Cruising in Ireland? Actually it’s Spieden Island in the San Juan Islands (Click on photos to enlarge)Into the mystic. San Juan sunset.
There’s no wrencher like an old wrencher; and a sea wrencher at that. There’s also no fool like an old fool! And so there I was with a dead engine in the tide slop’s rock ‘n roll off Smith Island in the Eastern end of Juan De Fuca Strait. The forecast wind had not developed. I couldn’t sail. The boat was drifting backwards toward the open ocean which is not a bad thing, but the tide would eventually turn and the wind would rise from the wrong direction. I contemplated that if all else failed, I could inflate my dinghy and use it’s outboard motor to tow mother boat toward safe haven. It was looking like a long day ahead. My fuel system was sucking air. Diesels demand an unadulterated supply of clean fully liquid fuel.
How ya doing’ Duen? One of my favourite Canadian charter boats, Baltic built, almost a hundred years old and still earning her way.Arrgh! Furling the headsails, the old fashioned way. Fun in steep seas!Seafire clearing US Customs in Roche HarbourPlastic Galore Part of a Selene Yacht rendezvous in Roche Harbour
Back in February I posted a blog about my new used fuel filter brackets and how, for once, I’d beaten the system by recycling cast-off parts. I’ll never bloody learn! It turns out that those parts should probably have gone into the garbage. This old country boy has spent a lifetime trying to make silk purses out of pig ears or, put another way, spending thousands to save dimes. Another expression has to do with putting lipstick on a pig. No matter how you go about it, in the end you still have a pig. Well, all good sailors have a knife in their pocket and soon enough I swallowed my pride, cut the fuel hoses and bypassed those “free” filter assemblies. A little bleeding of the system and then a very sweet purrr! Albeit I was now running on a single set of filters, but I was under way. I glumly motor-sailed on toward Port Townsend realizing all of my efforts with the new/old filters were for nothing. Now I have to take it all apart and put it back together with new filter assemblies, probably worth about $500. plus all the repeat labour. I was proud enough to have figured out what to do out there, it’s what I’ve done for a living. Most folks would have sat there waiting for salvation. But then most folks would have had it done right the first time. (No tools were lost in the bilge during this adventure.)
Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. There are several other shops to the school.The whole town of old Port Hadlock. Original tiny houses!The lights were on and someone was home
There’s no point in crying over spilled diesel. I’ve run away from the accrued tedium of health issues and the long weeks of couch potatoing (So now I’ve turned potato into a verb) and immediately discoverd a new bit of hurt.
Clematis cottage, Port Hadlock
Serves me right. I was admonished not to be expecting “Bailing out” if I went to the US with only a pocketful of medications and no health insurance. Because I’ve been in the hospital recently I can’t get traveller’s medical insurance. We all know horror stories about Canadians in the US needing urgent medical attention and not having any medical insurance. They suddenly find themselves with a bill of many thousands and the shit storm is enormous. I travelled in the US for years on business with no medical insurance, which I’ll concede was bloody dangerous and stupid, but I’m following my instincts and hoping for the best. I’ll have to be sure to look both ways when crossing the street. Thank God I’m not a texter! There is, I believe, no emoticon for “I’ve just been hit by a car!”
AJAX CAFE 1977, Apparently a roaring success.Trump yourself a bagpipeSchool for the boatfolk
A piece of my heart is in Port Townsend Bay and the immediate area. It is a very salty place with a long nautical history. The area is a living boat show year round. It is populated by a large number of artsy fartsy boaty nutters like myself. A centre of wooden boat building and rebuilding, sail lofts, nautical foundries and other seafaring fringe industries, it is bliss.
Western Flyer being reborn. Check out WesternFlyer.Org It is one helluva project!All in order. Tools kept5 like this indicate a professional shipwright.that’s a boat name!
The Boat Haven in Port Townsend is a huge Disney-like centre of marine indulgences and you never know what delight lurks around the next corner. Gorgeous boats, old and new, in various states of financial decomposition abound. There is an energy to absorb from all those dreams in varying states of realization. Nearby Port Hadlock is the site of the slowly growing Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding where people can develop their sliversmithing skills. It is an apparent success.
Paspatoo foredeck Money can’t buy you everything, but it can pay for all that varhishing
Would you believe that, nestled among its wings, I found a shop selling bagpipes and harps! As it turned out I’d hit a weekend when there was sailor’s exchange on with all sorts of wonderfully priced boat bits (But no fuel filters) I did find a compatible brand-new portlight for my boat, complete with screen for $7. A few other small treasures came home with me as well.
The Sailor’s Exchange Old charts for sale in a puddle in the rain.
Of tremendous delight to me was an open house to view the ‘Western Flyer.’ It is a hulk now languishing in a big boathouse in Port Townsend’s ‘Boat Haven’ Once, it was used in the 1940s voyage of John Steinbeck when he wrote ‘Log From The Sea Of Cortez.’ I had the opportunity to actually touch a sacred icon of both literary and nautical significance. I learned with some chagrin that I had repeatedly passed the boat many times in the Swinomish Canal where it languished as an abandoned hulk and then sank.
THE DIRECTORYFabulous local native art in the old courtroom
Bu odd coincidence, later that same afternoon, I found myself in the ancient basement jail cells of the old Port Townsend Courthouse. It turns out that Jack London was once incarcerated there for a night after a wild turn around the town. My imagination soon created enough horror of what it might have been like in this grim corner. So, twice in one day, a literary pilgrimage! There was a wonderful exhibit of local native art in the old court room upstairs and then a colourful little parade out on the main street of earth day folks..
Jack London slept here
Once the most likely place on earth to be shanghaied, Port Townsend retains some of its former rich colour. (Shanghaiing was the practice of drugging and/or otherwise abducting men to serve as crew on sailing ships.
The Sheriff’s word processor
Some old taverns in Port Townsend still have trapdoors in floors where victims were once slipped down to waiting rowboats. Really!)
The window and the skylight.
Building detail in downtown Port Townsend.
Mainstreet Port Townsend
In the surrounding countryside I was then shown organic farms producing a variety of fine goods from cider and berry wines to cheeses, baking and meats. There is a large effort afoot to return to practical organic farming methods and it seems to be working. Salmon are even returning to long-abandoned streams.
Beach Trash Port Townsend
I sailed for home on Monday morning in a welter of huge steep green lumps and spray. A sou-Westerly wind was building against a large ebb tide. The seas were chaos no matter what the heading steered, ‘Seafire’ endured a long salty baptism and I was very happy to have an inside helm. It was too rough to take any good photos and too briny for the cameras so some images are recorded only in my head. Especially poignant was a beautiful offshore tug westbound while towing a stately old freighter in minimum ballast, trimmed light in the bow, probably off to a breaker’s yard. We passed too far apart for photos so that funereal procession can only be described with words. I dreamed of the sight later that night. This time the tow passed overhead in the sky. The tug and tow were joined by the drooping catenary of the towline, the forward vessel’s twin screws slowly turning. I’ll leave my readers with that fantastic image and post this blog as a photo essay about a grand little voyage which has passed too quickly.
Earth Day paradeWormtrap
Believing my blog was finished, I shut off this laptop and started the engine in preparation for weighing anchor in my final anchorage on Prevost Island. My beloved old Lehman died on me once
“Your mother dresses you funny!”
more. The injection pump is again full of air! After more tweaking, tightening, and several bleedings, it again runs sweetly. So, maybe it is not the new/used bits for which I’ve condemned myself. They’re even not in the system now. Dang! I now have new suspicions and a few possible resolutions. It will be something simple but temperamental mechanical problem is no fun. But then, what’s the meaning of life without its mysteries?
Southbound with a favourable wind…for a few minutesAnchorage at Prevost Island, three more hours to home
“Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or be held at standstill in mid-seas.”
…. Kahlil Gibran from ‘The Prophet’ as copied from ‘The Soul Solution,’ Bob and Linda Harrington
I’m baaack! I’ve beaten my long bout with terminal snyphlis. God, three weeks can be a long time! I can take a deep breath once in a while without coughing up any weird biology. Yeehaw! Once in a while you get a sense that maybe, just maybe, things are going to work out. A simple clear breath is such a wonderful thing!
I found a like-new compass on e-Bay, a Dirigo, one of the best names to be had. I made an offer, which time-expired, but I sleuthed out that of all the places on the planet, it was sitting in a pawn shop in Victoria right here on Southern Vancouver Island less than an hour away. I went and bought it for a very good price. The weather was gorgeous and for the first time in weeks I felt fit for living. Jack was along and he deserved a break at his favourite Victoria dog park, Macaulay Point Park, an old artillery fort built in the late 1800s.
For Tony and Connie A spring day view from Macaulay Point to Ogden Point and the Victoria Harbour Entrance. Home Port to ‘Sage.’Jack and the big doghouse. Actually it’s a tunnel providing sheltered access to one of the old gun emplacements at Macaulay Point. Note the build date:1895A view West to Race Point and then the open Pacific. A place which all good things must pass.
Once home the suspense mounted as I headed for the dock to see how well the new compass fit the old box. With some simple inventiveness, one gimbal ring fit inside another and the whole plan fell into place as if it were pre-destined for a long time. A double-gimballed Dirigo! Eat your heart out. Wow! What a feeling after all the weeks of abject misery. Now all I have to do is swing the new compass and we’re ready for sea. What the hell do I mean by “swinging the compass?”
Steady as she goes! My new double-gimballed Dirigo. Even the compass light worked out perfectly. Note the compass points marked around the card
OK, it’s as good a time as any to explain the rudimentary principals of using a good old-fashioned magnetic device and yes, I’ll over-simplify as much as I dare. Contrary to some beliefs a compass does not tell you what direction you are going, nor does it actually even show in what direction True North lays.
Sadly there are a lot of pilots and mariners who don’t really know how a compass works anymore. Once, so long ago, it was the only navigational tool used by many travellers.
