hello everyone!
holy radio silence, i know! we haven't had more than a shred of service since we left klemtu last i left off - well, that's not entirely true, but the service we've had hasn't been enough to get a post up. also, i wrote two whole blog posts on my computer offline and …. they disappeared. five thousand words down the drain! so this may be a little lacklustre, as once i've gotten something out of my brain, the inspiration is spent.
enough background. where have we been?!
after we wandered back down to klemtu to reprovision, we dithered away to the north again, but this time heading inland. our destination was kynoch inlet, a place recommended time and again by sailors and publications about the coast as an absolute must-see. the first night out we shared bottleneck inlet with a couple other boats, but our second night away we had windy bay to ourselves - which, as we know, is pretty rare up this stretch of the coast. we had family nudey swims and went foraging for berries on the shore there, feeling wild for having the place to ourselves.
windy bay, as promised
the next morning, we left windy bay and turned into mussel inlet. the landscape was starting to change. we were appraoching the fjordland conservancy area, reknowned for it's dramatic mountainscapes, and they were starting to show. barely a few miles up mussel, we took a sudden turn south through mathieson narrows - an actual oceanic shortcut from one inlet to another. technically we were in mathieson channel for a stretch, but it wasn't long before we turned into kynoch inlet.
if we had been approaching the fjordlands from behind, suddenly here we were facing them, instantly humbled by the grandeur of the place. looking into kynoch, we could see face after face of sheer rock charging up out of the ocean and into the sky. a wide and rushing waterfall greeted us near the entrance, bringing our attentions momentarily seaward, but beyond there it was eyes up, jaws down.
methieson narrows; a grand fall of water
the amount of rock in there was staggering. some of the cliffs leaned back ever so slightly from the water, running up and up to bald, stony peaks traced against a bright blue sky. other faces seemed to blast up near vertical, bold and perpendicular to the level water below. some even seemed to hang out and over. impressed as we were by the immense strength of the mountains around us, rockslides and fresh scars on the tall faces made it all suddenly seem quite precarious. suddenly we were picturing those half-faces not born that way - crammed out of the earth by geologic upheavals - but created later, half-fallen away in a sudden release of particles. we pondered over the sight of such a thing, half a mountain crumbling away, though our hearts tightened at the thought of it happening around us.
yet the mountains held strong and still as we delved deeper into the inlet. we zig-zagged along the dramatic shores, continually baffled by the volume of rock and the heights to which it rose. as we came to the end of the inlet, we were greeted by a sweet sight: a broad estuary stretched across the head of kynoch, bright and green and full of life. behind it, a sturdy forest stood, then reached back into the folds of the mountains behind. snow-capped peaks looked down over it all. one high peak was an eerie, almost-misty grey, and snowless. the rock there seemed wrinkled or scarred, and stood strangely mute against the vivid summer sky; we named it spectre mountain, ghostly among its comrades. the place was like being in a postcard.
bear-gazing at the end of kynoch
we dropped our anchor at the edge of the mud flats and hung about in what had become a rather steady wind. it wasn't long before bears showed up on the shore. a momma grizzly and a yearling popped out of the woods to snack and laze about on the south side of the bay. we got a good gander through our binocs; they didn't seeme phased at all by our presence. in the evening another group of bears came out - a momma and two little chubby cubs stalked through the grass, munching on whatever they could find. they hung out there until dusk, the momma keeping a sharp lookout (probably catching whiffs of us on the wind). at one point she stood up tall on her hind legs to take a look around. after that the cubs kept standing on their little legs, as if they were playing Lookout like mom. as the sun disappeared, the outflow wind cooled the night and the bears retreated to their den, and we to ours.
the next morning in kynoch was sunny and beautiful, but windy too. we were waiting for high tide to take the little passage through to culpepper lagoon, a small inlet branching off the head of kynoch. high tide wasn't until early evening, so we bobbed about in the wind all morning. the bears came back for a while, and after they left i took the kayak to see if i could paddle up the river to get a closer look at the estuary. the water was very shallow, and most of my thoughts were of the subject of roaming into bear territory in short, rocky water in a paddleable balloon… but alas, the water was too low and i kept bottoming out, and so had to turn back. just as well, a little voice in my head said as i paddled past a pile of fresh bear scat. just as well.
