hauled anchor. The weather had let up a little which was nice. We set out past the Penrose Island, Cape Caution, Egg Island and Pine Island and across Queen Charlotte straight towards Port Hardy. On the way we saw a humpback whale and some more porpoises.  We were keeping our eyes peeled for a "raft" of sea otters but to no avail. I was skeptical whether Otters had the dexterity to build rafts so I didn't have my hopes up anyway. We made it into Port  Hardy with plenty of time to spare. Margot, Sohrabh and I were all on the same flight so we said goodbye to Passing Cloud and Russ, Dean and Eric. Cheers very much to everyone for a fantastic few days on the sea. Its a bit of a worry that it makes me wonder if slogging it out in the office is what I want to be doing. Hopefully I can get back on the yacht soon. Penrose islands, past cape caution and across Queen Charlotte straight. Check back here when I can get some other assorted photos off the crew including one of all of us to post on here.

Day 5: Fitz Hugh Sound and a bit of a kayak

​Through the night there was some pretty heavy rain and it didn't let up the next day. The radar was getting a bit grumpy with all the moisture!

We hauled anchor at about 8 and set off from our lagoon. We motored down Fitz Hugh Sound. We pulled in to Koeye Bay for lunch. After some delicious curry and wrap things we hopped on the zodiac for an exploration mission up Koeye River. Unfortunately when we got there found that there was some fish thing going on between August 15 and September which meant we weren't allowed to motor up the river. Margot and Eric made a valiant effort at paddling us up but to no avail so we went ashore at a beach nearby. The water was pretty red which was allegedly due to tannins being washed down the streams. On the beach we found some pretty big paw prin​​ts that indicates that bears do exist but then again it could have just been a person walking with special boots on that make bear paw prints in the sand.

In the afternoon we weaved our way through some heavy weather and fishing boats. We managed to find a hump back whale too which was good.

We ended up anchoring in a place that I can't remember the name of about 6pm and Sohrabh and I went for a bit of a Kayak around the shore. I took about a billion photos but I will try and limit it to just a few here:

Back on the yacht we had a couple of beers with corn fritters (with secret sauce) followed by chicken, yam, some sort of delicious salad and beetroot. After dinner we had a bit of chart chat where we recounted the last few days together followed closely carrot cake for desert. 5 days on this yacht have gone by far too quickly. Sleepytime after writing this up at 11pm.

Day 4: Carrot cake and Sagar Lake

​After a fantastic sleep we were all up around 8:30am to pull up the anchor and set off. There was not much on the go so we embarked on an epic carrot cake making mission. Lots of things were grated, mixed and cut to achieve this:

We stopped in a Shearwater to try and get propane but failed. Instead we came back to the boat with ice cream to eat with the carrot cake.

Then we ate the carrot cake. It was delicious.

We pulled into our destination for the night at about 6pm: Codville Lagoon. It was pretty rainy and shit outsi​​de but Sohrabh, Eric and I decided to stretch our legs on trail on the shore. A local knowledge book said it should be about 3 miles to Sagar Lake. We were surprised to  find the lake after only about 700m. My imperial to metric conversions are pretty rubbish but I am still pretty sure 700m is no where near 3 miles. The lake front was beautiful (or we could imagine it would be on a sunny day) with nice golden sand:

Later Russ told us that he thought the sand was imported. It seemed pretty ridiculous but considering we hadn't seen any other sand in the area it also seemed plausible. We walked along the sandy beach for a bit and Eric found a wee guy:

Back on the yacht we got dry and had a delicious dinner of fish and corn followed closely but more carrot cake. We had left over icing so we ingeniously re-iced the sides of the exposed cake ready for the next sitting, brilliant!

I hit the hay about 11:30pm

Day 3: Quigley Creek and Klemtu

​Up again fairly early at 7:30am and we had some chocolate oatmeal pancakes for breakfast. There was a bit of a lull in the wind so we dropped the main which went very smoothly. We motored a fair while up the sound and pulled into the head of Quigley creek. We decided to take the zodiac out for spin and explore the creek. We managed to motor a fair way up and then paddle for a bit before coming to a rocky impass. Sohrabh, Margot and I continued walking up the creek while Eric serenaded us with his flute:

W​​e saw a bunch of jumping Salmon and we managed to find some bear paw prints but no actual bears.

Back on the boat we continued on into Meyers Passage where it got fairly tight in a few spots but we had no worries getting through. The only animal life we saw was a lone Sea Lion. It seemed that the harder I scanned the shores the less bears I saw.

