Leg 5, Liz McLoughlin, Tom Hall, Lyn Wright, Laurence Malcolm
Haida Gwaii & Gwaii Haanas [Queen Charlotte Islands]
July 10 - 19, 2004

Saturday, July 10 (In port Sandspit Harbour). Another generous breakfast at the Golden Spruce and then south to Queen Charlotte City for some errands. We checked out the dock location for water, visited an office supply store to check our landline emails, went to the grocery and marine supply stores to check their wares, bought some delicious homemade tomato soup for lunch, and then retraced our route to the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate now open at 1 PM. We spent several hours viewing photo archives, artifacts, stuffed animals and birds, totem poles and historical videos, a fine collection. At 4 PM we returned to the ferry terminal so that Liz could take the 5 PM ferry to Alliford and Sandspit. Our crew guests, Lyn Wright and Laurence Malcolm from a small community near Christchurch, New Zealand, were due on the 5:30 ferry from Prince Rupert and our compact car did not enough room for four persons, a folding bicycle and their bags. So Liz took the folding bike and pedaled the 10-km trip back to the Sandspit marina. Our guests arrived closer to 6 PM, with passengers and baggage the last to offload. Terminal officials were kind enough to hold the 6:30 small ferry so that we could board at the last minute and off we went, just a few minutes late. It was a delight to see our Kiwi friends after several years and Liz greeted us at the marina parking lot and treated us to libations followed by a salmon dinner.

A brief introduction to Lyn and Laurence. We had met them during our stay in Wellington in the mid-1980s, Liz had worked in Laurence’s University department, and we have both seen them from time to time since then. Laurence describes his current status as being in his 5th career with 17 years as a clinician and health services CEO in Papua New Guinea, 10 years as New Zealand’s health services planner, and 10 years as professor and then chair of Community Health at the Wellington medical school. With all this behind him he now feels he is qualified to be a consultant. He suffers from chronic optimism that real health reform is possible. Similarly, Lyn has had a number of “careers” having variously been a school teacher, planner for British Airways (UK), and held assorted policy and managerial positions in the New Zealand health sector. She and Laurence now run their own health consultancy business. In addition they are both musically inclined, playing the violin (Laurence) and the piano (Lyn). They exercise their skills in a chamber music ensemble at weekends after vying for practice time in their music room on week days. They also have 20 “green fingers” lavishing enthusiastic care and attention on their multi-roomed garden, glasshouse and endless houseplants. In their spare time they chase sheep out of their garden, walk in the local hills, and Lyn swims regularly, participates in a women’s book group, paints, quilts and delves into her family history in conjunction with a worldwide network of distant cousins.

Sunday, July 11 (In port, Sandspit Harbour). A leisurely breakfast and then up to the Sandspit supermarket to lay in 10 days of supplies and to refill a propane tank. After lunch we went to the airport, turned in the rental car, spent an hour at the Visitor Center, and then completed the afternoon with the required orientation to Gwaii Haanas by Brenda Vandal, a Haida woman. She started the presentation with an autobiographical sketch of her life on the islands and her relations, a much appreciated “personalization” of her talk. She introduced us by way of photos and video her mother, father, aunt and son, all of whom we later met during our visits to the “watchmen” locations. The presentation provides a historical context to the park/reserve, rules to follow to minimize visitor impact, off-limit places such as bird nesting areas and seal rookeries, and safety information. We then returned on foot to Onward for an evening of catching up on our respective doings over the past few years.

Monday, July 12 (Sandspit Harbour to Thurston Harbour; 9.4 hours, 67.0 miles). A long day ahead of us. Up at 6, breakfast and showers, and then underway at 8 in fog and light rain for the 9-mile trip to Queen Charlotte City. We rafted next to the sloop Bluefield (originally from San Francisco) at the water dock. With no dock water at Sandspit due to drought this was our only option. Tom filled the tank while the others searched for internet access so Laurence could check his inbox. The first three options were closed but their 4th try was successful at a small hotel. As a bonus they bought a large bag of delicious raspberries which were spread out among three meals. At 11:05 we left the dock and for the next almost 8 hours we headed north and then south to our destination. The ebb tide flows south and we timed our trip to take advantage of it most of the way. Unfortunately the shallow banks extending out from Sandspit obliged us to make a 6-mile northerly deviation before heading south, adding an additional 12 miles to the trip. Liz struggled again with our Maptech navigation program, with unladylike muttering emanating from her lips from time to time. As usual she finally got the program to function satisfactorily but it is nowhere near as user-friendly as our familiar Nobeltec. The Canadian digital charts for the Queen Charlottes and the west coast of Vancouver Island are not compatible with Nobeltec so we were obliged to buy the Maptech application program; additional cost, raster instead of our much preferred vector chart format, and a program that is less friendly and capable than Nobeltec. One especially frustrating feature: you can’t delete a way point in an active route (even in the “pause” mode); programmer must have assumed that once a route was prepared a skipper would never want to make changes. Though a long trip it went well; intermittent sun, largely a glassy sea, some tidal help, and a fine anchorage. We joined one sailboat and soon after anchoring were joined by two more; the milk run route south to Gwaii Haanas.

Tuesday, July 13 (Thurston Harbour via Hil’yaah ‘Ilnagaay [Windy Bay] to Ramsay Passage Cove, Ramsay Island; 4.0 hours, 25.8 miles). A lovely, calm sunny morning with wisps of fog and thin cloud layers along the mountain sides. Underway at 9:15 for a 2:45-hour trip to Hil’yaah ‘Ilnagaay [Windy Bay] on the east side of Lyell Island. We picked up the mooring off the Watchman’s house, went by dinghy to the beach, and then spent a delightful two hours visiting with Brenda’s parents, Gladys and Al Vandal, her son Josh and his cousin, Jacob. The nicely decorated long house can provide shelter to occasional kayakers caught in the rain. The Watchman’s house is comfortable and well furnished. We looked at family pictures, admired Glady’s cedar bark designs of frogs, hats, dolls and roses, and listened to local lore and about spending a summer in the wilderness. Gladys gave Liz and Lyn each a cedar frog and we bought cedar roses from Josh. Laurence and Tom took a walk with Al through an extraordinary grove of old growth spruce, hemlock and the occasional cedar, including several culturally modified trees, known as CMTs. These are cedars that have had strips of bark removed years ago and/or test holes into the heartwood to determine whether they have any rot that would preclude their use in making a cedar canoe. Back to Onward and a 1:20-hour trip to Ramsay Island where we tied onto a boat-friendly mooring behind a jagged set of rocks and reefs that protected us from the Hecate Strait swell. We lowered our three-boat flotilla and Laurence decided to give the kayak a try. He is familiar with kayaking but his first entry from the swim step resulted in a brief swim. Back on board, dripping wet we gave him a belated demonstration of correct kayak entry technique from Onward. His next try was successful and he had a great tour around the cove. After supper, with a gorgeous evening in progress, Tom took to the kayak for a circumnavigation of the cove at low tide, always a magical experience.