when it came time for the tide to turn, we raised our anchor and slipped into culpepper lagoon. the passage in was narrow and fast, but rafiki made it in no problem. the only anchorage marked in there was right by the entrance, but we wanted to check out the river at the end, so we headed up there first. it was like we were going deeper into the postcard, closer to the snowy peaks, farther into the heart of the land. again we dropped our anchor at the edge of the mud flats, then piled into tubs to explore the river. the estuary here was smaller, and mostly off to one side of the river. as we came in to the river mouth, we could see bear paths coming out of the forest, and flat patches of grass where it appeared they would swim across and climb out to be on the estuary proper.
the water soon became a soothing glacial blue, flowing gently out into the bay. tubs cruised along no problem, weaving over shallow spots and submerged logs as we ogled the shores around us. the forest floor was flat and low, but full of tall, healthy trees. berry bushes leaned out over the creek, laden with ripe berries; at one point aaron budged us up into the bushes and turned off the motor so we could have a pickin' session. it felt like sharing a snack with the bears - but thankfully outside of their company.
onwards up the river we sighed over the tranquility of the water and the banks. deciduous trees leaned together over the river, creating an archway that called us on. we could see the mountain peaks through the trees, the very source of the water beneath our hull. i mooned over this place, wishing i were a bear so i could stay here for my whole life, nibbling on berries and dipping a claw in the lazy river, napping in the grass with a belly full of fish, scratching my back on the bark of tall trees, and sleeping the whole winter through…. ahh, wouldn't that be the life?
culpepper lagoon: an ethereal paradise
but hey, this life isn't so bad. when the water became too shallow to go on, we turned off the motor and drifted back downstream, passing slowly through shafts of sunlight and bumping gently along. the summer sun was high and bright, bringing out all the colour and texture this place had to offer. we were truly lucky to be there when we were - and without another human in sight.
back to rafiki, we pulled up our anchor again and sighed a farewell to the culpepper estuary, by far the most stunning place we have ever been. we puttered back up to the anchorage by the entrance and set ourselves up there for the night. alpenglo painted the mountains behind us in a stately blush, peacefully drawing the day to a close. to think that nature ends each day with such silent drama, whether or not anyone is there to witness… it's like a thousand wishes wasted, but to see it, if only once, grants the wish of a lifetime.
we spent the whole next day in culpepper lagoon, as it was a peaceful anchorage and well protected from the wind. there was a lot of fishing - sage even 'caught' her first fish there! - and quite a variety of rockfish were brought up for a viewing. after we felt bad about hooking so many innocent lips, we lazed about on board and ogled the majesty around us. the shore on this side was rocky and barnacle-y - not conducive to exploring or wildlife viewing. so it was a quiet day, spent in solitude.
our exit on a highwater slack had to happen early the next morning, so aaron and i woke early and did our best to quietly raise anchor. we have to flake the anchor chain as we raise it so it doesn't topple onto itself and cause issues when we lower it - but the chain locker is at the foot of the v-berth, where the kids sleep. if you can imagine picking your way over two rumpled, snoozing bodies and crawling bent-double to the chain locker and then trying to silently pile chain on itself… well, it's a challenge. but somehow, even with the roaring rumble of the motor starting and the motion of the boat being passed from one inlet to another, the kids kept sleeping and aaron and i had a peaceful misty morning in kynoch.
the weather had been remarkably fine for us. apparently some years the central and north coast doesn't even get a summer, so to have had any good weather at all was a blessing. to have had cloudless skies in this wonderland where the most dramatic of the features are above was pure fortune, for which we were grateful. yet we were grateful too for our misty morning hop. maybe it was because we knew just how high into the cloud those now-shrouded faces rose, but it was mighty powerful to be there that morning. we even spied some pictographs on one foggy shore, transporting us back to a time before time when this place truly was revered.
and soon enough, kynoch was behind us, another stretch of the charts filled in with the details of real life, with memories of sights and sounds to last us until the next time we pass this way - which we hope won't be long.
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