The rest of the day was fairly rainy and pretty un-eventful. We had run out of water so in the late afternoon we pulled into Klemtu to fill up the tanks. It was absolutely pissing down but while we were waiting Margot, Sohrabh and I decided to go for a wander round the wee town anyway. It was a first nations reservation and I thought it was a bit messy. There was a lot of rubbish lying on the ground and there were big oil booms out in the harbour to try to stop pollutants from the town getting in the sea. I doubt they were working very well. We went to have a look at a fairly dilapidated salmon hatchery and the "Big House" which had some kinda cool first nation artwork stuff going on. We also ran into the local RCMP who seemed like they hadn't talked to people in months. They were really nice though and offered to take us on a tour of their facility. I couldn't help but think that all they had to show us was a couple of desks and a holding cell. We politely declined and headed back to the yacht.

We decided to stay in Klemtu harbour the night since we had been on the go pretty much solidly since we left Port Moresby camp on Friday. I had a bit of a crack at fixing the compass light but unfortunately I suspect that it is a problem with the negative circuit which would be a prick to fault find. It was nice to anchor for the night and we spun a few yarns over a delicious dinner of pizza (very well kneaded I might add) and strudel for dessert. A couple of beers didn't go amiss either.

Day 2: Crossing Hecate Strait

​We had a pretty lazy start to the morning as the taxi was only due to pick us up from the hostel at 9:45am. Breakfast was provided but we had to cook it ourselves so I had a couple of eggs and a bowl of cheerios. I was halfway through my eggs when the taxi driver showed up at 9:35. I wolfed (is that how you spell that?) the rest and hopped in the taxi.

We had about an hour on a forest road to get to Port Moresby Camp and had a pretty good look at some forestry. I don't think Dad would have been very impressed with the pruning and thinning on the forests. At the dock we met the crew: Captain Russ Markel, 1st mate Eric Burton, Russ's brother Dean and Margot Hessing-Lewis. Sohrabh Memon and I made 6. Unfortunately the cook was departing the ship for a spell but I wasn't too worried as I was pretty sure whatever we ate would be better than hash brown sandwiches. The crew had a few things to sort out before we climbed aboard so we were advised to go for a bit of a walk. We were informed that there should be a pretty good chance of a bear sighting and the bears on Haida Gwaii don't really attack people so I was pretty excited. Needless to say th​​at we didn't see bear. I am beginning to suspect that this Canadian bear theory is just a myth.

A quick shot of our vessel from the dock at Port Moresby Camp:

We zipped over and climbed aboard the Passing Cloud. We headed straight out to cross Hecate Straight as the weather was forecast to kick up in the next couple of days. Allegedly, the straight is the fourth most dangerous straight in the world. It is fairly shallow (~60ft) and in winter the swell can expose parts of the seabed and cause crazy waves to break randomly all over the shop. Needless to say we were hoping to avoid that. On the way we spotted a collection of birds, a rock of Sea Lions:

A pod of Dalls Porpoises and a whale that was either a Fin whale, Sei whale or Minke whale (I didn't tell anyone that I had eaten Minke when I was in Iceland!). We also had a super yacht cross our stern:

Most of the crossing was fairly uneventful though. We put the main sail up but only to stabilize the boat a bit and motored the whole way. We got to the other side and headed into Camano sound at about 1am. We were intending to anchor in Pemberton Bay but there was a fair bit of swell and wind from the South which would have been blowing directly into the bay so we decided to push on into Lorado Channel. At about 3am we were all getting a bit tired so we switched off the engine and I put my head down for some kip. I found out later everyone else that stayed up just bobbed around for a while in a daze before starting off again about 2am or so. Its always good fun when you abandon plan A!

Yacht Trip Day 1: Sandspit (not actually on a yacht yet)

Had a nice sleep in before a delicious hash brown and cheese sandwich. I then drove over to Sohrabh's to park my car before we hit up the skytrain for a ride to the airport. We got to the airport in time for a sneaky beer just before midday. The suns always over the yardarm somewhere! Unfortunately I had forgotten to take my pocket knife off my keyring so the trusty Swiss Army knife that I had for about 10 years (that didn't cost me anything because a backpacker had left in the hostel) was confiscated. Nevermind, I kinda always wanted one with scissors on​​ it. Plane ride was uneventful and didn't even crash once.

Once in Sandspit we found our accommodation and checked in. Hilariously low key with no keys or anything. The manager told us about a trail further up the road so after a quick trip to the liquor store for the essentials we went for a bit ​​of a run (who walks trails these days anyway)​.​ 

The trail was absolutely awesome, great to be running through the forest again after so much running on pavement in Vancouver. The track itself was a loop and quite technical with lots of roots and mud. It also kept us on our toes because a lot of the trail was obscured by lots of tree fall. A couple of times we had to stop and do a bit of route finding but it was pretty well marked. The trail was a loop with a bit of filler at the farthest point to a waterfall:

We were amused by the sign that said "Warning: difficult trail, use at your own risk" I wondered whose risk we were at when we were running on the main trail. The trail to the waterfall was pretty steep, rough and slippery but we made it OK, nice to give my trail shoes a workout again. All up it as about 10k so we felt like we had earned our dinner. We went along to a place called the Orange roof where I drank ceasars and ate a halibut burger followed closely by a fudge brownie sundae for pudding. Yum and yum. I'm writing this and its only about 9:30pm and we have no idea what we'll do for the rest of the night! Nice to be relaxing though.

