Seperation Anxiety

Kris had so much fun on our kayak trip last week - she went on another adventure this week. The kayak company had some last minute openings and Kris decided to take advantage of one. She is off on the west side of Vancouver Island for another 6 day kayak trip. She took the Spot with her and is dutifully sending a locator twice a day for me to track her adventure. Having sent spot locators from several of our excursions - I am having fun reading between the beacons, so to speak. I can extrapolate that after she sent the signal from an island at their lunch break they probably paddled around several neighboring islands before returning to the camp where she sent another signal- even though the spot shows a straight line from lunch to camp.



I on the other hand am on the east side of Vancouver Island at the Salmon Point RV Park chilling for a week. That is if you can call 90 degree days chilling. I have use of a pool AND a hot tub to help me beat the heat. In all our travels this is the first RV park I have encountered with these amenities.

Kayak camping

Even though my camera took a swim, Cheri took some still images with her video camera. This campsite is pretty typical of where we stayed. Every night we'd carry the kayaks up into the woods. The evening tides were so high, the water would come to the very top of the beach at night, so above the tide line was the safest place for our kayaks.

Then in the morning, we'd carry the kayaks back down to the beach, usually at a very low tide, which meant carrying kayaks over lots of algae. The task of packing the kayak usually took us a while. It's amazing how much stuff will fit, but getting there can be a long process.

The low morning tides made for excellent viewing of the intertidal creatures. I thought this group of sea anemones looked like an art installation I've seen somewhere.

And then we'd be off exploring more little islands in the fog.

Johnstone Strait Expedition

We're back from our week long kayak/camping trip with Spirit of the West Adventures. We had a small group of 5 people and a guide, and had some good paddling and lots of great food. We started out in the community of Telegraph Cove where we got picked up by the water taxi to shuttle us out to our first camp. While in Telegraph Cove, we spent some time at the Bones Project, a non-profit whale education center featuring articulated skeletons of marine mammals. They had some great skeletons, but the light made it difficult to photograph. I'm posing next to a blue whale jaw bone.

They also had an articulated fin whale hanging from the ceiling that was pretty amazing.

After checking out the bones, we taxied to our campsite, and from there we explored a number of little islands, camping along beaches and clam shell middens. The paddling and scenery were great. We had some fog, but otherwise the weather was ideal. The only bummer of the trip is I found that salt water and electronics don't mix. My camera took a dive the second day of the trip, and hasn't recovered. Fortunately the memory card still works, or I wouldn't have any pictures to share. This is the lunch site at Mamalilacoola where my camera took a swim off the dock.

This is a totem at the old village site. Luke, our guide, said it might have been a funeral pole.

Packing Again

We are finished with laundry and are packing to go on a six day kayak trip in the Johnston Strait between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. We will not be able to post any blogs while we are away - but hopefully we will have lots of Orca pictures when we return. We will try to send a spot every day to track our progress. Does life get any better than this?

BC Ferry to Quadra Island

We took the BC ferry from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, and it was a very different experience from the Alaska ferries. The boat was new and very swanky, and the food was great. But if you wanted to sit in the front observation lounge, you had to pay. Granted, the lounges along the side of the vessel had great seats, and nearly floor to ceiling windows, so it wasn't too bad. The trip was very foggy, which made the islands looming in and out of the fog more dramatic.

After arriving at midnight in Port Hardy, we spent the night in the curling club parking lot, and then drove to Campbell River, where we picked up another ferry to Quadra Island. In between, we took a hike out to a view over a strait where enormous quantities of dynamite were used to remove a couple rocks that were a hazard to navigation. The trail crossed a creek via a suspension bridge, which was fun to navigate, and only a hazard if more than one person tried to cross at the same time.

Arriving in Prince Rupert

We arrived in Prince Rupert, BC at 3:30am after a long ferry ride from Wrangell on the ferry M/V Taku. If we had to do this trip again, I'd have tried to avoid traveling on the Taku. It's a smaller ferry, and besides the awful food, just seems more run down than the others. This is the container port next to the ferry terminal, that was busy loading and unloading containers and was all lit up in the early, early darkness.

Rainbow Falls

While in Wrangell, we took a hike to Rainbow Falls. The falls themselves were not very impressive after our many sunny days, but the trail itself was pretty impressive. It's just under a mile long, but there are over 700 steps to climb. We fortified ourselves with occasional wild blueberries along the trail.