June 14th

 I was up at 5:00am. I quietly got dressed, grabbed my tablet, and wandered down to the lobby to see if there was a local place open at that hour on a Sunday. The nice desk clerk was incorrect for someone walking, but I ended up at a McDonald's for coffee and an egg McMuffin. I was just getting started on my blog posts when Maureen called me asking if we had found anyone to take us to Victoria. This gal was a true trail angel!

The timing was incredible, with Maureen pulling up to the hotel just as we were pulling the boats out of the courtyard. 

We chatted about everything from politics to religion to personal situations during the three hours it took to get to Victoria. It was a joy.

We arrived early for the 3:00pm ferry, so they let Maureen drive us and our stuff up to the area where they let the motorcycles park. We gave Maureen a big hug for helping us out and more than enough to cover gas and a couple of LVN uniforms, and said our good-byes. The number of coincidences that had to occur for us to get to Victoria was amazing. We are so grateful.

It was a beautiful day for a ferry ride across the Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles. We got to see several entries to the WA-AK human-powered race, as they were pulling into Victoria Harbor as the ferry was leaving. 

[Human-powered race participants]

Once we were through customs at Port Angeles, we had to wait a bit for a taxi to take our stuff up the hill to the hotel. It was within walking distance, but we would have had to make several trips, or many trips, to get the boats and our stuff up the hill. As it was, the only way to get the boats up the hill was to take them there ourselves. Peter was able to use his trailer, and I carried the Tesla, the half mile up the hill. We were lucky again with the hotel room in that it was wide enough to accommodate two kayaks. Not conventionally, but they fit. 

[Waiting for customs]

[After effects of a kayaking party]

June 13th

 What a whirlwind day! Peter had scoped out the terrain at low tide the previous afternoon and saw that we had a nice little sandy area to launch from in the morning. I quickly made a cup of coffee and the last of the tortillas, peanut butter, and granola, and ate while I was packing. The tide was just beginning its flood, and if we hurried, we could have everything packed before it overtook our sandy area. Tents down and stuffed into their sacks, we started packing and moving bags down to the rocky area sitting next to the preferred sandy area. Then, we moved the boats down and placed them on the sand. By now, we had developed a pretty good rhythm working together to carry the boats over difficult terrain. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast" is something that I learned playing firefighter, and it definitely applies to carrying kayaks over rocks and wood and uneven terrain. 

[Packing boats on soft sand was nice]

[Rocky, uneven terrain]

Once everything was packed, we settled into the boats for just a few minutes before the water lifted us up, and we were on our way. 

It was a quiet, somber paddle the two nautical miles to the dock we had seen on the map. The large grey blob on the map turned out to be a logging processing area. Probably where the slow-moving tug was towing a raft of logs that we watched last night. The dock we saw on the map turned out to be a private dock. There were lots of cars at the dock, but no office or people. A sport boat pulled up while we were just getting there, but they just pointed down the inlet a bit, where there was a beach where we were allowed to park our kayaks. The dock was private property. They did let us know that there was cell service there, which saved our bacon. 

[Eve River is where we landed]

Peter and I brainstormed for a bit about how we get out of that dock area and who maybe could help us do that. Denise, Pam, and Becky back home were searching the interweb, as well. There were boat-based transport services that would end up costing us a couple of grand to get us to Victoria, but the mode seemed excessive. We were already at a place with a road. We contacted paddling shops all the way down to Victoria looking for leads. Car rental places were happy to help if we could get to them to rent the car. The problem was how to get to them. Finally, I found some kayaking communities in Campbell River and asked on their site.

We got very lucky finding somebody looking for something to do that afternoon. After a couple of missed communications--Facebook is like that--we were able to connect with Maureen, who agreed to drive an hour and a half one-way to come pick us up. Bonus: she had been to the launch site we were at!

After being bewildered by Apple Maps' incorrect directions, she found us ready to load the boats on her car rack and stuff our stuff into the back of the car. We were off! We had already found a hotel in Campbell River that was willing to try to find a place where two 6-meter boats could reside. The "willing" was more common than a cynic would think, but most people have a hard time understanding what a 19-foot kayak looks like. We eventually found a place and hoped for the best. 

[In front of the Discovery Inn in Campbell River, B.C.]

With only a slight inconvenience to a couple of ladies talking at a table in the hotel courtyard, we threaded the boats through the lobby into the courtyard. We weren't sure that they could stay there the next day, though. By the time we got everything done, it was going on 10:00pm. It had been a full day. 

Thank you, Maureen, for saving two old guys in kayaks!

June 12th

We shoved off from our little glamping campsite around 7:00am. Even without breakfast, it takes a couple of hours to tear down camp, pack up, get the boats down to the water, pack the boats, and get our gear on. Did I mention that we're slow, too?

The flood tide had started around 6-ish, so it was well underway. The morning breeze was gentle,  but that lasted all of about 15 minutes before we started getting the following seas. We left our glamping site and headed for Robson Bight, where the orcas rub their bellies, under cloudy skies but smooth water. For most of the morning, it was a quiet paddle while we enjoyed the rugged coastline. Rock faces chiselled by retreating glaciers, adorned with sea creatures below the tide line and abused logs tossed by passing storms. All topped with a thick, wild forest.

[Rugged, rocky coastline]

By the time we entered Robson Bight, the northwest winds had picked up and forced us into the area closer to shore than we were supposed to be due to the orca restrictions. We didn't see any orcas frolicating in the surf, or anywhere else for that matter, so we took the safe route after discussing the consequences of being hauled up before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for violating the restriction. There are several solar-powered remote cameras with microwave links to somewhere to help keep an eye on the activities at the Bight. 

While the Bight is not that large, it is large enough that I had to stop for a pee break just before we noticed the sign designating the far side of the protected area. Strike two.

[Somewhere on the way to the Robson Bight]

[Peter and the Otter]

Once on the other side of the Bight, we started looking for a campsite. The winds were picking up, pushing waves along with the current. This combined action was lifting us and pushing us forward, but it was also playing havoc with The Otter, making her want to weathercock. Peter was working hard. Three hard strokes on the port side (left) and one backward stroke on the starboard (right) just to keep her faced in the direction we wanted to go. Whitecaps were everywhere, which meant the wind was a steady 15 kts minimum. One possibility after another was rejected for one reason or another. We paddled on. 

By the time we had been in the seat for around six hours, the wind and waves were getting to the "unsafe" category. As the next point came into view, we saw a beach with possibilities.  Smaller-sized rocks and maybe even some sand looked appealing in the conditions that were building. I went closer to take a look and saw that it had a small creek with a high bank on the far side that even had some grass on the upper parts of the bank. With the waves, we decided to make this site work. 

The high bank was steep, making it difficult to get out of the boats, but provided the grass as a possible tent site. We worked to get the boats out of the water and then checked out the possible tent site. Having narrow tents would help in this situation. Boats unloaded, we found a nice set of logs to put them up on to keep them from floating away with the tide in the middle of the night. 

Camp set up next to the old pile (old enough?) of bear poop, we made some dinner as we watched the parade of cruise ships making their way up the Passage towards Alaska. It was a nice afternoon. Peter was making adjustments to the setup of his trailer wheels, which he felt was causing some of the weathercocking issues, when a couple of the logs he was standing on between the boats started moving and moving in different directions. He lost his balance and came down hard on the back part of the Tesla, creating a cascading situation of him hitting the boat and the boat being shoved into yet another log. Peter was not hurt, thankfully, but we now had a boat with some damage below the water line. 

After the cussing subsided, we set about trying to figure out how to fix the Tesla. Peter dug through his repair kit to find the new fiberglass repair kit, only to find that the tube of resin-set chemical had broken and was completely soaked into the fiberglass mat. It was no longer usable. I had brought a couple of rolls (very small) of GearLab Tenacious tape that was meant for repairing your raincoat, puffy, or tent. Real sticky stuff. We figured if we put that on the outside of the crack and Gorilla tape on the inside for some structural support, it would be strong enough on calm seas to get us to a dock located a couple of miles south of our campsite. 

[Starboard side]

 [Port side]

 [Inside work]

[Inside work]

Assessing the situation, we expected nice weather the next morning, and there was a dock of some sort a couple of miles down the coastline. With some confidence that the patch would hold long enough to get us a couple of miles on smooth water, we made plans to leave in the morning with the hopes that we would find help there. 

[Big Bear to guide us]

June 10th

We left the protected area of the steel-tubed breakwater by a little opening near the boat ramp. The destination for lunch was Telegraph Cove, a cute little town that is a prime tourist destination for those travelling by land. It has the Prince of Whales whale-watching group operating out the corner area of the main downtown area, a cafe/diner with some really good hamburgers, the ability to stay in the 100+-year old houses, a new hotel, and they are rebuilding the whale museum that burned down a couple of years ago. 

[We parked in an open slip and wandered around the town in our wetsuits]

[Quaint houses that you can rent out by the night]

After lunch, we paddled out of the cove and headed south for a bit. Rounding a large peninsula head, we turned 180-degrees and headed back into a beautiful cove with an established campground. Blinkhorn Peninsula protects this little bay from winds from either north or south, along with it very own large waterfall on the island side not too far from the camp area. 