We live in the age of GPS which is a network of satellites. By simple triangulation they can very accurately determine where you are on the planet within inches. Unfortunately, all it takes is for Uncle Obama or, God forbid, Commander-In-Chief Trump, to flip a switch, and we loose our Global Positioning Network. With millions depending on this device in their car, boat, aircraft, mobile phone, camera, wristwatch, it would be a disaster. Many folks would be utterly screwed. The military allowed GPS to become available to the civilian world because it has something else even better. It doesn’t need GPS anymore now than muzzle-loading cannons. This becomes part of my eternal essay about how people are rendered dependant on technology. Eventually we become enslaved to convenience instead of having the freedom of relying on knowledge, wisdom and intuition. And so we become very easy to control.I know there are countless sailors who have crossed oceans only using their GPS, and electronic charts are universally accepted now. Many vessels even have a sextant aboard anymore. I don’t ever want to have to find my home in the dark with my eyes closed. I insist that one of the mantras of a real sailor is self-sufficiency. There is some deep value in retaining wisdoms of the old school.
So here’s how a magnetic compass works. There is a simple acrostic that reads: True Virgins Make Dull Company. I’ll explain.
TRUE north is any imaginary straight line on the planet that intersects the equator (another imaginary line) at 90° and crosses through both the North and South Poles (two more theoretical points) These north/south lines are called lines of longitude but I’m trying to keep this simple and we’ll avoid any description of latitude and longitude here. Using one of those lines on your chart you layout your course from A to B and then determine the true course to which you’ll add or subtract your adjusting values.
VARIATION is the local angle between Magnetic North and True or Theoretical North. Unfortunately The Magnetic North Pole is a considerable distance from the True North Pole so depending on where you are on the planet, the angle between the two poles naturally has to change. To further confuse the issue, the Magnetic North Pole slowly moves around. That precession must be accounted for to provide complete accuracy. Any chart or map will have a variation rose which will tell you how much the angle is changing annually. A navigator needs to calculate the current value of variation and then subtract if the variation is Easterly, or add if it is Westerly. Hang in there, it gets more interesting.
MAGNETIC This is the angle, or heading to steer once you have added or subtracted the variation as required.
DEVIATION Within any boat, aircraft, or other vehicle there are various magnetic properties. It may be the engine, electronic equipment, the steel plate in your head, stereo speakers and so forth. This magnetic pull is an influence on a compass and so each compass installation must be “Swung” to determine the amount of deviation, east or west, on every ten degrees of the compass card. It is then all recorded on a deviation card and posted within sight of the compass.
COMPASS Finally, now that you have added or subtracted the deviation closest to the heading you intend to steer, you have the actual number on the compass card to try and steer steadily toward.
Of course, you can set your GPS to steer either true or magnetic and it is not affected by any deviation until it goes bleep and becomes a dark, empty, lost screen. In the old days of sail, when you had to adjust your helm constantly to compensate for the vagaries of the wind in your sails, the helmsman “Boxed” the compass. He did not steer by degrees but rather the point the skipper ordered. A point, for example, of East Nor’East could be altered by the point (11.25 degrees) either way. One point to Starboard would make the heading ENE by East. You had to pay attention, even with the wind rumbling in your ears. The other navigation tool was a sextant, so that you could work out your position according to the angle of altitude to specific stars at a given moment. That required an accurate chronometer but here we teeter on the fine line between art and science and this is a blog and not a navigational tome.
Ropework. Skills which came from when a seaman’s deftness with ropes and sailcloth were part of his trade.A gaff rig. Mains’l detail on the fishpacker ‘Providence’Cutty Sark. The real thing!
A good friend and accomplished sailor just emailed me from Sydney Australia where he had toured the ‘James Craig’ a fully restored and working barque. He was gob-smacked.(A barque was a full-rigged ship, with at least two masts square-rigged) There are very few of these beauties left, especially in seaworthy condition. You can actually buy a ticket to go for a harbour cruise aboard her. I’ve trod the decks of ‘Cutty Sark,’ the famous preserved tea clipper stored in Greenwich, England and I fully understand Jimmy’s enthusiasm. There is a spirit in the fibres of these fabulous old icons. All of the emotion and drama of the long-ago passages, the storms, the rich characters of the crews are an energy which is easy to feel. It is tangible and very real, something much larger than mere imagination.. (A clipper had three masts square-rigged and was very fast.) ‘Cutty Sark’ once logged off 363 nautical miles in 24 hours, with a full cargo. She did that without burning one drop of fuel for propulsion! How’s that for green thinking?
My favourite full-rigger is the Mexican training barque ‘Cuauhtemoc,’ partly for my affinity of things Mexican but also for the love and spirit with which she is sailed and maintained. However, she was built in 1982 as a training ship and is not an original working ship like the ‘James Craig or ‘Cutty Sark.’
In addition to the skill required in simply steering such a vessel without auto-pilot or GPS the ‘James Craig’ apparently has 140 pieces of running rigging each held, or belayed, in place by a belaying pin. Each of those lines has its own name and place, which every crew member was expected to know. In storm or in dark, whether ill, hungry, or off-watch, a seaman was expected to know exactly what to do on demand, on deck, or in the rigging. To make a mistake, either at the helm or in the rigging could cost the ship a mast or worse. Injuries and fatalities were all too common and you didn’t want any on your head.. Many of these men could neither read nor write but the old term about “knowing the ropes” was a high accolade. The confidence in yourself and your shipmates had to be enormous. Men were appointed to their positions by their skill and experience. It had nothing to do with any piece of paper. It was not uncommon for a man in his mid-twenties to have been made captain. One of my two favourite nautical writers, Alan Villiers, (the other being Sterling Hayden) once served aboard the ‘James Craig’ when she plied her trade in the Tasman Sea. I’ve never laid eyes on her, but I feel I know her a little.
A picture is worth a thousand words
I truly believe that sail-training ships are one of the finest ways for young people to develop solid personal character as well as invaluable nautical experience. Sadly, Canada, with the longest navigable coastline of any nation, has only the lovely little old ketch ‘HMCS Oriole’ as our sail training vessel and flagship. Compared to Japan’s ‘Nippon Maru’ or the USCG ‘Eagle’ or Mexico’s ‘Cuauhtemoc’ it is rather embarrassing; eh?
A bow detail of the Australian-built replica of the ‘Endeavour’ Men sailed ships like these around the world on voyages of discovery…and then found their way home again!
Easter weekend has thundered up on us and the weather is grudgingly yielding to spring. Buds and leaves and flowers are emerging and this week I saw a huge flock of swans heading northward. Now there’s an example of real navigators. The dreary business of the US presidential pre-nuptuals wears on and on. As I write, the Ladysmith Volunteer Firehall has just sounded its general alarm once again. In minutes emergency vehicles wail off on their next mission of mercy and self-importance. (They love any opportunity to use their sirens.) Dogs around this little town howl in response to the sirens. Meanwhile, on the television, more horrific terrorist attacks in Europe have the media humming with speculations and innuendo. It’s clearly time to go swing my compass.
The boat house in spring. A backwater in Ladysmith
The 49th Parallel Ladysmith lies on the 49th parallel of latitude. This granite and quartz boulder sits on the beach a little to the south where it was deposited almost perfectly by a glacier during the last period of global warming.Now THAT’S a Boulder! It’s the little guy underneath doing the heavy lifting.
Last post I mentioned the Ides Of March. Now I’m living them. It’s snot funny! After eight days of gasping and gagging I descended into whimpish submission and made a doctor’s appointment to be told what I already knew. The sawbones advised me that I had pneumonia. So now I’m to trust in these colourful wee pills and to “Get plenty of rest.” I can’t lay down without coughing my lungs inside-out so I sit in a suspended state that is neither sleep nor wakefulness and spend all day staring into a garden-slug beige-green mist, rasping out the next breath while sitting in my living room recliner, aka “The Stinky Chair”, and trying to maintain a state of mindless zen; neither dead nor alive. There are many kinds of courage I do not possess and enduring this state of nothingness is one of them. Writing this paragraph is the most ambitious thing I’ve done in a week. How do people endure a long illness? There is far too much time for introspection. I feel a tide of madness advancing up through the lethargy of this illness, the boredom, and the weakness to change anything. Imagine this, old Fred has lost his voice!
The cold rain continues to hammer in tedious monotony. Jack the dog maintains a state of hibernation all the while eager, at a moment’s notice, to bound out into the weather for a change. Any small outing is a grand adventure. I stagger frailly along paths far behind him, my chest squeaking and bubbling pathetically. How we take the fragile, teetering miracle of good health for granted! How I hope to be doing exactly that again soon. Last night my wife took me to a local Chinese restaurant for a bowl of wonton soup, a perfect tonic for my state. I opened the car window to spit another bit of lung out into the pelting wet of the night’s gale. The window wouldn’t close again! We returned home, I fixed the window, we went for another try at the soup. The fortune cookie was utterly inaccurate, I returned to my stinky chair. Everything on the television is beyond my idea of edification, enlightenment or simple non-offensive entertainment. Meanwhile, old ‘Seafire’ continues to languish at the dock, sadly tugging at her lines waiting for the next adventure. Coming soon, coming soon.
Don’t shout at me! A very old arbutus tree, and still alive.
A week later, I’m still honking like a flock of geese. Things are improving slowly and I can actually sleep lying down again. Now Jill is sick, I’ve shared the wealth and she has spring break to recover. Gee thanks huh! I suppose a benefit of the misery of an illness is to be reminded what a truly fragile species we are. This is only a flu virus that is striking people down locally, it could easily be some other deadly microcosm wiping us out by the millions. It has happened before, many times. I maintain that there is one non-indigenous organism on this planet: us. If we don’t learn how to co-exist as the guests we truly are here, we may well come face to face with antibodies which will erase us from our tenuous and infectious invasion of the earth, the host we insist on exploiting far beyond our minimal needs. There is a natural order to the universe which will be ignored for only so long.
The dead end…speaking of bikes and feeling poorly!
All the while, my illness seems to have extended a negative karma elsewhere. Problems with my vehicle have had me crawling, repeatedly, underneath on the garage floor doing some nasty work over and over until the gremlin decided to quit fighting. The job was certainly not a cure for a chest infection! It’s extraordinary how a low time seems to attract problems. On a check of ‘Seafire’ I find the big compass at the main helm now has, mysteriously, a split bowl. There is mineral oil leaking all over. One of the joys of getting older is knowing all things pass. Life can be an ordeal or an adventure, it is all about attitude.
