Puffins

After our exciting adventure around Cape St. James the previous day it was time to head north!

We stopped by Flat Rock Island after we left Luscoone - we tried to get fairly close to the island to see if we could catch sight of some Puffins.






There were quite a few on the rocks as well as some other sea birds although it ws pretty hard to get photos of them.

Flat Rock Island

There were quite a number of boats anchored up in Rose Harbour now.  We are starting to see more and more boats in the park.

We traveled up to Ikeda Bay - on the west side of Morseby Island.  There is an old abandoned copper mine site in the area.  The copper was discovered in 1906 by Mr. Arichika Ikeda.   It was the richest copper discovery on Haida Gwaii.  At its peak it employed 150 men - many miners brought from Japan and operated until the 1920's

The old mining site still visible.

We had wonderful clear and calm evening in the cove.  We did not put the skiff in the water so we ended up not going to shore and exploring.  I think it would be a great place to spend a couple of days exploring.  There are some gravestone somewhere for 3 Japanese miners.  There are no longer any real sign of the float houses and mining equipment - except for a few pilings on the north shore of the bay.

We did a couple of loads of laundry in Ikeda Bay - as we decided to go for water at Shuttle Island before we left the park

The next day we went back to the De Labeche Cove area and we decided to stay in Sac Bay - the bay we did not stay the previous time because there were boat already in there.

When we arrived in Sac Bay we had the whole bay to ourselves and we anchored up close to the head of the bay.  It is a lovely bay - with high cliffs - there was a old land slide area on the shore - so we stayed far away from that spot.  not long after we set our anchor -- three boats came in and anchored up - two sailboats and a Nordhavn

Sac Bay has high peaks of granite at the head of the bay.   Very pretty - but it seemed to be a bit enveloped with fog and rain and clouds.  De Labeche Cove was quite bright and sunny and as we motored by and into Sac Bay we seemed to have a completely different weather system in there!

We have noticed a lot of slides in the park.  The concern would be there could be trees and debris on the bottom and the anchor could get fouled.  Which would not be fun!

We are finding more and more boats out and about in the park now - must be time for us to leave!

Cape St. James

Cape St. James

After a very successful trip to SGang Gwaii we went back to Balcom Inlet for the night. The winds were light and the seas were flat calm. The next morning we were planning to head north but it was such a lovely calm day. I suggested - why don't we go south - around Cape St James and spend another day around the south end of the park - go into Luscoone Inlet for the night.
The South Hecate bouy was only 4 knots of wind and the seas were less than one meter. When we left Balcom Inlet it was pretty much glassy in South Hecate Strait. The Cape St James light station was reporting winds of 6 knots. Sounded good.
We did have the poles out and the fish in the water for the trip.




Flat calm!
We idled south along the east side of Kunghit Island going in and out of some of the big bays there. The tour boat Swell was travelling along as well.





One of the bays. I can't remember which Bay this is.




A cave on the shore in one of the three big bays on Kunghit Island.


Woodruff Bay was the last Bay before Cape St. James.

We were watching where "Swell" was going - apparently this was as far south as they went!  Jim thought they would go around the Cape - I was not so sure.





This is the chart on the computer as we are heading south - Jim has it orientated so it is displayed to the direction the boat is travelling - instead of north to south. So south is at the top of the screen as we head along our route.

Cape St. James is the very bottom of Gwaii Haanas. At one boater called it -- the Mount Everest of pleasure boating.



We could see some big waves crashing on the shore between the islands, on the west side of the islands.  But it is very hard to tell from a distance what it will be like exactly - until you are in the middle of it.


The winds were calm and we were coming up to high water slack.

Hundreds of Sea Lions lying on the rocks - boy did they smell!



Jim decided to go a little further south and go around the southern most island, instead of between the islands as you see on the chart.  The waves were just crashing on the shore!  He figured it was the safer option.

Coming out the other side!

Unfortunately a photo will never really give the full picture of waves!  We were met by these "houses" as Jim liked to call them!!  Huge waves!!  Phoenix Hunter seemed to enjoy the trip thoroughly - Jim and I held on and went for the ride - no turning back - by the time we were in the thick of it that was not an option! I wasn't able to take a lot of photos while we were in the big waves - I was holding on tight!  

We came up the west side of Kunghit Island - traveled up the east side of Anthony Island and spent the night at an  anchorage in  Luscoone Inlet.  It was a lovely - settled - out of the wind and waves little spot tucked up between some small islands on the east shore of Luscoone.  It turned out to be one of our favourite anchorages in that area.  

Luscoone Inlet

We are home now.  I have been having a terrible time with trying to post to my blog since July.  I've had a bunch of different problems - from a failure of my blogging app, not able to use the blogger dashboard from Google Chrome on my Ipad, lack of cell service and poor dock wifi - etc!  