After we got our tents set up, we were entertained for over an hour as two porpoises rounded up small fish and enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet.

[The photographer not quite thinking, missed the waterfall just off the right side (bottom?) of the picture]

[Our entertainment for the night--porpoises!]

June 11th

We got up and got moving, since the tide was already flooding (going in our direction) and would be till around 11:00-ish. It still took us a couple of hours to get everything packed while making some breakfast, and then get it down to the water's edge. Here is a perfect example of optimism and confidence in your ability to get something done. The tide is rising up the beach, and you can see where the high tide line was yesterday. Dividing the space left by the last high tide by the hours remaining until the next high tide gives you some idea of increments. Then figure the amount of time you think it's going to take to load the boat and be ready to go, and place your selected logs on which to place your boat near the appropriate increment. Place boat on logs and start carrying the bags of stuff that somehow still don't fit easily into the holds and place next to the boat. Start loading boat. Realize that you've been overly optimistic about how quickly this process was going to go. Move boat up the beach. Move stuff in the bags that are being licked by the water making it's way up the beach. Repeat at least two more times with increasing bewilderment of how much you could be off. 

[Racing the tide]

We finally got off the beach into water so smooth you could count the needles on the trees reflected from the steep hillsides. Well, maybe not the needles, but the limbs for sure. Peter took time to take some pictures and cuss at his Insta360. I couldn't hear him, but I'm pretty confident he was cussing at it. 

There were several campsites we could see tucked into the trees, as we paddled by them, hugging the shoreline. The shoreline is where the interesting stuff can be easily seen. What is disturbing is how few creatures we are seeing on the bottom. The water is crystal clear up to about 10-15 feet, and there isn't as much of a variety as you would expect in these tidal areas. I did see thousands upon thousands of jellyfish. Little ones, mostly. A big one would be the size of a man's watch who is lacking somewhere else in his life. The small ones were so incredibly small, and yet, their "bodies?" were such amazingly detailed beings. 

Paddling at a good clip with the current moving us along, we were set to stop around noonish for a pee and some lunch. I spied a bit of beach on the far side of this bight (not big enough for a bay) and figured that would probably be a good place. On the near side of said bight, I saw some sort of structure peeking out of the woods. This seemed as good a place as any for lunch. 

[Torn tarp over large platform]

It was, in fact, a glamping sort of camp that had been abandoned for at least a few years. It was nice enough that we made the decision to stay the night. It was pretty awesome, and I'm sure it was a high-end thing when it was operating. I has several large platforms big enough for a good-sized wall tent and a personal patio each. It has a two-stall shower system that brought water in from up higher on the creek to provide water pressure, and it looks like it had the hardware for a filtering system and a propane-powered instantaneous hot water heater. The propane tank is still there with half a tank left. The composting toilet was at least $5k when new, probably twice that, and I can attest that it still works great. Where we decided to set up camp was in the dining room, replete with some solid tables, wicker lounge area furniture with table, a very nice sink with expensive faucet, and a giant Jenga set. All covered by a substantial translucent tarp cloth with fabric woven into it. 

[camp Beach Cafe]

[The Beach Cafe sign]

[Shower stall. There was an outer sitting area with a mirror for each stall]

[Stairs to the throne]

[Composter. There was a solar panel near the dining area to power some aspect of this device]

Lunch was a couple of creative instant potato dishes washed down with some filtered water from the creek. The water that we had been carrying since Cluxewe was tainted heavily with nasty iron with other unknown heavy metal tastes. It all got dumped out and replaced with some of this sweet creek water. 

[Lovely creek to get water (upstream of the walkway) and bathe (downstream of the walkway]

Tomorrow, we plan a 10.5-mile paddle past Robson Bight, which is where the Orcas go to rub their bellies. They don't know why they do that, but the area is restricted to give them space to do their thing. Supposedly, we are supposed to stay a mile offshore. There will be a sign. There are signs at each end of the shoreline that mark an area where you are supposed to stay at least 0.5miles off shore. 

June 9th

It rained all day. All day.

[We made due with covering the tents and making a little place to sit.]

We stayed put at Alder Creek Resort and read book, me on Kindle and Peter some tomb he picked up at the Cluxewe campground laundry room.

The highlight of the day was meeting Megan and Mark of Ireland. It was exciting to share in their adventures from Ireland to New Zealand to B.C., Canada. I wish them nothing but good adventures and success at anything they put their minds to.

Note: I think Blogger was one of the first products that Google put out. They promptly laid off the development team and seem to have made no improvements since. (Here's to hoping their AI reads this and rectifies this shortcoming. )

June 8th

Yesterday, we started off around 9:15am on water so smooth that the ripples hardly made it all the way to the edge of the beach. We spent two nights in Cluxewe Campground getting things washed, dried out and organized. We were ready to go again. You could see up ahead, though, that the wind was making it's own art as it made it's way past the point. We enjoyed the blank canvas while we could. 

As we rounded the point heading east into an outgoing tide (against the direction we were trying to go), we were headed also into a wind coming from the southeast. Peter and I set into a steady paddle past the loading apparatus for the Cluxewe sand operation. It is the termination of a mile-long covered conveyor belt that brings sand to large cargo ships that deliver sand to Hawaiian and California beaches, as well as other resort communities, I'm sure. At the next point, the wind waves were steady one to two footers being pushed by a 10-15kt wind. When the wind made it closer to the 15kt end of that range, the waves started curling at their tops. When the 20kt gusts hit, the waves got large enough to wash over the tops of the kayaks. We pushed steadily forward. Steady, not very fast. 

[Cluxewe sand terminal]

As we made our way around the point which marked the entrance to the long, narrow bay holding Port McNeill, the waves had a longer stretch in which to let the wind push them. The current was still going out, but it was going at a slightly different direction than the waves pushed by the wind. Our boats were pushed in different directions by the confused forces. We were heading for the breakwater of the marina fighting with every paddle stroke. We made it, wet and tired. Four hours of steady paddling to go the four miles from Cluxewe to Port McNeill. Our reward was a very friendly sea otter paddling on their back uncaringly 10-15 feet from us. 

[Map showing Port McNeill breakwater]

Paddling slowly, we made out way to the back of the marina looking for a suitable place to park the kayaks. A trio of female Coast Guards in a RIB looked officials, so I called out to them as they  were trying to put their helmets on. The explained that their port was elsewhere and that they were just stopping in as well. The one at the helm pointed to a sign that we couldn't see yet and said with smile that threw me back many decades, "that sign there says that this dock is for dingys." "Well, then this is the right place for us," I retorted laughing at my own joke. All three returned the appropriate "dad joke" smile and put their helmets on. 

Pulling up to the dock and using our leashed paddles to hold the boats to the dock while we did out best to extract ourselves from the cockpits without falling into the marina. I don't think it would've matter as wet as we were already. It was still raining, so we buttoned down the boats with cockpit covers. We were tired enough that it took two of us to get Peter's to cooperate. We gathered our stuff that we were taking with us and headed out to find the marina office. Gratefully finding a bathroom on the way, we would have considered camping out for awhile if it had a heated hand dryer. Still dripping, we stumbled over to the marina office. Our boats were fine for a couple of hours, so the next important questions were food. Gus' Bar & Grill was right out the window. The choice made itself. We ate our fill while our gear continued to make a large puddle on the floor.

[Garden sitting area in the shopping center in Port McNeill]

By the time we were reassembled and paddling out into the bay, the rain had ceased, the wind died down to nothing, and the current was now going in our direction. The bay was like glass. Paddling past a mix of cabins and houses so large that we figured the building of it was boosting the local economy significantly, we could tell that we were moving along at a good pace.  Rounding the next point, the wind had picked up again. Not strong yet, but it seemed to cancel any benefit we were getting from the flooding current. Across the estuary of the Nimpkish River, which flows out of the long and narrow Nimpkish Lake was what we figured to be Alder Creek Resort. We couldn't yet make out the white blobs on the hillside, but figured that they were RVs. At least we hoped so. Whatever that point held, we were going to camp there. 

Fighting an increasing wind and the accompanying waves, we paddled hard across the bay of the estuary towards what we hoped was Alder Creek Resort. We weren't sure until we could see the sign in their marina. Behind a significant breakwater made of large steel tubes chained together in an "L" configuration, we found respite again. The fingered docks looked higher than we wanted to climb, so I led us into a small sandy beach at the foot of the terraced camping areas. The office had closed at 6:30pm, so we had just missed them. Tired, we decided to camp and settle in the morning. Looking to the west, the rain clouds urged us along to get camp set up and tarps rigged with no visable means of stringing them. 

[I swear, it was rough just an hour ago]

June 9th

It's finally raining at 8am the rain predicted to show up at 5am. It widely believed to be one of those all-day rains. We are still discussing whether to stay another day and hunker down in the rain or venture out towards Telegraph Cove. Before the sentence was finshed, we had decided to stay.