Don’t go to sea with an empty compass box, and don’t buy a Sam Yang compass. Now I need to find a new compass that fits the box I made.If you like rainbows…you’ve got to go out in the rain.What duck? Some lovely brightness despite the winter gloom.The Vortex. Dark faces in the sky.Caw! The crows of spring waiting for something to happen, or something to die.
Well isn’t it funny how the pickle squirts! A lady in Queens, New York was doing a general search online of the term “Ides Of March” and stumbled on ‘Seafire Chronicles’. She liked my photo of a bicycle leaning on a post at surf’s edge and so now we each have a new friend. Justine Vallinotti posts her own blog. http://midlifecycling.blogspot.ca which is built on her passion for bicycling. It’s a lovely and informative sight, well worth checking out. You’ll find a link to her site on my Blog Roll in the right hand side bar. Another fabulous sight linked there is Sage On Sail, friends of mine from Victoria here on Vancouver Island. They have sailed from Victoria across and up and down the South Pacific. Now they’re sending incredible photos from South Africa as they methodically work their way Eastward along its coast. They are also avid bicycle folks and I believe they are heading up and across the Atlantic for the New York area. So heh! You never know what will happen when you pusha da button! I once set foot in New York for about an hour in the late sixties. I flew in and out of JFK as crew and vowed never to return there again. This old bog-stomper was terrified at the endless city I could see from the air and I’m sure it is even more horrific half a century on. Here rises that issue again about different types of courage. I much prefer the backwoods and wide-open ocean, the thought of which, I know, freezes other folk’s blood. Different strokes for different folks.
Still on the theme of how one little thing can lead to another, the bike business led me to thinking of “Fat Man On A Bicycle”, a BBC 4 travelogue and cooking show hosted by Tom Vernon. It was a good enough show that I still remember it and of course that leads me to recalling “The Two Fat Ladies”, another BBC 4 cooking show featuring two obese women who travelled Britain in their motorcycle and sidecar cooking up wonderfully rich food wherever they stopped. They were deadpan hilarious. While researching the above I stumbled on a site called “Fat Guy Across America” It is about a fellow named Eric Hite who weighs in excess of 500 pounds and is biking across the continent in an effort to regain his health and his marriage to the woman he loves. So all of that comes from taking and posting one photograph of a bicycle.
Spring seems reluctant here. There has been snow on the mountains since mid-September and although there are buds and flowers it remains chilly, even on sunny days. I know it won’t be long until the bitching about “Hot and dry” begins again and every layman can prove global warming. The world economy thrives on paranoia and while many things are in a sorry mess I do get weary of the masses allowing themselves to be steered in someone else’s profitable direction without asking obvious questions. Which leads to this one. Donald Trump!? C’mon folks, really? Is our Western Culture so ruptured that this dude continues to get anyone’s serious consideration as a presidential candidate, even for one day? That terrifies me.
All the more reason to run away to sea. I’ll just have to remember when crossing the US border to not have a black, bushy beard, to not be in the company of any dark-eyed children, to not wear a cowboy hat and when dealing with Homeland Insecurity to never, ever, employ any sense of humour. ON A CLOUDY DAY: Despite another gloomy day, both health and weather-wise, it’s uplifting to go and find some photos in the dull light. Here are a few from today.
Classic Jack. Just add water, Jack is a happy dog.A view to another world. The Holland Creek Tunnel in Ladysmith built by the railway over a hundred years ago.A Caterpillar among the daffodils. Mainstreet Ladysmith where kids love to play on old tractors.Pamela’s dock. The foreshore of property inherited by Pamela Anderson. Ladysmith is her hometown. She is the community’s most famous export, among coal, lumber and oysters.Under the Slime Light. Winter verdigris can grow anywhere, even between your toes!Shipwright built. Not a straight line anywhere. A beautiful piece of work.
If you like blues music check this out. A friend emailed me some Youtube links with a guitarist named Hank Shizzoe, another named Sonny Landreth, and a band calling itself “Loose Gravel”. It is all good stuff and I’m always amazed at these very talented people who can produce unique sounds. This from a guy who couldn’t carry a tune in a fish tote. Hopefully the next blog has me bounding around like a very frisky Easter rabbit. I’m due for surgery on a bum ankle in a few days and after that who knows? Perhaps I’ll end up with a band named “Wooden Leg”… or “Stumble Gumboot.” The possibilities are endless, the dream is alive.
Walk a small dog who chews a big stick.The whole shituation! For those with bugs…get well soon. Did you notice the old shitehawk has only one leg?Well put!
“Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.”
Dogpatch Dawn A community of under-the-radar liveaboard folksBicycle Blues Part of the price of living off the grid. “First they chain my frame, Then they steal both my wheels!”
seafire- phosphorescence at sea. Also known as bio-luminescence, attributed to light-emitting organisms in sea water. When present, it is especially noticeable at night in waves, in the wake of a boat or the passage of fish. It appears as a green glow or as flecks of light. Seafire was also the name given to the naval version of the famous fighter plane, the Spitfire.
A recent contact from a long-lost friend who had discovered this blog noted that I still owned ‘Seafire’. I replied that the present Seafire is a namesake of my first vessel of that name. Here’s how it happened.
In 1986 I was living in the Northern Interior and dead sick of it. Prince George is a place where it seemed you spent six months of the year shovelling snow onto your lawn and then six months shovelling it back onto the street in hope of having a few weeks of green lawn before the flies quit biting and it began to snow again. I’ve lived in more remote locations but there was something quite dreary about Prince George. It had a lot to do with three very large pulpmills in that city and a general “Log it, burn it, pave it” mentality. I’ll always remember those pitch dark winter mornings with temperatures down to -40° and joggers in spandex, with a scarf around their faces, thumping down the polished ice streets between huge berms of plowed snow, a swirl of pulpmill ice smog around them. I think they did this in the name of good health!
Expo 86 brought me down twice to Vancouver that year, the second time to see the launching of the “Pacific Grace’ which had been built on the fair site. I was every inch an aviator at the time but the sea and this coast also occupied a huge piece of my heart and so a decision was made. It was time to move to the coast. For less money than owning an airplane, I could possess a sailing vessel which would take me anywhere I chose and also be my home. I reasoned that trying to live in a small aircraft while picking one’s way around the planet was really not practical. By the spring of the following year I had left a lucrative career behind and launched a tiny Northwest 21 trailerable sailboat in False Creek, not far from where the ‘.Pacific Grace’ first kissed the water.
I made my way northward as far as Port Hardy that March in the persistent winter weather in a boat with squatting headroom and no heat. My only source of warmth was a tiny propane stove which produced more water vapour than heat. My English roots were thrilled at my masochism and a sense of homecoming to be back on the sea. (No comforts please, we’re English!)
During that trip I enjoyed an evening aboard a beautiful William Atkin-designed Ingrid 36. She was a wooden double-ended ketch, very stout and very, very salty. Her name was ‘Seafire.’ She was owned by a young Alaskan-bound couple going north to summer jobs before heading for southern seas in the fall. It was, in part, the radiant, dry warmth of their Dickinson galley stove, in part the soft glow of the kerosene cabin lights, in part the lovely glow from the rum but mostly the gleam of the mutual dream held by this young pair of dreamers. What a wonderful thing!
I learned later that the boat had been sunk somewhere west of the Panama Canal in the fall of that same year. It was, apparently, attacked by Orca whales, a not uncommon story for those waters. I never learned the fate of her crew but assume they survived to be able to recount their ordeal. Two more boats passed through my hands, both very capable offshore vessels, ‘Jenta’ was a Gulf Island 29 and then ‘Anya’ a Vancouver 27. The next boat was a True North 34. She was a fibreglass double-ended cutter, massively built, cozy, clumsy, but imminently sea-worthy and steered with a huge, heavy oak tiller. That helm kept you out in the open, no matter what the weather. It was all very salty, and I was much younger. She came with the name ‘Sunward II’ which I could not abide and so, still deeply inspired, I renamed her ‘Seafire.’
This was now the forth sailboat I’d owned and refitted. I loved her dearly and she loved me. I will hold precious memories forever of the adventures and people aboard that boat. She was also chartered out for cruises with various guests from Europe. I believe my ‘Seafire’ inspired a passion for some other people to answer the calling of the sea.
Each day of chartering was hard work, especially when your guests got your own berth at the end of the day. You roughed it somewhere else on the boat. I began to scheme to build a larger, steel vessel, better-suited for chartering and reluctantly I sold ‘Seafire’ to a fellow with offshore dreams for her. The last I heard she was somewhere in Mexico. I don’t know what ever happened to her.
A True North 34 The way I used to go to seaMy office The way I do it nowSeafire again Pretty from all angles
Life goes on. The steel boat was never built. I had a serious accident at work on the tugs and ended up experiencing major heart surgery. Unable to return to a career on the tugs I started a business on borrowed funds. That ended disastrously in bankruptcy. Somehow I staggered back up onto my knees and acquired another fixer-upper. ‘West Moon’ was a delightful Fortune 30, funky and very seaworthy but some friends were selling their beloved Sapphire 30,’ an Australian-built sloop named ‘Pax.’ Built for racing in the Southern Ocean she was massively constructed and had completed a 14 year round-the-world odyssey. I soon had her ready to go again. We had many adventures together including a summer trip around Vancouver Island and like any fine boat, she’ll always hold a piece of my heart. However I still ached for a boat which allowed me the option of chartering, could carry tools enough to help pay my way and offered an inside helm for days of extreme heat, rain, or cold.
Happy Harry Heiltsuk My Heiltsuk mask on the bowsprit, a souvenir of Bella Bella carved to order by Ivan Wilson. The Stainless steel mast pulpit and the boom gallows are some of my upgrades. Thanks to my pal Bob Wyche.
I’ve long-dreamed of cruising to Europe but have lost my sense of romance for being outside up to my armpits in ice-cold green seawater. My perspectives on the romance of the sea were evolving. I’m not getting any younger. I needed a boat with an interior that did not require a steep vertical ladder. I wanted my dog and I to be able to enter and exit the cabin easily. And I wanted to be able to sit inside and to see out while I wrote. ‘Pax’ sold so quickly that it seemed meant to be. Suddenly there I was on the beach with no debts and a little cash in hand, a very dangerous place for sailor to find himself.
