Pacific NW

Expeditions

Out of the corner of my eye a large black potential cougar shot like an arrow silently through the forest. Soon we found the tracks of a cat and its scat. And at the river we encountered a bear. Never before had we seen so much bear scat. There were mounds of it literally every 5 feet in all directions out on the grassy tidal flats. And then we came to an abrupt stop on the edge of the beach where we saw the most remarkable thing of all: A giant squid had surfaced from the depths and washed itself onto the beach! We had never seen anything like it before, couldn’t have imagined such a foreign life form. It was if we had landed in Modulus on the shores of a different planet in a different time. Within 10 minutes we had encountered a bear, a large cat, and a giant squid! I experienced a moment of infinite expansion and asked myself “What else is possible?” The huge trees of the forest drew us onward. They were trees with all kinds of other species of large trees growing from them from 100 feet up in the canopy. Cedar trees supported their own forests of alder, spruce, ferns, hemlock, and always a thick cloak of moss hanging from every branch. It was a privilege being amongst such a forest, the last of it’s kind. Losing myself in thought I stepped unsuspectingly into a pool of quicksand. Justin and I exchanged a glance as if to say ” Could this place get any cooler?” as I pulled my legs out of the mud. Suddenly we heard human voices and instinctively dove for cover. Kayakers. They couldn’t see us, but then one of them looked right at the bush we were hiding behind. “Is that a deer on the beach? I wish I had my shotgun”. The deer was directly below us and we were happy he didn’t have a gun! We stalked the kayakers until their boats vanished into the curve of the horizon. Eagles chirruped overhead and the onset of darkness allowed the first thoughts of returning to the mothership. The tide had come out more, exposing a larger area of beaches. And there, the North Pacific Ocean had thrown up more of her wonders of the deep. Justin and I refer to it as the “Giant Squid Beaching Event” and stared unbelievingly at seven of the massive creatures, all in a cluster. Some appeared to have just died and stared at us with empty eyes, while others had been sampled by the eagles and bears. “The bears are eating god-damned calamari for dinner out here” said Justin. “Calamari for dinner” I replied. Every beach was strewn with these giant squid! Deer and vibrant green tree frogs had also come out for the sunset. We pushed away from that amazing shore with a new perspective on life and time. On our way back we hauled the crab trap. The line was heavy and we expected kelp or a 19-armed starfish. Nope– MOTHERLODE!! The pot was stuffed with Red Rock crab and one enormous Dungeness crab. All male, all well over legal size. They had torn open the bait jars and were stuffing themselves. Justin and I started howling and somewhere in the excitement I lost my sunglasses overboard. We don’t know how the big dungeness even fit into the trap! One of the crabs had ridiculously large claws, that were very disproportionate to his body. And he really knew how to use them! He locked onto the trap and then tried to nip off my finger as he drove his other pointy legs into my glove. We nick-named him “Popeye”. Popeye began pinching the legs off of the other crabs that got close to him. We put him in “solitary confinement” for the night, another crab’s leg in his robust pincher, and the others in an another bucket. As the sun went down a thick fog rolled into the anchorage from the sea. Periodically throughout the night I was woken by the rustling of crab legs as they moved about in the buckets in the cockpit. When I went out to check on them and change the water, a sea bird flew smack into my flashlight beam and landed in the bucket! I quickly turned out the light out, and hoped the bird would escape before popeye got to him.