apologies for the gap in production, everyone! i hope nobody was concerned. this may happen, as not everywhere we come to has service. please don’t be alarmed - no news is probably good news!
things have been mostly good since we left off communication. our days in comox were sweet, if windy and wet. we enjoyed the company of our good friends and their kids, including brand new baby Odin - welcome to the world, darling creature! it filled my heart to snug a brand new baby once again; the pandemic put quite a dent in baby snatching. but no, it didn’t set my ovaries to tingling - i was happy to hand him off to mum and head back to the boat for an uninterrupted night's sleep.
well, uninterrupted may be an exaggeration. in the morning we had left the stable slip at the dock in trade for a (free) mooring buoy just outside the mouth of the harbour. as we were out and about on our town day (which included a fun little bus ride), the winds increased, so the security of the boat was often on the edge of our thoughts. heading back after our lovely dinner with friends, the boat was - thankfully - just where we had left it, but was bobbing around in the wind like a bottle top.
the first half of the night was riddled with clangs from the *damn* loose wires running up the inside of the mast. somehow someone failed to figure that detail in the wiring of the mast, and somehow someone hasn't managed to solve it yet. so each time the boat rocks side to side - kTHWACK..... kTHWACK.... kTHWACK it goes the whole night through.
forunately we woke to sun, so that was a bright start to a not-so-sleepy-night's morning. yet the winds howled stronger than ever. casting off from the mooring buoy (and we learned how not to attach to one), we headed over to the fuel dock. two-hundred seventy dollars, an embarrassingly sketchy getaway, and we were gone.
comox harbour dumps you straight out into baynes sound, the passage of water running between the big island and denman island. it's sheltered from the bigger motion of the salish sea, and with a southwest wind it made for excellent sailing. it was much calmer than all the waters we had experieced so far. to quote aaron, "this is more how i pictured sailing with my family". read: better on the nerves!
rainscapes on the island side made for pleasant admiration
cruising past a rolling green homestead, crossing paths with the cable ferry, and a visit from a honeybee... kids playing with playdough, aaron and i up on deck enjoying the warmth of the sun on our faces, a steady wind to move us along... that was what you call smooth sailing.
baynes sound directly deposited us into deep bay - a charming little bay flanked by a sandy spit topped with colourful houses on one side and some derelict marine operation covered in belching sea lions on the other. it faces back up baynes, and the mountains to the west swooping right down into the bay seem close enough to touch. we were graced with a dramatic afternoon cloudscape and a pastel sunset, all the sweeter for the many gray nights before it.
curious clouds over calm waters.... bliss.
the number one best thing about our night in deep bay was how quiet it was. no wind to roll us and make the mast thwack, no pattering rain on the deck above us. the sea lions even quit their gurgling for the night, and we slept well.
what should have been an early start the next day most certainly was not. the winds were forecasted to build mid-day in the strait, so an early start would have been ideal. but i decided to make rhubarb compote, and the bay was so beautiful that we just couldn't bring ourselves to hurry. plus we had a backup plan: if the winds looked too nasty, we would just zip around the corner to a small bay on hornby island.
eventually we slipped away from deep bay and turned down past chrome island and into the strait. it was late morning and there was almost no wind, so we opted to follow our original plan and head across to lasqueti island.
being flanked by an island and mainland both mountainous makes the strait sort of a weather hole. we've noticed this on quadra: being just out of reach of the mountains on both sides often leaves us under a blue sky while the rain stays on shore. the setting was much the same this day; we watched as a thick veil of rain crept up the island, obscuring the shore and tucking itself into each and every bay and valley. yet we reached across to our destination largely under blue-gray sky, receiving only a smattering of rain.
grey, grey, grey - just a pip of the island to see
the wind picked up to a fun tempo and we made good time to lasqueti. just as we approached the rocks to the north of the bay we were headed for, i spied a pair of humpbacks puffing up the shore. we tacked to avoid crossing their course. they huffed and spouted away ahead of us, heading who knows where. yet they may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time...
as we sighted the entrance to false bay, i looked back across the waters and could just see a large black dorsal fin on the horizon. i grabbed the binocs and saw rounded black heads and sharp fins tipping at the edge of our rainge of vision: it was a pod of orcas. if we hadn't had the kids with us, we would have turned back for a closer look. but the winds were mounting and we didnt want to push our luck.
well, luck came to us. we came into false bay to drop our anchor (aaron wondering aloud, "i wonder why it's called false bay?"), and as we turned around to face the mouth of the harbour, the orcas came into sight. regretful to leave the binoculars, but urged to fill a promise, the kids and i buzzed over to the public whatf to seek out the cookie stand (a fantastically stocked bake stand that aaron and i found last time we came to false bay). sid was adamant on finding the cookie stand and would hardly let me pause to watch the whales.
we tied to the wharf, and, walking up the ramp backwards so i wouldn't miss any whale activity, we made our way to land and found the fabled bake stand. fortunately it was just right there, so after we made our selections (there were probably 25 different tasty homemade baked goods to choose from!) we shuffled down to the beach to nibble our treats.
the kids hunted for sea glass while i attempted to film the orcas (check the video gallery for a super-zoomed in, intensely pixelated view of the whales). we figured they might be hunting one of the humpbacks, as they appeared to be working together. around eight of them were surfacing and diving together,
sometimes all in a row, sometimes piling on top of each other. all the while, the big daddies circled the outside of the action. i'm not an expert, but it looked like a collective hunt.
dinner time came along, so we zipped back over to Rafiki to cook up some grub. we could still see a few orcas from that vantage point, but our focus had turned to the end of our day. knowing the next would be a harbour day, we hoped for a restful sleep.
Comments