Pax My Australian sailing machine
I searched everywhere in the Pacific Northwest and also made two different trips to the east looking at boats. I have long lusted after a type of motor-sailor designed after North Sea fishing trawlers. There is an English-built boat called a Fisher which I love as well as a Dutch boat called a Banzer. Motor sailors are usually displacement-hull motor boats with sail rigging. Traditionally they are rugged and seaworthy but not particularly good sailing vessels. The sails help steady the vessel in rough seas and offer poor to reasonable sailing ability when the wind is in your favour. There can be no expectation of windward ability. A motor sailor can be the best and worst of both worlds but is generally a happy compromise. The Downeaster 41 which I now own is built on a well respected 38′ offshore sailing hull and indeed sails rather well compared to many other motor sailors.
A sailing hull …and a big propeller. October haulout in Shearwater
After all that searching I found ‘Heart Of Gold’ almost at my front door in nearby Blaine. She was a perfect picture of despair when I first saw her. Covered in verdigris and bird droppings she listed hard to port. She had long sat at the dock and below deck reeked a sewerific blend of nasty neglect. It was obvious why she hadn’t sold. I’ve made my living fixing boats for a long while and knew that I could give this faded flower the loving she needed. This boat was perfect for my needs although the refit is still a long way from being complete. I describe the boat in my blog of May 24th, 2013 titled “It Must Be Spring.” It is easy to find in the archives on the right sidebar.
Heart Of Gold Really!
Once I’d finished the business of importing the boat, which I did on my own with no problems, I needed to enter it into Canadian Ship’s Registry. A vessel’s name is the first piece of data in recognition of its official status as a Canadian vessel. (Until recent times a vessel’s owner could only ever own 64 shares of the vessel. The remaining 36 belonged to the British Monarchy who had a one-third claim on the boat and all “Her guns and appurtenances thereof.”) In remote areas I carry only one old shotgun and wore out my appurtenances long ago. However, I can still be considered somewhat impertinent.
As ‘Heart Of Gold’ had been entered in US Coast Guard registry I had all the formal measurements and tonnages and the process was straight forward. I’d struggled with the vessel’s name as being rather corny but resolved that if it were available I’d keep it to assuage nautical superstition. Oddly, the name had been available until the previous week and so I laid down my first choice for a new name.
‘Brass Monkey’ drew a wondering stare from the ladies in the office and then one said, “I know you! You’re Mr. Seafire.” I’ve been in that office so often through the years, she remembered me! In the Canadian Ship Registry system, a vessel’s name must be re-registered every few years. ‘Seafire’ had not been and so the name was mine for the asking. It seemed propitious, a sign from the gods and so once again I am the master of a Canadian-registered vessel named ‘Seafire.’ She’s a gorgeous old friend, unique and capable. She has been my home for the better part of the past five years and has carried me pleasantly along thousands of sea miles.
And so here I sit on a dark January night. The wind is calm but the rain hammers relentlessly as if I were still in Shearwater. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. The dream is very much alive but at the moment everything seems hopeless. The exciting part is, I know, that this is often a moment just before something really good comes down the pipe.
A wineglass transom. This clever design leaves a minimum disturbance behind the boat as it passes through the water.
By odd coincidence, while I have been writing this blog, a True North 34 has moored next to me. They are not a common boat. I can’t believe that I actually sat in such a cockpit day and night, in sun, rain, snow and flying spray. The tiller was heavy and the boat demanded good sail trim to be manageable. The narrow hatch tops a steep ladder down into the cabin which is a very snug place to ride out a storm. I loved that boat but the new ‘Seafire’ suits me very well. I am happy with my new old boat. I have yet to hold a renaming ceremony which nautical tradition demands. This is a mandatory ritual, long overdue, where the gods of the sea are supplicated for their blessing and protection. There are copious libations and affirmations among fellow nautical zealots. Then you sail away.
Let’s have a party; soon.
An old poster. The view is taken from a magic moment aboard the first ‘Seafire’
The same wonder of buoyancy floats a boat, small or large, in a fathom of water or in a thousand
I am a fan of Ted Talks and if you don’t know what they are, do a web search. You’ll be hooked. Thanks to my old friend Jimmy I’ve just reviewed a Ted Talk presentation by an incredible guitarist named Tommy Emmanuel. His guitar skills are fabulous and at the end of his gig he says to the audience “Folks, life is not a rehearsal. Now get on with it!” That kicked me where the sun doesn’t shine! I’ve just read my first blog, now a two year old commitment to myself and the world. Shocked, sickened, I wonder what the hell I’ve been doing.
Suddenly One Day! After years of walking by this Arbutus tree, I notice the face cleverly carved around a knot
In that time I’ve tacked, gybed, reefed, hove-to and back-tracked ostensibly in hot pursuit of my goal of sailing away. I know where I want to go and why, have the talent to do it, yet I’ve made little progress. I’ve had health issues, have been severely screwed over by unscrupulous people but there is nobody to blame but myself. I am not trying to solicit sympathy or empathy (although cash would be fine says this old pirate). I am trying to affirm the emotional plagues of winter which I know afflicts so many other folks. Depression, for me, is a tangible hereditary disorder I’ve wrestled with all my life and the dark days of winter bring out the worst of this curse. I’ve written my share about the problem and I’m not about to dissect it here other than to offer support and affirmation for those with enough courage to admit they too suffer from this very tangible problem. It is not simply an issue of bad attitude or self-pity but you can soon become your own black hole if you don’t force yourself to do whatever is necessary to rise above the darkness. In one Ted Talk, depression is described not as the opposite of happiness but rather the lack of vitality. I do affirm that.
Boat House Row A dreary morning in Ladysmith, but… if you don’t like it, try missing a few!
I’ve been back home in lower latitudes for nearly three weeks. The arthritic pain of the North Coast’s extreme dampness has eased but old injuries still suck at my essence. That is being dealt with at the stately pace of our medical system. Broke, with few prospects for the moment, I’ve soon found myself imploding with only enough energy to make more excuses for my downward spiral. Fortunately, every year I find wonderful rapport and affirmation by attending the Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon. Today was the final day to commit to perform this year. I have some good excuses for not going and almost said no. I don’t have the funds for any of it but I’ll find a way and will come home uplifted immensely, knowing I have helped do the same for my peers and my audience. There is a direct link to the Fisher Poets Website in the right hand side bar of this blog. With a little poking about you can find my name under the list of performers found “In The Tote” and hear me reading of some of my work as well as several other writers and musicians. If you’d like a break from winter, have a sniff of spring and a great time in an incredible town which has arisen from its own ashes, I’d love to see you there.
The Party Moon Jelly Fish. What do they talk about?
Meanwhile old ‘Seafire’ languishes at the dock. Despite my daily visits, she sleeps quietly, waiting for some attention as soon as the weather warms and improves enough for me to tackle my list of chores, big and little. There’s a story or two in that I promise. I also have a stack of writing, including several books, needing a final edit and posting on Amazon. You can’t catch fish if you don’t go fishing and books that are not published aren’t going to sell. There’s a story about a boy who is accidentally locked in a barn. Days later, he is found. All the manure has been shovelled up and piled neatly in one end of the building. When queried about this he replied wearily, “With all this shit I knew there had to be a pony in here somewhere.” It’s all about attitude. Dig on.
My pal Jimmy’s Corbin 39 back for a Pacific Northwest winter after a marathon voyage around the Pacific Ocean
I receive frequent enquiries about what sort of camera equipment I use. The type of equipment you have has little to do with the photos you take. Most of my camera gear is old and beat-up. It is not what I would choose if permitted a shopping spree in a camera store but it is what I can afford. I don’t begin to use the potential magic in even these humble machines. Exotic camera equipment will not produce better photographs if the nut holding it does not have a good understanding of the art. To illustrate my point, the photos in this blog were all taken with my lowly cell phone around Ladysmith in the last few days . The concept has been around for quite a while now but taking photographs with a telephone still seems incongruous to me. Mind you, one of my cameras has a GPS and altimeter built into it. You wouldn’t believe what I can do with my new toothbrush!
Rock Steady Surviving the winter wobble test when the wind blows you off your jackstands
If you find the accelerating technology around you alarming, and like me, long for an older, more steadfast era, then the closing photos in this blog might soothe the savage beating in your breast. There is an old design mantra which says that if it looks good, it works good.
The boat is the “Curve Of Time”, a name taken from the title from the famous book by Wylie Blanchet. If you’re not familiar with the work and you’re learning about it in this blog you’re probably the sort of person who would enjoy it very much. The venerable tome is still available. The venerable vessel is a North Sea side-trawler, Dutch-built in 1959. her original fishing registration and home port can still been seen on her bows under the paint. After that career she was a Greenpeace vessel, the proverbial sword turned ploughshare. She has since enjoyed a third calling as a charter boat and research vessel which has introduced many people to the wonders of the West Coast. To my eye, she is a pleasing sight from all angles and… she’s for sale! Long may the sight of her quicken the hearts of romantics and dreamers wherever she may voyage.
Late Bloomer Beauty even on a grey dayA Little run-down The sorry state of Vancouver Island’s E&N Railway “feelin’ nearly faded as my jeans.”The Real Thing ‘The Curve Of Time’ proudly displaying her battle scars. Imagine all that has been seen through those wheelhouse portlights.Pretty From All AnglesYAR!The Crow’s Nest set on a jaunty rake
“The lecture ends, ‘Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.’ and I have seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this way they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it’s such a sweet trap.
Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the household becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason she should inherit a baby.”….
A Clear View Thank god for radar, I can see what I’m going to hit
Out of Bagels! The grim reality sets in on Saturday morning. Seafire is now in Musket Island Marine Park Anchorage. I tiptoed in here in the inky dark, between the rocks, using radar. It is not a thrill I recommend for the end of a long day. There is an ongoing gale warning up and the dinghy davits aren’t doing so well. They are broken and twisted, unfit for more abuse. The dinghy is almost dragging in the water and I’ve got to get it up out of harm’s way. Just before I turned in to this sheltered bay I hit another damned log. A big one! That’s really good for the nerves after a full day on the helm and in a blackness darker than being inside a bear. I’ve travelled all the way from Shoal Bay today, sixty-six miles. It doesn’t sound like much. The wind rose and fell and I kept extending my destination to the next anchorage and then the next. I wanted to beat the line-up of forecast storms.
