moving southward

After rounding Brooks Peninsula (with Cape Cook at the tip), we headed to Columbia Cove so we could go to our favorite beach on Vancouver Island


We found Japanese trash (that's been pretty common on this trip)


And some very useful trash that we will be keeping on the boats.


We even went for a swim in the VERY COLD water


From there we went to the Bunsby Islands, which we officially renamed to the Bugsby Islands (I'll let you take 3 guesses why), where we helped Palarran conquer a few more islands


We saw this on a beach


And thought "that couldn't be a refrigerator". We were wrong. Upon further inspection, we found the makings for a quick whiffleball game on Refrigerator Beach


So long Bugsby Islands - next time we're bringing more powerful electric tennis rackets.

sea otter cove

We'd been to Sea Otter Cove before (ironically, we saw no otters in 2009 or this year), but hadn't gotten off the boat. This year, we went exploring - a 20 min hike led to an awesome beach. I was apparently overly excited at said beach.


But really, it was pretty cool.


It even had a little cabin for people hiking the west coast trail.


So cute!


With hilarious graffiti


I love me some good graffiti.


And CB found some good cahones.


The hike back was more exciting than the hike there, since I nearly got swallowed by quicksand mud...


(and my husband told everyone not to help me until he got a good shot of it)

And the dinghy was a bit high and dry by the time we made it back...



...next time maybe we'll skip the stern anchor.

rounding the capes

There are 2 capes on the west coast of Vancouver Island that worry boaters: Cape Scott and Cape Cook (aka Cape of Storms, named by Captain Cook himself) - think Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope - nasty places that sailors shiver at when the names are mentioned, but they're always in the way of getting to someplace fun. OK, the west coast of Van Isle can't really be compared to the tips of South America or Africa, but you get my point - they are scary.

Well, we got around both, without much incident (sorry, were you expecting a good story after that buildup?). Woohoo!


We did run into some nasty wave action, but very little wind...it made for a great picture of Palarran sinking (fortunately they're a very light boat and they just bounced right back to the surface)



So this all called for some celebratory drinking-out-of-the-growler (thanks Rach for the awesome jug!!)



Tawn got fancy with it


And we all breathed a big sigh of relief.

Foraging from the wild

We have had much success (and much failure) foraging from land and sea this summer. I thought I'd share a little bit of each.

Plants and Seaweed

Clockwise starting at the top right these are: seabeans (aka sea asparagus), fucus stems (aka bladderwrack), sea lettuce and focus pods.

CB and I had a ball foraging for these (while Tawn and Jason sat on the boat rolling their eyes). Using a book called Pacific Feast (thank you Bella Star), we cooked all of these up!

The seabeans got added to a quinoa salad (after blanching to get rid of some of the saltiness) - delicious!


The fucus stems got made into tea - not bad


The sea lettuce got dried and eaten - tasty!

And the fucus fronds got baked and cheese dusted, magically turning them into cheesy puffs! Surprisingly, not so tasty, though they kinda grew on us after trying them a few times (well, some of us).


So the lesson here is, if we were stranded on a NW island, we could definitely survive (assuming we had an oven and possibly some powdered cheese) - but we'd probably get pretty skinny.

Shellfish

We've had more luck with the shellfish, though it's been spotty (like the prawn - ha!). We've caught just enough crab to keep us dropping the traps. Same with prawns - although pulling up 300 feet of line by hand in the dinghy is beginning to wear on me when we get a catch like this


Especially when a dude in the SAME PRAWNING SPOT picks up 300/day (fortunately, he was very sweet and shared - I think his wife was getting sick of prawn).


We've also been collecting lots of oysters, mussels and clams as there hasn't been any red tide where we are.

Fried oysters...


Oysters on the half shell...


Clams were delicious, though we didn't end up cooking the geoducks - they just looked too disgusting


We figured those clams were negative calories as they were so small and it took digging about 13 holes before we'd get one.

Fish

We've been lucky enough to have someone that knows what the heck he's doing when it comes to fish - Kevin caught a ton of rock fish, ling cod, red snapper and halibut. Not to mention salmon - oh, he got so much salmon. I caught a whopping 2 - these were my contribution:


We've had fish every way you can possibly think of it. On the bbq, in the oven, with feta, on a stick, smoked - you name it (though not as sushi since apparently you have to freeze salmon to -37F to kill the tapeworms. I'll take my salmon sushi in a restaurant thankyouverymuch).

Some of the smoked salmon we made - not only does Kevin know how to catch fish, he comes with a powerboat, and a smoker. Yum.


Can we live off the land and the sea? Well, sort of, but Jason's VERY glad to be back in port so he can have a hamburger.

Walker Group

We got south of Cape Caution and make the long run to Port Hardy to meet up with s/v Palarran and m/v Andante for their circumnavigation of Vancouver Island - back with friends again!

We headed out at o-dark-thirty, just as the sun was coming up, so we could beat the waves that the wind kicks up in the afternoon. We were slowed by a log boom coming out of the harbor that morning...


...but they have such cute tug boats! (check out that little mini one in front of the big one)


We celebrated CB's bday. I couldn't find candles, so we used drink umbrellas; though Jason wouldn't let me light them on fire.


We attempted crabbing (unsuccessfully), but thankfully didn't pull up whatever monster ate a hole in my metal bait box - this is still a mystery.


Fortunately Kevin and Susan had more luck fishing than CB and I did crabbing.


We hillbilly boccied...




...and CB destroyed one of the bocce balls (this is Jason's angry face)


We campfired on the beach...


...and had the most delicious salmon EVAR. This was Kevin's idea, taken from a native salmon bake on Blake Island. Butterflied salmon on a stick with butter and brown sugar. OMG YUM.


Walker Group? Conquered.