![\"5th](\"http:\/\/riffelages.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/5th-leg-overview.jpg.png\" "\\"5th")
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This leg has us cruising south from Bella Bella \/ Shearwater down to Campbell River.<\/p>\n \n On the day before we arrived in Shearwater, we felt that the weather was nice enough to have our cocktails on the top deck.<\/p>\n \n After a quick re-supply stop, here we are leaving Shearwater on a more typical mid-coast day.<\/p>\n \n View from our anchorage the next morning, as the weather tries to decide what to do.\u00a0 It turned out to be a rather pleasant, cloudy day.<\/p>\n \n We stopped for a paddle at the north end of Calvert Island.\u00a0 This is becoming one of our favourite places to paddle, with lots of interesting little islands and beautiful rocks.<\/p>\n \n \n A shallow patch of clamshell bottom turns the water turquoise.<\/p>\n \n Back on the boat, I caught a Yelloweye Rockfish.\u00a0 This turned into dinner, and the rest will be used for bait in the crab trap.<\/p>\n \n Fish tacos for dinner!<\/p>\n \n We hunkered down for another storm in front of the Hakai Research Institute near the north end of Calvert Island.\u00a0 This will be our 9th storm in the 11 weeks that we have been out on this trip.\u00a0 In contrast, on our 2018 trip to Glacier Bay, we had only 5 storms in the entire 5 month trip.<\/p>\n The Hakai Institute is a favourite stop.\u00a0 They have satellite wifi that you can pick up on your boat anchored in the bay.\u00a0 (Check out their website hakai.org).\u00a0 Also, there are trails to outer coast beaches.\u00a0 Unfortunately, as this area is still within the bounds of the Heiltsuk traditional territories, they have closed all the trails so we can\u2019t go ashore.<\/p>\n \n \n Jan ventures out in the wind and rain to retrieve the crab trap.\u00a0 The rockfish carcass bait did the trick and we had crabs for dinner that night.<\/p>\n \n Cooking a mess of crabs outside on the back deck.<\/p>\n \n After a day of sitting around, the storm abated the next day.\u00a0 We are under way again at the beginning of a long day heading south, with low clouds and showers, but little wind.<\/p>\n \n We pass the Alaska Ferry later that morning.\u00a0 There is a lot less traffic on the Inside Passage route this year with the absence of the cruise ships and most of the large American yachts.<\/p>\n \n Cape Caution, with it\u2019s diminutive light tower. Cape Caution is the dividing line between the mid-coast and the south coast.\u00a0 Not only can it be a rough stretch of cruising, but rounding the Cape in either direction represents a significant change of environment, population, and availability of supplies.<\/p>\n Rounding Cape Caution, I noted that the weather (low cloud and drizzle) and the temperature (13 degrees) are exactly the same when we rounded Cape Caution northbound on May 17th.\u00a0 Today is July 11th, almost two months later.<\/p>\n \n At the end of the day, the welcome sight of the windswept entrance to Miles Inlet on Bramham Island, one of our favourite anchorages.<\/p>\n \n Inside the anchorage the water is so calm that rock totems abound.<\/p>\n \n Exhausted after 10 hours of open ocean cruising, we tumble into bed to the sounds of a soft drizzle.<\/p>\n \n Another fairly long day is ahead of us on our way to Port McNeill, but we break it up with a stop for a paddle at the Deserters Group of islands.<\/p>\n \n Jan found theses sea anemones hanging out, waiting for the tide to come in.<\/p>\n \n Back on board, with anticipation we watch the weather begin to break up east of Port Hardy.<\/p>\n \n A Sea Otter wrapping itself in kelp and ignoring us as we cruise by.<\/p>\n \n The Pulteney Point lighthouse on the west end of Malcolm Island, just outside of Port McNeill.<\/p>\n \n We had a quick stop in Port McNeill and were entertained by the local wildlife.<\/p>\n \n Heading over to the Broughton Archipelago, this is one of several Humpback whales we spotted in Blackfish Sound.<\/p>\n \n A flock of Phalaropes taking flight.<\/p>\n \n With the weather improving, we spent a couple of days in the Broughton Archipelago.\u00a0 Here is an old beehive burner still standing at a former sawmill site.<\/p>\n \n We visited the abandoned Native village of Karlukwees.\u00a0 People were living here until the 1960\u2019s but now there are just a few ruins disappearing into the woods.\u00a0 Plus some feral apple trees, currant bushes and lots of thimbleberries.<\/p>\n \n The beach at Karlukwees consists of a mix of shells, bits of glass and pieces of metal.<\/p>\n \n There is an extensive panel of pictographs at Karlukwees.\u00a0 Among the images are this sailing ship, above, and a wagon drawn by animals (probably cows), below.<\/p>\n \n \n Leaving the Broughtons behind, we are happy to see the weather continue to improve as we head down Johnstone Strait.<\/p>\n \n At Port Neville, Jan makes a rubbing of her favourite petroglyph. We are excited that the weather has warmed up enough that for the first time we are paddling in t-shirts, shorts and sandals.<\/p>\n \n \n \n Jan collecting the crab trap with her kayak.<\/p>\n \n Early morning mist in Port Neville.<\/p>\n \n Further down Johnstone Strait, we stopped to watch a small group of Pacific White-sided Dolphins who are actively fishing.<\/p>\n \n The dolphins were darting all about in the water, sometimes swimming under the boat, other times leaping into the air.<\/p>\n \n Turbulence in the water as we race through Seymour Narrows with the tide.\u00a0 Currents in Seymour Narrows can be strong, but today the tides are moderate.\u00a0 Still, the current more than doubles our usual speed of 6 knots (10 km\/h).<\/p>\n \n Can you spot Raven Song at the dock in Campbell River?<\/p>\n Hint \u2013 look for the orange bumpers.<\/p>\n \n Now this is really much better weather for cocktails on the top deck!<\/p>\n In between lounging around and soaking up the sun, we are busy re-supplying and cleaning up in preparation for a couple of weeks cruising in Desolation Sound.<\/p>\n \n \n Back to the previous section.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Continue to the next section.<\/a><\/p>\n Home<\/a><\/p>\n \n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our last blog entry ended with us re-supplying at Shearwater Marine Center.\u00a0 From there we continued south. This summer has been unusually cool and wet, and also stormy on the mid-coast.\u00a0 While we had toyed with the idea of spending the whole summer on the mid-coast, the cold and rain were starting to get us… Continue reading 2020 Part 5 – “A Change of Climate”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1427,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1859","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2098,"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1859\/revisions\/2098"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riffelages.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n