Pacific NW

Expeditions

Today was a continuation of what Justin and I are starting to call the “great fog”. A weather pattern is firmly established in which there are calm evenings and mornings followed by windy afternoons. The winds are from the northwest and the fog at sea is ever-present, never lifting. We take advantage of the calm mornings and do our west coast transit before the swells and breakers become too violent. The ocean continues to cast up great miracles. The first of which was a plate of crab cakes with fried eggs on top for breakfast! Not a bad way to start the day. Justin and I can safely say that we have had our fill of crab for now. The satellite phone crab cakes worked! Through the billows of fog we made our way back out to the abyss. A sea lion broke the surface with a blaze-orange canary rockfish in its mouth. The rock fish was the size of a basketball and still alive and thrashing! Farther out the swell picked up. Suddenly a whale spouted and surfaced right by the boat! Justin and I found ourselves not but 10 feet away from the largest whale we’d ever seen–a sperm whale! Its blunt head resembled those giant ice breakers on supertankers. The waters all around the boat began to boil, and our shallow water alarm sounded when it read a depth of 4 feet. To be so close to one of the world’s largest animals, and see every wrinkle and fold in its skin, was something else. “Silent Partner” was dwarfed by the immensity of the whale. I was so dumbfounded by the sight that the possibility of collision didn’t enter my mind until after the event. How lucky we are to be witness to such a spectacular animal. Tcuga Cove is poised at the edge of the sea, and “Silent Partner” rocks gently in the surge. We found piles and piles of fascinating shells all over the beaches, towering old-growth spruce forests, and deer that were unafraid of us. We walked right up to 5 of them and they continued to keep their heads bent to the grass, feeding. We found an ancient wooden shipwreck on the rocks and explored the storm-beaten coast. There was flotsam and jetsam of all sorts washed high up on shore–numerous fenders, trawling buoys, and bottles from China, Japan, and even Brazil. Today the foggy coastline is an extremely lonely place. The roaring crash of surf fills our ears and there isn’t a speck of humanity (except for the jetsam) anywhere. It is an extremely remote and uncharted coast! A cove just north of here is said to contain the long-lost village of Saolangai, but today is was hidden in the fog.