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July 17 – Around to Rivers Inlet and Out

I decided to head for Rivers Inlet today and pack it in for the year since the weather had been so bad. I had to be back at work in a week so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spare. I was tired of being soaked and I was worried about my camera gear.

A humpback zooming around the bay. They spend the winter in the clear tropical waters of Hawaii, having babies and not eating because there is little to eat in the tropics -- that's why you can see so far through the water. Then they migrate to our coastline for the summer and feed on all the productivity from the upwelling nutrient rich waters meeting summer sunshine. They have interesting feeding strategies including working cooperatively to make bubble curtains to corral herring schools and then chomping them down in one bug gulp.

It was raining a bit in the morning as I packed up but as soon as I pushed off it ended.

It was low tide so the low beach with eelgrass was nice and calm. Goodbye Brown Island! I'll be back someday!

I made the kilometer long crossing to the mainland, a little wary of the humpback hanging around.

The sun came out.

Big waves

A few seconds later. If I needed to come ashore I would be out of luck for the next 5 km or so, although there were a few sandy coves, albeit with fairly large waves.

I have seen these barges a few times, loaded with colourful containers, heading north.

It was a nice paddle along the open coast to the point where I would turn east into more sheltered water. There were lots of birds and some boats going by.

This is a nice beach on an isthmus separating the peninsula from the rest of the mainland.

This pigeon guillemot let me drift fairly close. This wasn't even taken with my bird lens.

But not too close

Heavy swell on a reef

Looking across Rivers Inlet to the BC Ferry heading north along Calvert Island

Taking a break after rounding the peninsula. Looking west.

Looking north

 

Looking South

 

Here is the beach on the other side of that isthmus. It has a nice campsite. I wish I had stayed there an extra night.

I crossed eastwards over the bay to the main part of the mainland, which I would continue along northwards. I was getting very warm in my drysuit in the sun. I had to pull the top part off. Wearing it would be out of the question; I would overheat in no time. I don’t know what you’d do if you were somewhere treacherous with cold rough water, where you had to wear it for safety reasons, but you were stuck out in the blasting sun.

I paddled along under a big wide sky with the clouds parting around me. I looked west to the open ocean and to the productive seas all around me. In front of me was the rest of the world, an entire ocean of possibilities. I thought of all the marine life passing in and out of this place, some stopping to spend some time and others merely passing through on their journey to someplace else, maybe no place in particular. Others spend their whole lives here, gleaning their nutrition from sunshine and the sea water that swirls through, itself on its own never-ending journey around the world on the currents and through the clouds, all driven by that same sunshine. The fantastically intricate plankton glistening in the shafts of sunlight, going about their lives without knowing or caring about all the problems we create. For a while I went back to my early years, wide eyed in amazement at the wonder of the ocean, back to those salmon fishing trips out to Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island when I was first immersed in our coast.

The final leg of my trip this year was before me -- Duncanby Landing is at the base of that far mountain.

But first I had some interesting little islands to make my way through. They reminded me of the Broughtons. I was in no rush.

One of the fishing lodges I wasn't going to.

There's Duncanby Landing.

Looking up Rivers Inlet

After landing and taking my stuff out of my kayak I found this passenger that had been with me all day. This isopod was almost 2 inches long. There was actually two of them -- one underneath that was being mated with.

First thing’s first was to have a big chicken taco salad in the dining room with Sirius Satellite Radio blasting classic rock from the 70’s. Sorry, chicken.

I used the sat phone and arranged with Pacific Coastal for a pickup in a couple hours.

Packed and ready to go

But the plane actually ties up on this other dock, at the very end of it...

I asked a young guy on the dock helping me with my stuff (what a nice guy) what their work schedule was like here — 3 months straight, 7 days a week. Wow, that’s impressive. At least there’s nothing to blow your money on out here.

My first time in a Grummand Goose!

Looking up Smith Inlet. I came out along the northern shore, from the back right heading towards the left.

The southern part of Smith Inlet is a more convoluted maze of narrow channels between Greaves Island and the mainland.

Pack Lake behind Mereworth Sound

I wonder if anyone has ever been to those ponds on that mountain.

Pack Lake, looking eastwards

Looking westwards to Burnett Beach and the open ocean off Cape Caution

That's Belize Inlet! Nakwakto Narrows is to the right just outside the frame.

Belize Inlet on the left, leading through the narrows to Schooner Channel to the right, which you can't really see because it's mostly hidden behind Bramham Island.

As we crossed the strait I looked across to Shelter Bay. No indication from here of the drama that went on there last year in the trees.

That's "oil spill alley" from last year, where I had lunch before crossing the next big channel ahead of me. The pigeon guillemot nesting island is that little one on the left.

That's what kelp beds look like from the air.

We touched down and I was once again brought back to civilization. When I come out of the wilderness I notice that there seems something odd about how we act. After a few hours this sensation wears off, though never fully, I guess as I too re-integrate into the Borg collective. Funny, when I go into the wilderness I don’t feel anything odd about it… Must be the bond market. It influences us in ways more profound than we can imagine.