I started this post multiple times to have it fail to upload and then get deleted and then partially not saved and finally I decided to just wait until I got home.   I will try to get the rest of the trip up on the blog during the next few months.  We have a number of things we are doing this fall so I will not be able to do it as often as I would like.  

I will work on it because Jim and I use the blog as a diary for ourselves more than anything else.  It is nice to look back at where we were and what we did in the years after our trips.  

We had an amazing summer.  We left home on May 17th and returned home on August 30th.

We put a total of 2200 nautical miles on the boat.  Jim said that would be like getting in the car and driving from Vancouver to Timmins Ontario.  

It is nice to be home.  Jenny and Lilly were well taken care of by an amazing house/pet sitter!

Lilly is still a pita!

Back to the land of cell and sun

I have not been able to post to my blog for a number of reasons.

The first -- no cell - no service!

The second - blogging app I liked to use is no longer useable - Blogpress - doesn't work!

I got another blogging app and it's ok but the photos are not as nice as I would like.

And I'm going to try using the desk top version of Chrome on my iPad. So this is mostly a test blog.

Last time I blogged I was still blogging about Gwaii Haanas.

Next post will be about our trip around Cape St. James.

SGang Gwaay

We had a wonderful experience in SGang Gwaay. 
We left Rose Harbour before 8 AM and when we got the the ancorage at the north side of Anthony Island there were no other boats there and the mooring ball was free.  So we tied up to the mooring ball and took the skiff to shore.

The Watchman that came to greet us was Ken - who we had met in Tanu.
We were the only people on the island and had a personal tour of the site with Ken. So far we have not had any other people with us when we have toured around the Watchmen sites.  We have been very lucky. Ken has amazing knowledge of the history and is a storyteller.
SGang Gwaay is a very special place.
I'm just going to post some photos for now.
























The potato patch - as we walk back to the skiff along a trail.










We are leaving Prince Rupert and out of cell service. So it will be a while before I post again.

South to Rose Inlet

We left the morning of June 29th to make the 40 mile run to Rose Inlet. The seas were quite a bit better but we had the poles down and the fish in the water. 

We had a good trip and were happy to be heading towards SGang Gwaay finally. 

Beautiful morning sky. 

We traveled through the Houston Stewart Channel - which has quite a strong tidal current - past Rose Harbour and went looking for a spot to anchor in Rose Inlet. It was very windy in Rose Inlet and there were a couple of sailboats in there. One anchored where we were hoping to go, behind a little island outcrop on the east side of the Inlet. We ended up anchoring in the same area but we were not too pleased with the wind and the current. So we pulled the anchor and moved to a small bight on the west side. We held well but the wind blew all night. We felt it was not a very interesting or pretty spot to anchor. Both sailboats left a couple of hours after we arrived. 

Interesting sailboat in Rose Inlet 

The next morning there were strong winds - SE 20-30 knots predicted so we left Rose Inlet in search of a better anchorage that we hoped would protect us from the SE winds. 

We took Phoenix Hunter out in the direction of Anthony Island to see what it would be like to access SGang Gwaay. Even with the poles and fish the swell and the wind and tide were more than what we wanted to be experiencing. 

There was a cross on the shore of Orion Point on our way to Balcom Inlet 

We decided to go into Balcom Inlet. A small Inlet that is on the north side of Kunghit Island. The Douglass book didn't have much to say about it - except it was subject to Willwaws from the south and unknown bottom. And violent Yawing as a result. 

Williwaws - our latest nautical term!!  

The first night in Balcom it was very windy and the water was bright with luminescence. I was not liking the constant blowing wind as much! But it was a very pretty spot and the holding was very good. Lots of mud and shells on the anchor. 

The next day ( Canada Day )the wind went down a bit. And we decided to go out for a little tour in the big boat. Jim tried to do a little fishing but there was still took much current and wind and tide to hold the boat in any sort of position.  

We went back to Balcom and took the skiff down and went for a little walk on the beach. Balcom has a lovely shore and a couple of creeks that have soft mossy banks and could be good bear territory. We saw deer on the shore though. No bear. 

The wind is starting to make us a little weary. 

The next day we went to Rose Harbour and anchored up for the night. It was windy and there was a very strong current. There is a mooring bouy there but we didn't take it. We should have. We took the skiff about the Harbour. 

Float planes bring tourists in and out of Rose Harbour and then they are taken to SGang Gwaay by zodiac.

Rose Harbour is an old Whaling station and there are three houses there - a couple of them operate as guest houses for visitors who want to see SGang Gwaay. We met the owner of the Rose Harbour Guest house. They offer meals - authentic Thai cuisine and take their guests by zodiac to SGang Gwaay. 

The next morning July 3rd we went to SGang Gwaay. 

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