Wednesday, July 14 (Ramsay Passage Cove via Gandll K’in Gwaayaay [Hotsprings] to Island Bay, Burnaby Strait; 2.2 hours, 14.4 miles). We awoke to dense fog but by 10 it had lifted enough for the 15-minute dinghy ride to the eastern side of Gandll K’in Gwaayaay [Hot Spring Island]. With the dinghy anchored out on a rising tide, we traversed the island on beautiful trail through an old growth forest of spruce and hemlock to the home of the resident watchman and three hot springs. Snags, deadfalls, nurse trees, upturned root systems, thick mosses, live trees of all sizes, the island has it all. The trail was well marked with clam and other white shells lining each side at two-foot intervals. We met the “watchman,” Golie, who is Brenda Vandal’s aunt and Glady’s sister, and were briefed on the hot spring procedures. After the required cold shower we proceeded to soak, in sequence, to the three hot springs, hot, somewhat cooler, and coolest (but still comfortably warm). The latter two springs had great views over Juan Perez Sound. We were the first visitors of the day but soon found ourselves leading several crews through the pools. Crystal clear water, natural stone settings, reasonably commodious, they were among the best we’ve found in our five years of travel in the northwest. We returned to Golie’s home, chatted a bit more and retrieved our now stamped Haida Gwaii booklets, attesting to our visit, and then returned to the dinghy and Onward. After lunch we slipped our mooring and headed south, downwind and in the best of weather, to Island Bay at the north end of famed Burnaby Narrows. Our location had high mountains all around, was easy to enter and was well protected from significant weather. We launched the flotilla and after supper went by dinghy to check out the narrows, now at mid-tide. Quite an obstacle course, requiring a three-turn zig zag course with little margin for error. The current was very slow during this minor tidal (only five feet) change. Thanks to private individuals who had recently installed five ranges, and a detailed sketch diagram in the Douglass book, transiting the narrows in a boat the size of Onward would be relatively easy, as long as it is near high tide slack! Back to the boat at dusk and another very quiet night.

Thursday, July 15 (Island Bay to Kostan Inlet; 2.9 hours, 19.5 miles). Up at 6 into the dinghy with the two kayaks attached by 7, and at Burnaby Narrows at 7:15, near slack water on a lower low tide. We had a wonderful two hours: glassy water, generally clear skies with wispy cloud patches, and the morning sun finally cresting the mountain to the east. Lyn and Laurence rowed the dingy, using its clear bottom panel for viewing, and Liz and Tom paddled kayaks over the shallow waters coursing through the narrows. At its shallowest the depth was only one foot with two knots of current. We met our friends from the Panache and two other Canadian couples in a canoe and kayak, all coming from the southern end of the narrows. During part of our visit we had quite a talkfest with subjects ranging from health care and insurance, to deep sea diving, to touring New Zealand, to preparing NZ to survive a nuclear war that eliminates the Northern Hemisphere. (Tom did a consultation with the NZ Planning Council on this topic.) As announced in the guidebooks the bottom teemed with an abundance of sea life. Lyn & Liz, with the help of a beachcomber’s book, identified nine kinds of starfish, three kinds of sea urchins, nine kinds of seaweed, two types of algae, sea cucumbers, and tunicates (or sea squirts). At low tide the narrows demonstrated how it could be quite a challenge for boat passage. In 2000 a 92-foot 70-year old wooding powerboat ran aground on an ebbing tide and after weeks of removing the fuel, patching the boat, towing it to Prince Rupert, it was declared a total loss. Why a skipper would take a boat of that size through on an ebbing tide is beyond understanding. Back on Onward we had a belated breakfast, loaded the armada and were under way by 11 AM, timed to catch the last of the flood tide for Kostan Inlet. The trip up Barnaby Strait, Juan Perez and Darwin Sounds was smooth, the sun eventually breaking through the fog. We entered Kostan Inlet at 1:45 near high slack, aiming for a “bread loaf rock,” turning when One Tree Island was abeam, and then anchoring near the western end surrounded on all sides by very steep two- to three-thousand foot mountains; as the Douglass cruising guide says, the ultimate in a “bombproof” anchorage. We enjoyed the afternoon sun and gentle breezes, with Laurence on the foredeck immersed in Kessler’s book, A Question of Intent, and the rest of the crew working on website pictures and log. Liz and Tom lowered the dinghy and against Tom’s gustatory judgement, they set the crab trap. So far Liz has caught only one crab, for a licence fee of >$100, and she would like to reduce the unit cost. A bit later a big black bear appeared in the grassy paddock at the head of the bay grazing gently on the sedges and seemingly oblivious to us. By the time we got out the dinghy to get a closer look it had gone into the trees.