I stayed at the backpackers hostel again and tonight there were fireworks on. The whole town was out, right in front of the hostel. The next day I caught the bus back to Courtenay.

Posted by  |  August 16, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | 4 Comments

July 16 – Taking a Break on Brown Island

When I got up I felt like I had slept in but it was only 8:30. I had set up the bowl under the drip line overnight and it collected even more water than the previous evening when I dozed off for a couple hours in the rain. I was surprised by this because I heard rain in the night but I thought it only was a shower for about 15 minutes. It must have been at least a few hours long though to be able to collect that much water. How deceptive.

Since the weather seemed better, today would be another break day, this time to dry out, not to get soaked.

The water was calm at low tide. It really quietens down at low tide here and the waves from the swell almost disappear. But then when the tide comes up so do the waves. It must have something to do with the bathymetry of the shore which attenuates the waves at low tide.

Looking back up Smith Inlet

The odd boat went by, but most of the boats went by on the other exposed side of the island because that's where the open ocean is. Every boat that goes up the coast has to go by there. I could hear them but not see them. Only boats that have a specific reason for entering Smith Sound went by me here, and that totaled two over the two days.

The panoramic views from this spot are quite something. You can see from the south, all the way eastwards and towards the north, all through Smith Sound. You can see the weather as it rolls in.

There were also many planes flying north and south right over me. I guess this is a major flyway.

Indian paintbrush

The weather turned sunny and I took out my 70-200 lens with the teleconverter to start taking some photos.

As I was in the meadow a hummingbird came by. Great! She wasn't shy and I could maybe get some good shots of a bird in a flower.

Then this happened!

That actually would have been a nice shot of a hummingbird in a flower. But what the hell was going on? Suddenly everything fogged up! I freaked out and tried to locate the source of the fog, and unfortunately it wasn’t between the lens and camera, it was inside the lens. I have heard of lenses being ruined in the Amazon when persistent fog caused fungus to grow and etch the glass. And this was no cheap lens!

I didn’t know what to do. This was obviously happening because of all the humidity in the bags over the last few days seeping into the lens, and then when put in the warm sunshine it condensed out. The only thing I could do was lay it on my sleeping bag under the tarp, separated from the camera, and leave it to air out.

So then I took out my 70-300 lens which is a cheaper, though still expensive, lens. And almost immediately it did the same thing! I opened it up too and laid it out. Then I took out my little 35 f/1.8. It happened again! I laid it out. Then I took out my wide angle Sigma, and luckily nothing happened with that one. I attribute that to sloppier build quality…

Anyways, after about 1/2 hour, to my great relief, they aired out, as good as new.

I took advantage of the sunshine to charge my batteries. So it turns out I hadn't needed my computer batteries last night to charge them after all.

Brilliant white sand, like a tropical isle, too bright to look at in the sun.

Man, when the sun came out, I was roasting under the tarp! Outside wasn't any better in the bright reflections from the sand. There were a few showers now and then but they didn't amount to much.

I went tidepooling. Here are two genetically determined colour variants of the ochre star. These happen to eat mussels, which is the answer to the skill testing question the other day about why some logs are clean of mussels while others aren't (some logs can be accessed by stars at high tide, while others can't).

That's a limpet on the left on pink coralline algae, next to a big closed up green surf anemone

Tidepool sculpin

Scapula from a large mammal that died and washed up here, probably a sea lion.

The ball of the shoulder from the same animal. There were a few bones lying around from this carcass.

Yellow monkey flower

I listened to the weather report which was improving. I went over to the next cove to see what was there, and immediately found something interesting…

I found the reason for the island's name, gushing into the sand.

Literally, like tea.

I filled up my empty water jugs with it just in case I needed it, but I would only drink it as a last resort. It tastes a little funny, but I don't know if it's harmful.

I started thinking about how much carbon gets leached from the forests by this tannin tea. It must be significant. In most forests the carbon that is absorbed from the atmosphere is released back as CO2 when the matter breaks down on the forest floor, or if the forests burn. But here, it is so wet that decomposition is incomplete and it simply washes out. It probably doesn’t always flow intensely brown like this; most likely it’s because it is the height of summer and soil activity is higher.

Another way forests release carbon back into the atmosphere is through direct release of isoprene through their leaves. I find nutrient cycling in ecosystems interesting, because we are all part of that. All our food comes from there.

 

Columbine

 

Returning to nature

The beautiful little windswept wildflower meadow

A grey whale came by the kelp line about 20 meters off shore. There were whales everywhere. You only have to stand and watch for 15 minutes and you are bound to see one. Greys feed by sifting mouthfuls of mud through their rakers to separate out the shellfish. They spend the summers up here and migrate south to Mexico for the winter to have babies, most in Bahia San Ignacio on Baja California.

Posted by  |  August 16, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment