Pacific NW

Expeditions

The wildlife that Justin and I witnessed from the decks of “Silent Partner” and Modulus today has forever changed my outlook on the world. I will begin by simply presenting a list of some of the animals we saw today:
–Sitka deer
–100+ humpback whales
–River otters
–Sea otters
–Bald eagles by the hundred
–Salmon by the million
–One dozen grizzly bears
–Kingfishers and hundreds of ther kinds of birds

I got up early in the morning to take in more of our awesome surroundings. Thick swirls and bands of salmon swam tornadoes around Modulus as I rowed through the channel. A few of the thigh-sized fish jumped close enough to splash me, and I was actually surprised that one of them didn’t just jump into the boat. When they become airborne they shake their bodies and tails very powerfully. It makes the sound similar to that of a heliocopter, and is heard constantly due to their phenomenal numbers. On shore I watched a tan sitka black-tailed deer feeding at the edge of a clearing. I was surprised to see the deer so close to so many bears! In mid-afternoon we steamed from Gut Bay and out into Chatham Strait. The humpback whales were lunging and breaching completely out of the water in great numbers! For several hours I could see a whale everywhere I looked. Justin cooked a great meal over the wood stove while we were underweigh. Midway through he gashed his finger with a cleaver. We dressed the wound and he insisted that the meal must go on. He maintained the fire, monitored multiple cast-irons, and stirred the soup while trying to control the bleeding as we bounced around in the waves. It was a truly heroic feat! The meal was excellent and Justin promised there was no blood in any of it. I whittled a wooden splint for his finger and signed it as friends will sign a cast. The things we do to amuse ourselves on a sailboat…We enjoyed our meal as we watched the whales lunge-feeding in the strait. Gedney Harbor turned out to be a true adventure. Right away upon entering the bay we saw a grizzly bear on shore. We anchored the boat off of a stream, around which was growing a towering forest as impressive as the one we found in Gut Bay. We could scarcely contain our excitement as we clambered into the Modulus to gain a closer view of the bear. Nearing the beach another grizzly bear materialized from the tall grasses on shore. They were beautiful 600 pound bears with glossy coats and rippling layers of fat. And then the bears just kept on coming. A mother with two cubs emerged from a streambed to the right, then we saw two more on the stream to the left, and several more romping along the far shore. It was a smorgasboard of grizzly bears, and we saw perhaps a dozen on this short outing. Drawn to the skyrocketing and massive trees on shore, we rowed a little ways up a stream. We briefly stepped into the woods. What a fantastic forest! We went no more than 15 feet into the woods when a massive brown bear charged out of the bushes directly in front of our faces. Without thinking I began shouting at the advancing bear. It was followed by a moment of terror as the bear reared back and tore off into the woods in mild agitation. Our legs felt like jello as we clambered back into the dinghy and rowed out into the bay. Going to shore was simply out of the question. As we watched several bears on the beach a large salmon breached right behind us. It gave us quite a scare! We were completely inundated by all the wildlife around us. A beautiful sunset broke through the pink and orange clouds, casting a glow over the families of grizzly bears on shore. Out in the straits leapt the whales, and in the bay leapt the salmon. Bald eagles perched in the tops of all the tallest trees. I have never seen such a remarkable abundance of animals or old-growth lowland timber. It is beyond anything I had ever imagined. “Silent Partner” sits proud and peacefully at anchor, and we feel priviledged to be in such an amazing part of the world.