Lewis Channel looking south. This photo was taken last May while northbound to ShearwaterSeven months later, southbound this time.
In the time I was under way yesterday some people travelled half-way around the world. Many have driven the same mileage in an hour. Some boats sailing offshore are using the wind in their favour and will knock of this distance in half a day or less and won’t have to stop for over the next half-day, every day. Boats the size of ‘Seafire’ move along at a little over six knots and that’s the way it is; a very reasonable rate of passage to watch the world go by. You can cover a lot of ground in a day if you don’t have to keep stopping.
Bobbing Eagle “Whassamatta? Never seen an eagle sitting on a cedar tree before?”
I’ve arrived here in one day from Shoal Bay. It was a long haul, having hit the deck at 04:30 to be at the “Devil’s Punchbowl” in Dent Rapids at the precise time. I caught the last of the flood and shot through all three sets of rapids in fine style, well before the tide reversed hard enough to prevent my transit. I passed a log tow on the way into the rapids. The tug was pulling out into the mainstream heading for Mermaid Bay. There they wait six hours to catch the beginning of the next flood tide. The assist tug was on the back of the tow and all eight lights marking the booms burned brightly. Those marker lights are now LEDs and don’t need any attention.
Desolation Sound. A moment of sunshine and not a yuppy yachter in sight.
When I was on the tugs we still used kerosene lanterns which needed constant attention. They had to be refilled every few days, the glass chimneys needed to be cleaned, the wicks needed to be trimmed. Then they needed to be re-lit in the wind and rain on an rolling bundle of logs. Then they were refastened to a steel stake driven into a log. To accomplish this you needed to pack an axe, a kerosene jug, dry matches and cleaning supplies all over the bobbing, rolling logs. If a wave splashed a lantern the glass would shatter. It was a real pain in the ass trying to keep those lanterns going and enduring the skipper’s rage when all the lanterns were not burning. If some drunk in a speedboat hit the tow, he always claimed the lanterns must not have been working. He may have been right.
The ‘Pacific Fury’ One of my former homes where I’ve spent many days of my life. We used to keep this boat, the flagship of the fleet, shining proud. Now under new owners she’s looking like I feel but…we never had a beer fridge on the boat deck. You can see the skipper in the wheelhouse wondering who and what the hell I’m up to.
I’m entering the fringes of civilization. I can can get cell service and radio stations, tons of them. With the din most of them broadcast, I actually find comfort in the familiar blither of CBC !. Yes I know, this is after months of bitching about the only station available on the North Coast. At least CBC2 plays music. Now, I’ve discovered, I’ll have to tackle the day without my breakfast bagel. I have some biscuit mix but the last batch I whipped up tasted a bit boaty for some reason. I believe the package has only been aboard for two years.
Pulling for home. Southbound in Lewis channel with about 120 sections of bundled logs, it’ll be the last tow before Christmas. This old girl has a 1500 hp Deutz diesel and I swear she can pull slack out of the crack of dawn. I have fond memories of her. She was quiet inside, easy to work off the back and a good sea boat.The Open Road The Strait Of Georgia, looking toward the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island
I wrestled the dinghy aboard, deflated it and lashed it down on the foredeck knowing now I should have done this before I left Shearwater but I wanted the dinghy available should there be a nasty log with my name on it. I’ve decided how to build a davit that will work for offshore sailing after my horror discovering that the stainless steel davit bases had actually begun to tear under their tremendous abuse! There is massive power in a moving lump of water. I weighed anchor at noon and decided to pass behind Nelson Island instead of bashing into the building sou’easter out in Malaspina strait.
Beef Barley Stew Day 1 – Not bad. Day 2- Needs a little something. Day 3- Here fishy, here fishy.
Big white horses were galloping in the grey open waters. Those kind of waves are tough enough to run with and dead ugly to fight against. There is an innocuous-looking rock called Cape Cockburn along the way which is a very nasty place to pass in this kind of weather. I have tried it, more than once and have offered up some variations on its name which I’ll leave to your imagination. I’ve actually been driven back twice previously at this cape. I’m not in the mood for more.
My own little country. A summer cabin in Hardy Bay from days gone by. I’m sure there are plenty of fond memories.Look at me! “Don’t know when I’ll ever use it but think of the stuff I can put in it.” For all I know it belongs to a religious sect who do important things here. There was nobody home today.
Today I took the long way and arrived a few hours later in Pender Harbour. I’m at the Madeira Park wharf and it’s a good thing. I’ve done well to be here in this persistent string of storms. I’m content. The barometer is dropping again, slowly. That means there’s a big system coming which may not be just a passing blow. I’ve only got fifty miles to go and still dare not expect to be home for Christmas! I’m at a dock with properly functioning electrical service, good wifi, showers and nearby shopping. Such decadence! A visit to the grocery store had me almost gasping. It is not a grand store by down-south standards but there was a choice of fresh produce, fresh unfrozen meat and selections of everything imaginable at what seem to be reasonable prices. I’m sure I can find locals who feel otherwise. It is amazing how we adjust our expectations. Suddenly the value of the last six months in a remote community is clear.
The Dark Fjord. Tolkein would have loved it. I could hear some Sibelius playing. Looking north from the top of Nelson Island.Freill Lake Falls. I believe it is approx. 1800′ high from the lake they flow out of to the ocean below.Logging roads in the mist. You might hate logging but you’ve got to admire the engineering and the temerity. Imagine steering an off-highway load of logs down that grade.
It is has been several years since I’ve travelled these waters and I’m stunned at what I see has changed. There have always been cabins, some vacation homes, a few full time abodes, ghost communities. Now, nearly everywhere you look, there are monstrous edifices which I can see are merely summer retreats. With the cost of importing labour and material, many houses have clearly cost well over a million dollars. They sit empty, cold and austere. In Pender Harbour the housing developments are overwhelming. Their presence has stolen the whole charm of the harbour. There is a famous old hospital here, now a hotel and resort. Some of these new homes make the old landmark seem tiny. It is stupefying to me. I’ll confess a certain degree of jealousy but what is the source of wealth which defies any question about need and greed? C’mon guys! I suspect that many of the barefoot draft-dodger hippies who came here begging “Peace man. C’mon share the wealth man,” have inherited well and invested cleverly. Now they own these edifices which represent exactly what they once claimed to despise. It’s true, a capitalist is just a socialist who has found an opportunity. Isn’t it interesting how we are all capable of corrupting ourselves?
I live in this boat which has a floorspace of less than three hundred square feet. I have plenty of space for all my stuff and even have some extra sleeping space for guests. I can stand up, lay down, sit and write, cook, bath, use a toilet and usually stay warm and dry. It’s all I need.
An easier way. I’ll bet nobody noticed a tiny sailboat down here.
In many places up the coast an old house has stood alone for years, once a small home for a family. Then it is rebuilt and extended or torn down and replaced. The bush is cleared back and a second house is built. Soon a tiny community springs up but it always seems unoccupied. I don’t understand the need to own more than you can use. Likewise seafood farms are springing up in nearly every good anchorage like some sort of virus. I prefer eating wild protein but I understand the need for farmed food when people are so determined to live like farmed fish themselves. An old friend, Allen Farrel, once commented on people’s frantic lifestyle and how many chose to spend a few weeks a year trying to find themselves by sleeping on the ground in a tent. “Don’t they understand,” he wondered, “that they can live in a tent all year if that’s what they really want?” There’s a balance somewhere. I’m not sure I have an answer but the idea of a monster investment somewhere out of town on the edge of the idea of wilderness just doesn’t make sense to me if I can’t enjoy it in real time out of the mainstream.. I suppose if the apocalypse does come, there’ll be a lot of free housing available out of the mainstream.
Frosty Knobs The watch cap protects the binnacle compass from sunlight when not in use. I prefer the inside helm in weather like this.
On day eight, Sunday morning the “Marine Weather Statement” was as confusing. Finally I decided that forecasts be damned, I’d go have a look. I could see home and steeled myself for one last bashing while crossing the Strait Of Georgia. At Merry Island the wind and seas were coming from all directions and I felt like a bug in a washing machine. A prevailing south wind was building along the mainland shore but the smoke from the Nanaimo pulp mill showed a strong northerly wind on Vancouver Island. Amazingly, the seas calmed as I crossed. More logs, one more tidal narrows, more darkness (although there is an extra hour of daylight already these few degrees further south) and I arrived at the Ladysmith Maritime Society docks. I was piped onto the dock with the wail of sirens on the highway. Civilization!
I came home to this. The Ladysmith Maritime Society Dock. Oddly, moments after this photo was taken, an angry, cursing woman began ripping Christmas lights from the railings and then applied a hefty punch-up to the plywood Santa.
A final wish for a happy Christmas.
“Having too many things, Americans spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and Nature throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.”
THANK YOU! My little eight-day odyssey is over, I’ve arrived in Ladysmith. Many of you sent notes of concern and well wishes. I am very touched and thank you all. The next two blogs will describe my little adventure.
Lamma Pass Sunday Morning coming down
Sunday morning, December 13th, 06:30. Viscous dark, flat calm, barometer steady. I’ve spent the whole night in my bunk sleeping fitfully, waiting for a forecast wind which hasn’t come. As soon as my coffee is finished, I’ll tidy the decks and cast off. Six months of my life in Shearwater are now in the rear-view mirror. I’m just as broke as when I arrived but richer for having made some fine friends and the intimacy one achieves by staying long enough to know a place and its people. It is time to move on, my aching bones demand release from the dampness here. I swear some days you can wring moisture from any handful of air. I’m hot feeling good about any of this, going or staying, but the die is cast. I think I’m getting a cold but I can be just as sick down there somewhere as I can hanging around here. I’m on my way.
