I took two photos of the little Bella Bella Islet which is located just as you come towards Shearwater, there is an honorary small totem on the island, and a cedar box, which holds the remains of a Heiltsuk  chief and several peoples from old Bella Bella.   I was told a little bit about this by the young First nation lad who traveled with us on the water taxi to Bella Bella from Shearwater.    All i know is that its a sacred island, its holds great honor, and there is a chief buried there.      i have tried to find out info but so far no luck.

Continue reading →

Left Alexander inlet on the 8th of August, the tide ended up being against us, we wanted it with us , coming out of the inlet, but it would have been smarter to struggle there a bit and then have it with us into Tolmie Channel, we headed for Jackson Passage, needed to be there at slack as the water runs very hard there, and its quite narrow, but we did fine, and ended up at the other side , heading for Rescue Bay.     rescue bay is full of buoys for crabbing , most of them had very long lines attached, i guided Bert through them, last thing you want is a line, wrapping itself around your prop.        We found a good spot, dropped the anchor, turned engine off, and then watched ,as the catamaran, NAGA ,came into the bay, quite fast, and headed straight for the buoys with long lines.   i hailed them on the VHF, but did not get a response, we hollered, but they could not hear us.   So yes, when they anchored, and reversed to set the anchor, again, we hailed them, and hollered, they went right overtop a buoy, line and all, and they came to a dead stop.   we talked to them later on, and they did not have their VHF on, he didnt think he needed it. Between the lady and her husband, they managed to cut the line away from the prop, she hung up side down at the stern, using a snorkel, we offered help but couldnt really do much, they had things under control.       I took some interesting photos here, i actually really like these, as it looks almost like the shore across is floating in between two white skies.    The early morning one was very interesting also.  Continue reading →

Continue reading →

We decided , on August 7th, to head out early, the weather was calm, and we headed towards Alexander Inlet, it felt at this point we just wanted to get going, to get South. It ended up being a looooong day, all the way through Princess Royal channel into Tolmie channel, a 12 hour travel day, dont like those a whole lot but sometimes it makes sense.    We saw and heard Red Throated loons, and Sandhill cranes , i love this place even though its a long ways into the anchorage.  Six miles in, but the inlet is lined with steep cliffs ,Bingham Narrows are a few miles in, and you really need to have the tide with you, not against.  Which we had to deal with the next morning….     The feeling here though is other worldly, it even smells different, earthy, everything is so green, so lush.  Continue reading →

This is truly a lovely anchorage, it has little islets and tree covered islands all throughout the anchorage, and the inner basin, where we headed , offered great protection.  We went to the very back, no other boats around, and anchored in 8 meters of water.  That evening, i saw the moon, i had not seen it for 3 months!!       The shore has beautiful rock formations in some very interesting colors, a lot of them were lime and sand stone, i noticed that the trees growing out of this rock had a much lighter green color then the trees in the rest of the inlet.   Interesting……      At 4.30 am, i was awake, i heard the cry of a cougar, twice, what an incredible sound that is, i have heard the cry before and it really makes all the little hairs in your neck stand up straight!!!  The sun sparkled on the water early in the morning , what a lovely place this is.    We talked about the accident that morning, i think it was a good thing for Bert to let it out, his thoughts, his fears, and talking about it , is the best thing for him to do.    At this point we still felt we were not coming back here any more, wondered if we could keep going, the responsibility of running this boat, keeping it all working well, staying safe, weighed heavy……

On Aug.5, Saturday, We headed to Coghlan Anchorage, at Hartley Bay, we know the bottom there, and its safe, plus the weather was suppose to change.    We had a problem in the aft cabin, i noticed the carpet was wet, just a bit, but this needed to be checked out.    So Bert worked on that while we were there, as Sunday it blew like hell, so might as well fix something.       It ended up coming from under the bed, which is built on top of the steering system, we figured something moved while we had the accident, not sure, but then it also could be condensation from the last few winters, but, there is insulation under there…..  anyway, it has never leaked again!!!   So we bounced around that day, big waves coming into the anchorage, all the other boats had left, it was just us!!!    It blew at 25 knots, and it is shallow there, so the waves were a total pain!!!       I was glad we were done with Grenville Channel!!!      Continue reading →

This is July 1st, 2018, and its most important to me to tell you this!!     Just in case any of you haven’t noticed yet, we live in an incredible country!!    I live here now for 50 years, and have never regretted one day of moving here!      I am a proud Canadian!!!

So, on August 4th , at 6.30 am, we left Prince Rupert, in a very, very foggy harbor, i definitely had second AND third thoughts of moving on, we really couldn’t see a thing, i positioned myself at the bow, with my trusted  brass fog horn, and blew away every 3 minutes, actually shorter time then that, i truly could not see a thing out there.   We were headed for Kumealon inlet, in Grenville Channel.  Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Everything in the cannery buildings has been kept as it was, everything was also very well explained as you will see.     Continue reading →

I made our visit here into a kind of photo story, i took photos of the information posted on the walls in the cannery, it tells it how it was, any other info i found out about, i will write down for you.   The bus rise itself was actually very nice, we got to see some of the outskirts of Prince Rupert, the farm land, we had a lady bus driver, who told us the story about the Lama farm as we passed it, apparently the grizzly bears, who are more and more plentiful  the last while, really dislike Lamas!!!     They hate the smell, (apparently), and stay clear of all the farm land, surrounding the Lama farm.     So there you go, dont want grizzlies around? get a lama!!!         Continue reading →

Now remember that we had a accident, and that it came with a tremendous sound, its the sound that bothered me the most, i have super sensitive hearing, and i was definitely still suffering form PTS, so, the morning of August 2nd, early in the morning, we were dozing still , a tremendous BANG lifted both of us right off the bed, the whole boat shook, and my first thought was, this is it, now we are really goners!!!        Both of us made it in record time to the cockpit, to first notice a very heavy fog had settled all around, but then the smell hit us, little black bits of boat, SOMEONE ELSE’s  BOAT!!!, floated all around us, a small motor vessel, having an inside gas engine, while filling, and NOT having the blower on, blew to pieces  when the owner turned the key.      He did not get seriously hurt, which is totally amazing, as the whole stern was broken off.       I went to get the camera, and the zoom lens,to take some photos  and we realized we had been lucky, that none of the pieces that flew off the boat hit us.       The rest of the morning i cleaned off all the pieces of soot.    Okay….   we survived this one!! Continue reading →