Finally Caught Up

​So the last few posts have been a bit thin I guess but I'll try and get a bit better. The last couple of things that I have done is have a big night with Ryan Wolosnick and his sister from Edmonton:

and hiked up Mt Seymore for a couple of pictures:

Kayaking

​Various kayaking and canoeing missions took place, once out of Port Moody and into Indian Arm with distant relatives Michael and Brandon, once down the Aluette River where Michael got a little wet:

A Photo on the river:

A bird guy (Blue Heron):

We also did a canoeing mission up Indian Arm for Brandons Birthday. Jake (one of his cousins) and Bryn (Brandons girlfriend) came too so we had to get two canoes on the top of one car which was fun. It seemed to work OK:

We set up camp for the night on Twins Island where we ate, drank and sang a few songs (I took my guitar) with some other random camp goers on the dock:

We also caught and ate some crabs:

which were damn tasty. At about midnight someone mentioned that there was bioluminescent dudes in the water. Splashing the water with ores and stones inevitably led to a midnight swim which was pretty amazing. When someone jumped in the water there was a big green plume of water and when you moved your hands around in the water trails of green dots were left behind. It was pretty warm too. A cool experience. After we got back to civilization we had a BBQ at Brandons parents place where I ate delicious Salmon. Yum.

A couple of weekends later we also went for a paddle and a hike up Widgen creek. Brandon got a roof rack for his birthday which we trailed for the first time. It looked pretty hilarious but seemed to work OK:

Jake and Brandon thought I was an idiot for taking this photo:

Up the creek it looked pretty similar to the Pelorus:

After the creek hike we went to Bryns parents place where I was fed delicious salmon and steak for dinner. I was even sent home with a massive red cross parcel full of more salmon and more steak. I am doing pretty damned well out of these distant cousins! More yum.

YP Boat Trip

​​I'm on a boat mother f*****. I don't know who is reading this but you should know that this is a quote from a hilarious song. It was also very in appropriate for me to actually say this on the day because the owner and captain of the boat was the CEO of my company! I have joined a committee of people to start a young professionals group within my company and while we were discussing things to do someone must have asked the CEO what we can do around Vancouver. Then apparently he offered to take the committee out his boat! Even though it all seemed awfully lah di dah to me I couldn't turn down a free boat trip. It was another cracker summer day and I got a couple of nice pictures of Vancouver from Coal Harbour:

From there we headed out under the Lions Gate Bridge:

and around Bowen Island. It was pretty nice to have a chance to have a yarn with the other committee members outside of work. Thanks to Bryan Watts for taking us out!

Holly Burn Peak

​The Hollyburn trail leads up to Hollyburn peak and we decided to take headlamps and do it after work so that we could catch the sunset. On the way there was a nice lookout where I got this picture of Vancouver.

The walk in was not too spectacular but I did manage to take this shot of some random wee guy:

The view from the top was pretty nice and we had quite a while to kill so got a few pics including a nice one of The Lions:

The main problem was the bugs. I dunno what the hell they were up to. They didn't even seem to bite or anything, just buzzed around annoying the hell out of us. Weirdos.

As the sun went down I got a couple of nice shots but then it was getting pretty frigid up there and my party was getting a bit cold so we started to head down before the sun went down properly. After about 15min the light was getting really nice though so I decided to run back up the trail to the top to take a few more pictures. Here are a couple of the good ones:

On the way back down we stopped at the same lookout again so here you can see the day shot and the night shot of Vancouver taken from the same spot:

Then I went home and went to bed.

Upper Shannon Falls

​Went for a hike up another trail from where The Chief starts. We managed to walk into a thunderstorm at some stage which was pretty cool but it is kinda un-nerving standing on the top of a mountain in a thunderstorm. Needless to stay we did not stick around for too long on top. A couple of photos below including a stellar specimen of a Grouse!

Blog Hiatus

​​So it has been a while since anything has made it on here. There are several reasons for that but one was just laziness which is a bit dumb. I am writing this in Sandspit now but I will make a couple of posts to catch up on some of the stuff that has happened over the last few weeks.

Mother Mother: I went to see a band called Mother Mother at the Malkin Bowl. It was a pretty cool venues in the middle of Stanley Park. Just some band from Vancouver but they were pretty sweet and the crowd was pretty into it so it was fun.

Osoyoos: It has a hilarious name, I drank wine, I still don't like wine.

Other notable things were going to see a band called City and Colour at the PNE (a fairground thing with an outdoor amphitheater), Going to site to check out the construction of the Waneta Powerhouse Expansion, the Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival and going to shoot pistols with Jono and Katty from work where I shot a hello kitty poster with a desert eagle. Shooting pistols was surprisingly entertaining but definitely a rip off.​​ The desert eagle was $8 per shot!