Denny Island Behind A view of my plotter screen, or electronic chart, as I turn southward from Lamma Pass into Fitz Hugh SoundPointer Island The same place looking out the window. In the previous photo, it is the island on the corner behind my track index arrow
At first the autohelm won’t work properly. I’ve been concerned about the massive load of steel tools stowed near the autohelm flux compass. I’m dreading to have to hand-steer the whole trip. The further we go the better the device works and I’m beginning to suspect there may be some magnetic anomaly in the area. An hour south everything is fine. The day begins to brighten, despite windy-looking clouds. There is just enough breeze for me to run out the jib. I keep an eye on the barometer. It climbs rapidly, a few millibars each hour. The rate of change is alarming, a harbinger of sudden high winds. It comes from the northwest, cold and damp, clean air from Siberia perhaps. I retreat into the warmth of the cabin where the little furnace chuffs out a steady supply of toasty air. I once scoffed at such decadence, stoically enduring endless hours in an open cockpit bundled up like a pile of wet laundry. Now I have these achy bones and joints to show for all that manliness. I guess it’s my English blood that demanded such masochism but I’ve decided the romance of the sea doesn’t always have to be something that feels good only when you stop.
Wind warning The lenticular cloud and the mirage on the horizon are fair warning that big wind is comingMount Buxton, Calvert Island.
I began to contemplate raising more sails, but there is a storm warning posted. It will come quickly. Sure enough the wind picks up as the tide turns against it. I take a quick turn through Namu, the abandoned fish plant so nostalgically famous to many commercial fishermen. The whole site is in ruins and I hurry on my way. I’m not staying here, it’s eerie and depressing. The endless miles of untouched forest are far less lonely than these ghost communities. I wonder at the tremendous investment so hurriedly left behind. Tongue in cheek I observe that many of the buildings seem in reasonable condition. Perhaps this would make a great rehab location. Refurbishing the housing could be part of the process. Yeah right!
Beautiful Downtown NamuNamu has gone namuThe Old BunkhouseFuel Dock Closed
A few miles down the coast is a spot called Koeye Bay, a revered location at the mouth of a beautiful river where the Heiltsuk have built a new “Big House.” The tiny bay is now on an exposed lee shore and the minutes of remaining daylight are roaring by. Sadly, I go past after planning all summer to visit. Next year! Soon the wind is blowing storm force and gusting over fifty. Some waves are four metres tall and almost that close together. It is always stunning to see how quickly the seas can build. All that energy!
Here it comes
Foolishly, I have left my inflatable boat hanging in it’s davits with the outboard mounted and the little boat full of gear. I constantly admonish other people not to do this. A stern-slung dinghy is susceptible to being caught and filled with water, or torn off the mother vessel and inflicting serious damage in the process. Now here I am with no place to go except straight downwind. Fool! The only places to seek shelter have very narrow entrances. I’m not going to charge through a line of building beach surf attempting an unknown entrance. By now a rogue wave has flipped my beautiful Achilles dinghy out of one of its slings. I’m dragging the bow of the inflatable sideways through the foaming sea. I fear the rest of the davit system is going to snap at any moment and I’m about to lose a very valuable hypalon boat and my outboard motor. I managed to rig a temporary sling with the dinghy’s painter. Somehow that held for the next ten miles and tonight I’m sitting in a placid anchorage with everything put right. All’s well that ends. I did lose some gear from the dinghy, a small price to pay for my stupidity. The joy of the day was to experience how old ‘Seafire’ held her own in the nastiest seas I’ve ever had her in. She rode and handled like a magic carpet. This vessel is a superb sea boat. I am thrilled. The autohelm performed flawlessly even in the big following seas, an ultimate test.
Bam! No turning back now.Surf’s Up! If you’ve ever tried photographing big waves, you know how hard it is to make them look as big as they really are. Yeehaw!
Monday morning arrives with the sky beginning to brighten by eight o’clock. The anchorage I chose is tucked into the side of Illahie Inlet; it was as calm as cream. The sky is cloudless. Last night’s stars burned brilliantly and everything is coated with a heavy frost. Now it is time to sneak out of one of the narrow entrances. I’m hoping for the safety of Port Hardy tonight. We’ll see what fortunes the gods have in store.
Monday Morning Green Anchorage, Illahie Inlet
Happiness is Cape Caution in the rear view mirror. The barometer sprang up and then down as a warm high pushed its way ashore. The straight edge of the warmer overcast passed by overhead at a phenomenal speed. Entering Queen Charlotte Strait from Queen Charlotte Sound can leave a person feeling like a bug in a washing machine. Water from the open North Pacific has been moving this way for thousands of miles. Now that energy has to dissipate on our rocky shores. Tide and wind have been moving other bodies of water up and down Johnstone Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, Fitz Hugh Channel and the many deep inlets which penetrate far into the mainland. Billions of tons of water are constantly colliding and mixing as the world goes on spinning around. It is not a place for the timid or for landlubbers. However without humility and respect for mother ocean she’ll administer some indelible slap therapy to the careless and insolent.
Why I don’t like travelling in the darkThe Deadhead ” Thunk……sunk.” Smitty Smith
The coast mountains were crusted with a thick mantle of fresh snow, as brilliant as the exploding surf on the black rock foreshore. Mount Buxton, on Calvert Island, only 3325 feet above sea level was spectacular. The miles and landmarks crawled past. Opening my fridge is an old skill learned in my tug boat days. Open the door when that side of the boat is rolling away. Grab, slam and lock before the boat begins to roll back. If the door isn’t closed in time, the fridge projectile-vomits its shattering splattering contents at your feet.
Tonight finds me in another placid anchorage. This time it is on the side of Slingsby Channel, near the world- famous Nakwakto Rapids. They are second only in ferocity to the Maelstrom in Norway. The maximum velocity in today’s tide book is 13.5 knots! Even in this secure bay, a few miles from the narrows, a boil of tide reaches in occasionally and spins the boat on its anchor I awake each time to the rumble of the anchor chain on the rocky bottom below.
The beautiful, deadly shoreline near Cape Caution
I’ve chosen the mainland side of Queen Charlotte Strait instead of crossing to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island as I’d first planned. The weather is forecast to bring a series of strong southeasterly winds. Hopefully I can tip-toe southward along the old log-towing routes that twist and meander along a labyrinth of mainland channels and inlets. It is a tortuous route but certainly beats sitting and waiting for favourable weather which may not come. I once sat for nearly three weeks aboard a tugboat with four other restless rednecks waiting for the wind to drop enough to make towing logs possible. It is fine to talk to yourself, it is even alright to answer; so long as you remain aware of who it is answering. Now then, if only that invisible dog would stop barking.
Wentworth Rock Some mariners call Queen Charlotte Strait “The rock garden,” Few rocks and reefs have a light.
December 15th, Tuesday morning, 06:00. This was to be my last day of work at Shearwater, but here I am well below Cape Caution with one last leg on the open sea before dodging into the shelter of interconnecting waterways and inlets which will take me south to the Strait Of Georgia. There is one short stretch in Johnstone Strait and, of course, a few tidal bores, but I’m back in home waters. With a quick transit down the tidal ditch that is called Schooner Channel I found myself back out on the rock ‘n roll of Queen Charlotte Strait. I love the feel of the open water. These are swells with a feel of the shore to them. Further off the coast they become more rhythmic. There is a lovely cadence of climb, glide and surf and it can carry one all the way to Hawaii or Mexico or anywhere beyond. Fresh coconuts anyone? Instead I’m heading southward for the shelter of Wells Passage. The forecast is for sou’east gales so I’ll forgo Port Hardy and stick to the mainland side. I pass within 12 miles of the town and can actually grab a bar of cell service but opt for my solitude and frugality. I know that if I go to Port “Hardly” money will vaporize right out of my pocket. The only money-management scheme this sailor seems to understand is to stay at sea.
Below Cape Caution Beautiful, but a dangerous lee shore.
If I were to find myself weather-bound there for several days, the moorage alone could be horrific. Besides, it is a glorious day to be out here. Such a wonderful thing to want to be no other place than right where you are at the moment. I‘m savouring it, the days ahead may not be so pleasant. The seas gently ease, and as always, the light in this region is incredible. Even with a lowering overcast the sun has the whole world glowing. My cameras whirred. Because of the blur of the boat’s motion in this low light, only one photo in ten will survive editing. In early afternoon I pass Numas Islands, I often referred to it while on the tugs as “Numb Ass.” Take that as you will. It seems an old friend today.
Finally! South of Numas Island looking toward Vancouver Island
Eventually I sneak into Monday Anchorage on Mars Island, just one tiny piece in the jigsaw puzzle of islands and waterways. I’m greeted by a pod of Orcas. A perfect end to a perfect day. The boat has once again performed flawlessly, even when bonking the ubiquitous wood debris in the water. I marvel how there aren’t more strikes. Somehow my worries about what lays ahead ease for the moment. I’m at sea, I’m at peace. There are subtle changes to the forest and the shoreline as the journey progresses southward. I can never exactly define the evolution of topography and forest but it is indeed an incredible trip. Everyone should undertake this at least once in their lifetime. It leaves one fully aware of how tiny we are.
Last light in Monday Anchorage looking west over Queen Charlotte StraitDawn, Monday Anchorage
Wednesday morning, day four, finds me up long before dawn pecking away at this laptop while I savour a mug of hot, thick black coffee. Again the stars burn and throb in a cloudless sky. The forecast is indeed for prolonged strong southeast winds. I’ve made the right choice. I’d as soon stay here, I love the tranquillity and the sense of being embraced by both the emerald sea and forest but in a few minutes the engine will shudder to life, the anchor chain will rattle aboard, and off this old boat and its skipper will go to see what’s around the next corner, and the next. There are plenty of those ahead.
Dozens of corners later finds me in Port Neville, on the edge of Johnstone Strait. I ran out of daylight here, only 5 miles short of being able to turn out of the Strait into the next Labyrinth which will provide reasonably sheltered water all the way to the Strait of Georgia. I travel the routes I’ve know as a tug boater and realize how much I love this particular part of the coast. It is a transition zone where the thick cedar jungle becomes predominantly fir, the rocks have a different colour, the light is different, there are a few more moments of daylight. There’s always a delight. Today it was a pod of dolphins who joined the boat on and off for several hours. Always a good omen, they cheered me immensely. Earlier, as I passed Gilford, a remote first nations village, a crow landed on the foredeck and then peered intently in through the windshield at me. He then hopped along the side deck, turned his back to me and leisurely surveyed his kingdom from his royal barge. Parochial superstition often indicts crows as souls of the dead, and generally regards them as harbingers of darkness. I was happy to accept this character’s trust and disregard. Usually crows never take their eyes off you, ever! And so I passed on through the kingdom of underwater angels, the dolphins. I’ll accept whatever blessing comes my way.
