Prince Rupert to Bella Bella (Shearwater )

Prince Rupert to Bella Bella

July 1: Guest Bloggers: Alana and Kevin Arrive!

Alana and Kevin arrive at Prince Rupert’s small airport from Calgary via Vancouver. We are the last flight of the day. The same burly woman who unloads our luggage onto the baggage bin also drives the bus that will take us into Prince Rupert. Two busses, actually, are waiting for the last cargo of passengers. The entire crew at the airport shuts down the building, locks the doors and joins us on the busses. It’s 7:30 p.m. We load our luggage into an accomp-anying van, and all three vehicles travel, caravan-style, down to the ferry that will take us to Prince Rupert proper.

The cabby who drives us from our drop-point at the Highliner hotel down to the marina informs us that Prince Rupert’s population has shrunk from 20,000 to about 10,000 since the saw mill closed about four years ago. Still, the townspeople are hopeful that their prosperity will improve when a second container terminal is built there. Prince Rupert is known as the “”The Northwest’s Gateway to Canada.” The current container terminal—as well as the grain terminal and the coal terminal—ship Canadian goods directly to sea ports such as Japan. Since these products get loaded directly from rail carriers rather than stock piles, they can reach their destinations in two or three days, rather than five to seven from Vancouver.

But enough intellectualizing. The boat, and Wayne and Wendy, await! As do at least half a dozen magestic bald eagles circling, swooping and chit-chattering over the marina. Wendy says they’re as common around these parts as magpies or crows, but we refuse to be persuaded they’re anything but extraordinary. A Norwegian cruise ship, about seven stories tall, sneaks silently out of the harbour as we close the day with hugs and laughter, cheese and crackers, wine and rum, and a new delicacy called smoked oysters with sour cream potato chips. Wayne, its co-inventor, is right on the money when he says, Ït’s a TASTE SENSATION!”

July 2: Is This a Sailboat or a Motor Boat?
At six a.m. Steel Eagle’s engine rumbles, and we’re off to the fuel dock to start our day. Alana had hoped to play wildlife photographer this morning, but the eagles are nowhere to be found. Maybe they’re sleeping in.

A seven-hour motor takes us past Prince Rupert’s ferry terminals and export docks, through foggy Petrel Channel, and on to Newcombe Harbour to drop anchor. The dark water sparkles beneath an overcast sky. The usual rhythm of our sailing trips has begun: Wayne at the helm, Wendy lifting or dropping the anchor chain with Kevin’s alert assistance, and Alana generally reading, dozing, helping out or sleeping in, as needed. After all, what’s a vacation without some sleeping in! Our tummies are usually full of some delectable concoction from Chef Wendy’s galley. Today, it’s ham and egg English muffins for breakfast, home-made chicken soup for lunch and filet mignon with fried mushrooms, mashed potatoes and corn for dinner. The smells wafting from down below are pure heaven! And because we usually use Steel Eagle’s 90 horse-power motor rather than her sails, we make pretty good time at an average of 7 knots.
Napping, too, is a highlight of these trips, where we shove off early while it’s calm. By the time the wind picks up in the afternoon, we’re usually safely tucked into some harbour or cozy inlet, free to relax or explore. Until Happy Hour, that is, when the rested souls emerge and converge with high spirits and conversation. Usually with this crew, there’s also singing and guitar playing. But today there’s a twist. Alana and Kevin pull out Wayne’s two new harmonicas and proceed to teach themselves the Star Spangled Banner, in preparation for the Fourth of July. It will be their first anniversary. Unfortunately Prince Rupert had no Canada Day fireworks yesterday. Not to worry! This cross-border couple plans to make good on Kevin’s promise to ensure they have fireworks every year, in some form – even if he did pick America’s day of independence to marry his Canadian sweetheart and give up some of his own.

Oh, well. Our boat is the only one in Newcombe Harbour. The silence is breathtaking. This kind of freedom can’t be bought anywhere.

July 3: The West Coast Shows its True Colours
The ocean truly does resemble a mirror at 7 o’clock this morning. In complete calm, it’s hard to tell the difference between the upside-down and right-side-up mountains and evergreens as we exit Newcombe Harbour, again under high fog. Some 10-knot winds raise light chop once we enter wide Principe Channel, as we make our way toward shelter in Anderson passage. Wayne hopes the “kids” will be able to kayak there around the cove’s several protected islets. Alas, after showering Wayne and Wendy with excellent weather for most of their Alaskan trip, the West Coast opens her skies wider, the rain gets heavier, and this travelling family spends the night playing cross-crib as the windows fog up and the rain washes the Steel Eagle’s shimmering cocoon.

July 4: Independence Day (National Geographic Day)
Up anchor at 6 am, and Happy Anniversary! