Pacific NW

Expeditions

In the early morning we departed our fruitful kingdom by the sea. I hauled the trap which was stuffed with another load of Dungeness and Red Rock crabs, and kept two. We’re really making our way south now. I entered back into “home waters” when we steamed across the Hakai Passage. However, after we pick up Jakob in Port Hardy we’ll swing back up around Cape Scott at the northern tip of Vancouver Island and head down the west side. We dropped anchor in Pruth Bay and hiked a short trail overland to a white sand beach on the west side of the island. The scene before us was almost tropical and intoxicating. Nothing quite smells like a sand beach in the sunshine, with the surf pounding and gulls wheeling through the air. The pink beach cliffs and rounded rocks, set in the sand had a Fred Flinstone quality about them. It was as if a confusion of times and geographical locations had collided on this one stretch of beach. We picked our way along, squinting into the glare of the sun on such a vast area of white sand. Far off into the distance we saw two figures near the surf line gesturing to us. Then a faint “Pete! Pete!” At first I became alarmed that something had happened to the boat at anchor and that someone had come to find me. But we soon realized it was our friends Vic and Matt, from Baranoff! It was an uncanny reunion, on that beach in the middle of nowhere. Matt is hitching a ride south with Vic–the two of them bumped into each other in Petersburg. In the evening, the four of us put together the most remarkable dinner, which I call the “triple crown”. Just before rowing over to Vic’s boat “Galaxy” we pulled up many more large crab from the trap. Vic prepared a king salmon to perfection, and we baked the last of my halibut. And so, we ate fresh king salmon, halibut, crab, rice and salad for dinner, washed down with a bottle of beer! We eat well out here. A sharp rain and SE wind picked up throughout the evening, and the forecast is a grim one. Vic and I are both pleased to stall our southbound navigation for another day. We stayed up late playing guitar and singing. Vic knows some great songs of the sea. It has been yet another unexpected and wonderful day of the voyage.