Gilford….That’s it!Gilford Ghost
I once passed Gilford almost daily. Cramer Pass was part of our route back and forth to the fish plant. I was engineer on a fish packer. The rest of the crew were all first nations. Gully, a fellow from Alert Bay, was a wealth of local native lore and knowledge. He was delighted in my interest. I learned a lot about fishing techniques, burial islands, pictographs, dugout canoes, fishing boats native legends and who was who. His mentor had been an elder he respectfully called Jimmy Seaweed. As we passed Gilford one day, he told a story about a young boy being snatched from that dock by a large octopus. He insisted this was God’s truth and even showed me a headstone at the waterline which was allegedly for the child. I may never digest that story, but I’ll certainly never forget it. I have since learned that some of these amazing creatures will actually come out of the water to stalk prey. Soooo? Today, as I passed, I also recalled Gully’s car. It was a very large rock, visible at low tide, and to Gully’s eye looked like a car. Each time we passed I also began to see it. Eventually it did look remarkably like a small boxy-looking car. Today, with enough tide, there was a large white seal sitting on the roof of Gully’s car. Damn it Gully! I miss you old pal.
A dolphin flashes by in Knights Inlet
Tonight, in Port Neville, the boat is bobbing her bow in a residual swell that works its way in from the Strait. There is a gale warning up, tomorrow could be a long day.
Downtown Minstrel Island, once a rollicking hub of the logging and mining communities in the Knights Inlet areaMinstrel Island Post Office in Chatham Channel. No double-docking please.
Thursday morning, day five of the trip. It took me seven days to get to Shearwater in the spring. With the short winter daylight, and the adverse weather, I’m delighted with my progress homeward. The continuing forecast is for southeasterly gales of 30 to 40 knots. Johnstone Strait is no place to be in those conditions. It’s a monstrous wind tunnel. With only five miles to go I’m going to give it a try. I can always turn back. I’d hate be stuck here for days when a couple of hours of slogging would see me into more sheltered waters. The day is so dark I turn the illumination down on my plotter, it’s just too bright this day.
Dawn in Port Neville, the whole darned town! The cabin on the right offered great company during the evening with a warm glow of lanterns inside.
With great relief I slid in behind the shelter of Yorke Island, hoping the worst is over. Sunderland Channel leads to the first of the big rapids on the back route. Sometimes Sunderland is as vicious as Johnstone Strait but today it is only moderately adverse. The rain is pelting down and then come the snowflakes. Thick, sticky numbers, like blobs of mashed potato. They coat the windscreen but the sea spray coming over the bow washes it clean.
Plunge, sploosh, splat. I arrive in Wellbore Channel about four hours too late for slack water. The tide is ebbing and my choice is to wait another few hours or try to buck through. It is past maximum flow so the current will be easing and I dive in. My bottom speed is down to two knots which means I’m fighting a current of over four knots. I jig and jake around the whirlpools and finally break out at the far end. It takes two hours to crawl the four mile length of the channel but now I can tackle the next set of rapids just as they turn in a favourable direction. At the end of this pass is a solitary arbutus tree. Still hanging its beautiful flesh-coloured limbs over the water, it has been a monument to those with eyes for it as long as I know. As far as anyone can tell, it is the most northerly arbutus growing on the coast.
The tide is slow to turn today, probably because of the added push of the southeast storm winds. It impedes my progress all the way through the Green Point Rapids and my faint hope fades of making it all the way to Dent Rapids in time to catch the next flood. I know I could still be sitting in Port Neville waiting for a better forecast. I’ve done well. Years travelling these waters on the tugs have me given me instincts which only experience can bring. I offer a note of thanks to those crusty old skippers who passed on what they knew.
Snow becoming sea. Nearing Whirlpool Rapids
The snow on the slopes is thick and nearly comes down to the water. This weather is great for deer hunting and I think of days like this when I’ve clambered about looking for fresh tracks under the quiet cover of blanketing fresh snow. The smell of the forest on such as day is magic and taking a deer was never the real objective. My musings wander over the topography of the passing islands. I find my finger tracing the contours of West Thurlow Island. On it’s ridge there is a lake named Woolloomooloo. It has amused me for decades. Who in the hell would hang a small remote lake with a handle like that? It would be a hell of a hike. The word conjures an image for me of a short swarthy ugly fellow in a loincloth with a bone in his nose pointing a knobby blood-stained stick at me and angrily uttering, “Woolloomooloo!” “Sorry chief! I’ll never point my camera at your goat again.”
Christmas time in Shoal Bay
Day five ends with ‘Seafire’ anchored in Shoal Bay. It is the closest safe anchorage to the final three sets of rapids. Dent, Gillard and the Yuculta rapids are notoriously fierce. In a slow boat like mine they must be run close to slack water (When the tidal current eases then reverses direction) but early enough to be safely through when the current begins to build the opposite way. Even big tugs wait for slack water. I’ve ridden log bundles here through the sucking whirlpools when a log tow breaks apart. There’s no romance of the sea in any of this. I’ve great respect for this body of water. After the rapids I’m almost in home waters. Only a day or two to go, if the weather eases. “Woolloomooloo!”
The Long Way Home Looking south from the air over the Western tip of Denny Island then south down Lamma Pass. If you look carefully, you can see the Bella Bella wharf. I have my doubts about calm seas with the sun in my eyes but this is the beginning of my route homewards.
(Click on images to enlarge)
Another dreary Friday night after a long dull day’s work. Rain, wind, darkness, not much to do, no-one to visit with, (many have already left for the winter) another weekend of aloneness to endure. I refuse to hang out in the pub and descend into that world of hurt and darkness.The weather is too foul to contemplate going anywhere and besides, in another ten days or so, I’ll be leaving Shearwater and heading back south toward Ladysmith. That anticipation makes the days drag by and the terror of what-in-the-hell -I’m-getting-into-next is gnawing at me. Then comes a nice surprise.
My wife calls them ‘Care packages’ and she’s mailed me one. We’ve been apart a very long time and I really appreciate her gifts of hope and promise. Today’s package is in a small but heavy box and upon opening it I discover a small tarpaulin which I’ve needed for the boat, two packs of my favourite coffee, a small sack of curry powder and a fabulous bar of very nice hazelnut chocolate. Delighted, my mouth is soon full of chocolate as I empty the powder into my metal curry box. The sudden sharp tang of the spice aroma blends perfectly with the melted chocolate. It is a new taste sensation, an incongruous blend of the smooth and the sharp, the sweet and the tangy. At the time it seemed very, very good. Try it sometime.
Williwas and Catspaws Another storm arrives in ShearwaterSurf’s Up! A barrel of water slams over the wharfinger’s float house. In summer, the boat gringos like to sit on the dock in their deck chairs.4pm under a very rare clear sky. It will soon be dark.
Eleven am Sunday morning. I used to love storms. We’re experiencing yet another one at the moment. The boat is bucking and squirming against her docklines as usual. The table where I sit writing is gimbaling in all directions, but so is the boat and so am I. It is all relevant. I don’t notice; I’m used to this weather. The day is over for me already, I’ll stay aboard until tomorrow morning. There’s nowhere to go ashore. I’ve already been to the wharfinger’s float house for a haircut. His partner is an excellent barber. Then I went for a huge plate of brunch in the restaurant. I know, I’m a high roller.
I ate while reading a few pages of a novel found in the laundry as the storm raged outside. Williwaws, waterspouts, horizontal cloudbursts and stacking waves are not notable anymore. They are a near-daily fact and I wonder how in the hell I’m going to get the boat three hundred miles southward into the face of this incessant adverse winter weather. There is much speculation afoot about how and if this old fool will make it home.
The staff, busy stringing up Christmas decorations, were happy and exuberant. Their obvious joy left me feeling dull and shrivelled. Tomorrow is the annual company Christmas party. There is huge anticipation, various company dignitaries are flying in for the event; weather permitting. I am dreading the whole ordeal, reluctantly inclined to attend only for a free meal and drink. This is a time of year which once had me feeling warm and fuzzy. Now I am the quintessential scrooge. The entire season seems crass and shallow, a meaningless orgy of superficial consumerism and general silliness. There seems to be little left about family, tradition and the simple joy of sharing. Humbug, dumbug and bumhug!
At the table next to me, five men speculated on the weather for a while then lapsed into silence as each fell to texting on their own cellphone. They had all found a differing weather report on their devices, which I found amusing, then hilarious as they wandered off alone into their personal cyber world. I trudged back through the white-capped puddles into the wind and rain. Now I’m back aboard ‘Seafire’ and settling in for the day. Nine days are left until I leave, weather notwithstanding.
Now seven more sleeps. The intense weather continues as horrific weather systems crowd onto the coast. Storm warnings are constant and of course the wind is all on the nose.
Another Storm Warning The barometer tumbled this low, to 9807 mb, overnight. To use some old sailor jargon, “She’s up and down like a whore’s knickers.”
I’m plodding through my last few days here, a dark comparison to the child before Christmas. I just want to be on my way. Last night was the annual company Christmas party. My trepidations proved accurate. It was a grand effort but an event far from being a ‘Party’. It’s over and the following morning, I am not hungover. I show up at work on time, the loyal good old boy. Perhaps it was good strategy to hold the event on a Monday evening.
A Smell Of Snow The white stuff on distant mountains can be smelled on the wind. It’s time to go!
One of the dubious joys here is that the only available public radio station is CBC 1. It is a venue addressing multiculturalism, ethnic minorities, social and political anomalies. It often manages to be incredibly boring, infantile and a master of dissecting moot points. Occasionally, however, there is a story posted which is wonderfully amusing. That is especially so when humour was not the intent. Yesterday morning it was reported that the city of Prince George hosted a training program for folks from remote communities which do not have any ambulance service. These people would go home as first responders. They will be able to provide various life-saving skills such as CPR, mouth to mouth resuscitation, the Heimlich manoeuvre, emergency child delivery and so forth. A good thing I think, especially when the story ended with an account of how this first-aid training had already saved a life.