Friday, July 16 (Kostan Inlet to Echo Harbour; 1.7 hours, 9.8 miles). We awoke to a cloudy, misty and then rainy day. After breakfast Liz and Tom went back to the inlet entrance to check it out the bottom contour on a 3-foot tide. A rock was now one foot revealed, very close to the route we had taken on entering on a 12-foot high tide. We’ll give it a bit more room on leaving. Once again the best, but seldom possible routine, is to check out a narrow entrance at low tide and then enter in the last hour of the flood. We then checked the crab trap; to Tom’s relief (and also to the relief of Lyn and Laurence), no crabs. The bait was gone and jellyfish strands were evident so Liz eased her sorrow with the reflection that at least she had fed some of the undersea beasties. She thus remains with her $100 crab, one crab caught for one BC crab license. With each crab she catches the cost/crab will decrease! At 2:20, timed to catch the last half hour of the flood tide as we passed through the narrows. Our departure was delayed 10 minutes while we removed the tentacles of a large Lion’s Mane jellyfish that had become entangled in the chain and cleaned off the abundant mud on the anchor. Our destination, Echo Harbour, was similar to Kostan Inlet except that its narrow entrance could be transited at any tide level. Small, isolated, surrounded by very steep and high mountains, old growth trees with many silver snags and no other boats; it was a magical location. After supper we lowered the flotilla and explored the bitter end of the inlet. The route took us around a bend and into a narrow channel that passed between vertical cliffs to an open area of meadows, ending in a small waterfall. Though the meadows are prime bear and deer habitat no animals awaited our arrival. The clear still water allowed us to see the bottom and provided a great reflection of the banks. After a time of reflection we headed back to Onward for another quiet night.

Saturday, July 17 (Echo Harbour to Queen Charlotte City; 8.7 hours, 61.1 miles). Up at 5:30, underway at 5:45, north in Darwin Sound and east in Logan Inlet to Laskeek Bay and then north via Hecate Strait. Fortunately the tide gave us 0.5 to 1.0 knots of help all the way; the ebb tide pushed us toward Hecate Strait and then the north-flowing flood boosted us all the way to QCC. We had fog and low clouds for several hours but gradually the clouds lifted and the latter half of the trip was under blue skies and light winds. We anchored off the crowded QCC docks, went by dinghy to shore and reserved a car for the next two days. Over the next several hours Liz bought organic tomatoes, Lyn and Laurence took showers and checked the internet, and Tom went to the library to learn the latest about Iraq, the election campaign and the Tour de France. Liz and Tom had read Lance Armstrong’s autobiography and were following with great interest his attempt at a 6th Tour win. We all joined for tea and munchies at Gracie’s coffee shop before returning to Onward and supper. At 10 PM the RMCP launch came out to admire our vessel and Tom had a chat with the two officers about its characteristics.

Sunday, July 18 (Queen Charlotte City; at anchor). A quiet night, leisurely rising, a distant fog horn from the ferry making the crossing, and despite a falling barometer, hope for another good day. After a pancake breakfast we went ashore to pick up our Rustic Rentals Ford Explorer and headed north to Tlell. With Laurence and Tom in tow, Lyn and Liz led us through the Crystal Gallery, Over-the-Edge quilt shop, and the Sitka Studio bookstore. With lighter wallets we then made an emergency stop at Tlell’s only (and rather “far out”) café to keep us, and especially Laurence, in caloric balance. At 2 PM we headed back south to the Haida community of Skidegate for a visit to their excellent museum and display of totem poles. Our last dinner together was on Onward, sandwiched between work on the website and reading our newly acquired books.

Monday, July 19 (Queen Charlotte City at the marina). A pre-breakfast journey from anchorage to marina, where it was much easier to transfer Laurence and Lyn’s luggage from Onward to rental car to ferry. After breakfast, last minute packing and poking to make sure nothing was left behind. We drove to the ferry terminal by 10:00 for an 11:00 departure back to Prince Rupert. After fond hugs and waves, L&L boarded the ferry, and we returned to Queen Charlotte City, where next leg provisioning, the laundromat and a full oil change kept us busy until dinner time. Try as she might, Liz did not finish the website pages for Legs 4 & 5, so we decided to stay in QCC for another day to finish chores and catch our breath.

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