A man and his wife had both taken the course. They returned home and were sitting down to supper. “We were just sittin’ down to dinner when I dropped a piece of broccoli. The dog jumped right on it and inhaled the whole thing. All of a sudden he started chokin’ real bad then he tipped over! Good thing we’d taken that training! We started thumpin’ him on the back and he honked that broccoli right up. We’re sure lucky we knew what to do.” The account was provided in rich backwoods jargon and I found it hilarious. Then I remembered a friend’s account of an old man trying to demonstrate the fine training of his dog. I put the two stories together.
“Yep, woulda have really missed old Wiener, he’s an awesome dog. Uh huh. He always listens pretty good. Here Weiner. C’mon Weiner. HERE WIENER! WIENER! Come here! Wiener, GET DOWN!
Wiener, stop lickin’ me!”
As I write, CBC is airing a story about a zombie nativity scene. WOT? Really! This follows a story about that xenophobic idiotic Republican candidate Donald Trump, and how he is enthusiastically supported by thousands of bleating Republicans. Baaaah! The next story was that to date in this year of 2015, The USA has endured 355 mass shootings, far too many to report, even nationally! That’s more than one per day and there will certainly be more. This is on a continent which is rapidly becoming extremely Islamophobic. Folks who think like Mr. Trump don’t seem to understand that if we stopped bombing these people, maybe there would be an end to the mass exodus from their homeland. We are all descendants of refugees whether economic, religious or political.
No-one happily chooses to rip up their roots and start their lives over in a strange place and culture. As we condemn cultures we do not understand, except for the part-truths we receive from the media, we also choose to ignore how many millions have died under the grinding wheels of Christian greed and self-empowerment. Despite the eternal rhetoric about peace and love and compassion, no other religion uses a symbol of capital punishment as its icon and keeps the church doors locked most of the time. Any dogma which we choose to embrace has its extremists. We certainly have ours.
We are in the season of goodness and light and love and peace. Eggnog and bullets are not a happy mix. Right?
Right!
“Silent night; Holy night. Down Wiener!”
High Slack A winter high tide of 16.1 feet. At low tide these pilings tower above the dock. Note how far into the trees the ocean has risen. Storm winds have pushed the tide even higher than the tide book forecast. Seafire is at the end of the dock on the left. she’s leaving in the morning.
December 11th, Friday again. I’m done counting sleeps and am instead listening to each up updated weather forecast, or rather, “Technical Marine Synopsis,” as they are now known. It appears that Sunday morning is time to go and there may be a weather window opening in the next day or two. The days have barely eight hours of light and with prevailing winds from the southeast it can be a very long haul south to Port Hardy especially when travelling alone. It is foolhardy to travel in darkness. With plenty of logs floating freely as well as many unmarked reefs, prudence is essential. The days are short and the nights are long so the first hundred miles on the way down from the north coast jungle can be very, very long indeed. That is about the first third of the journey home. From there it can still be a challenging voyage if the weather is adverse. It probably will be. I’m posting this blog just before I leave. Chances are that by the time you read this, I’ll be on my way. Wish me well.
A sunset over Queen Charlotte Sound from years past. Known by some mariners as the “Rock Garden” this is a challenging body of water to cross, especially in winter. Hopefully it will behind me in a few more days.
In turn, I wish everyone inner peace, someone to love, something to do and lots to look forward to. Have a warm and fuzzy Christmas.
Have A Warm And Fuzzy Christmas
“When in fear, or in doubt, raise your sails and bugger off out.”….Tristan Jones
A November view toward Canada over the dock in Bella Bella. Note that there are no kids swimming now!
My time in Shearwater is coming to an end. This may be the last blog I post from here. By mid-December old ‘Seafire’ and I will be making our way south to whatever lays ahead. Of course I’m waiting for some really heavy weather to make the trip. There’s little drama with fair weather. I may still not be home to Ladysmith for Christmas if I flounder into a typical winter weather system. In my tugboat days, I’ve waited in one spot for up to two weeks. I’m sure the trip southward will provide some interesting material for a future blog, one way or the other.
“Heckle? No, I’m Jeckle! These Bella Bella crows will raid your grocery bags on the water taxi dock…right under your feet!
Things just haven’t worked out for me here. I didn’t amass the funds I had hoped to; in fact I’m further behind financially than when I arrived. I can’t say that I’ve discovered any other good reason for having come here, perhaps that will be revealed in the future. Life is like that. A rear view is often very clear but for the moment I have a sense of unfinished business. I don’t know what it is.That aside, recently the weather has turned cold, clear, and calm. There’s been no rain for a week! If a stormy winter night is an adventure, a dead-calm darkness of nearly fifteen hours is an ordeal. Staying warm is a challenge and condensation inside the boat is an eternal battle.
Where have all the gringos gone? The Shearwater transient dock requires no reservations these days.
Certainly, the notion of leaving a job to go into a situation with no money and no prospects seems suicidal and it will be a challenging time. I’m not expecting any warmth or fuzziness for a while. These thoughts are punctuated by photos emailed by friends in Mexico.
The Frosty Dock. When the sun is out, it’s always in your eyes and it is no warmer. ‘Seafire’ whispers “South, let’s go south.”
. I recently read that the pursuit of happiness should be secondary to the happiness of pursuit. We’ll see. Certainly it is up to me whether my life is an ordeal or an adventure. There is not much to write about when life is a daily grind of dreary work and long, lonely evenings. The boat is ready to go, I just need a couple more pay cheques before I can untie and sail away. This is the same country which had me spellbound during the summer months but there is something about winter which brings on a profound loneliness and depression. Certainly there are some folks left here who have not already gone south. They live their lives one way or the other. I am not prepared to socialize in the local pub and so here I sit poking away at my laptop alone in the night. Stay tuned, more to come.
Heiltsuk Dawn. Wet with melted frost this totem pole commands the Shearwater foreshore.The Barnacle Express. Is it a bridge? A cattle wagon? A what? A boat trailer! This innovative locally-built trailer was salvaged from the ocean floor where it has sat for the past year.A chance to go back in time to when I was a tugboater. We’re on the way to drag up the trailer. Bella Bella in the background. Note the natural open bog in the distance on Campbell island.
He said, ” I’d love to swim in your ocean.” She said, “You’ll have to settle for Pool 13.” A mysterious Department of Fisheries decal, circa 1998.Bogtrotter’s Lane A corduroy road was built as a jeep trail across this Denny Island swamp during WWII. It is a testament to the durability of Yellow Cedar, also known as Cypress.WWII happened here! A 70 year old roll of concertina wire in the bog marks the former camp perimeter. Would it have delayed a horde of Japanese infantry attacking the air base?Welcome To De Swamp! Hundreds of hectares of the Great Bear Rainforest are open swamp and bog, even on steep slopes. With solid granite beneath, there is inadequate drainage or topsoil for the rainforest to grow. These open, wet areas are important ecosystems and wildlife habitat. Here there were calls of ravens all around but not a one to be seen.All is calm, all is bright. Whiskey Cove on a rare clear November afternoon. The gorgeous and famous old tug, ‘Charles Cates’ is careened high and dry at the head of thee jetty.Murphy knows! The mascot of the Hodge Podge store in Shearwater seems to know I’m leaving. I’ll miss him.
“I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.”
Wotcha lookin’ at? Edgar the eagle returns to his winter perch on the waterfront of Shearwater.
Isn’t it interesting how things work out? It is early on Wednesday morning, the brightening of the day is occurring reluctantly after a very rainy night. My toilet clogged first thing and I’m taking time off from work to resolve the problem. It might become a shitty day. As I returned to the boat after booking out from the job and grim-lipped at the task ahead, I heard something unusual.
Hi slack gleam. The sun catches surface tension in a backwater. Interestingly, a friend first saw this as a picture of city lights.Brined-burned branches. A super-high spring tide pushed even higher by the advancing wind of a storm front. (thanks to the full moon)
I paused and listened. To my delight what I could hear was a chorus of wolves howling. The music drifted down through the timber on the slopes above. A sacred sound to me, it is a terrifying and hellish siren to many who chose to believe the dark myths and embellished lies about wolves. Curse or blessing, that is up to each of us. My point in mentioning any of this personal moment is that had the timing of my movements not been exactly as they were, I would not have heard those uplifting notes. I think that’s pretty cool. Now…Dung ho!
My life as a worm. The convoluted casings of sea worms on the end of an old plastic barrel. The picture could be a social comment don’t you think?
On the note of a wolf howl let me direct my readers to an incredible website. pacificwild.org is how you will find the incredible photography and video work of Ian McAllister and his organization, Pacific Wild. The endeavour is based here on Denny Island and does wonderful work to heighten awareness of the beauty and fragility of the Great Bear Rainforest as this area is known. The stunning images leave me feeling like an amateur photographer and wanting to throw my cameras away in humility. If those photos don’t stir your heart, you’re dead. Stay in your city, zombie!
Fall colours. Desperate for some autumn gold I turned my attention to individual plants. A day later, these leaves were brown mush.A shave and a hair cut. Seafire hauled up on the hard last weekend for bottom inspection, cleaning, paint touch-up and new zinc anodes. While working on the bowsprit, a humpback whale swam past the docks…always a wonderful sight.A murder of crows. A seafood buffet of mussels scraped from the bottom of someone’s boat.Autumn sunrise shining on the model Stranraer here in Shearwater. It’s been making some very interesting noises during the storms. Soon it’ll be stored away for winter.Vigorous II in dawn’s early light. An old wooden tug converted to a yacht. What lines! Sunshine, as you can see, becomes a most treasured commodity now that summer is past.
Two days later, the wolves are at it again. Two packs, one on each side of the bay, called back and forth to each other through the morning. The serenade of quavering howls and yodels went on for hours until the cold autumn rain began again. Soon it was pelting down. Its rising roar drowned out the wolves. I imagine them snuggled up together under a thick cedar tree, warm, dry and loved. Yes, even wolves are very capable of great love.
“Bloody hell it’s cold!” “Wouldn’t be so bad if we cuddled up.” “Wot? We’re eagles!”
This is a short blog. I’ll be away south taking care of business but I’ll be back to my beloved Seafire as soon as possible to see where the universe might lead me. Here’s a short piece I wrote the other morning just before the wolf songs began.
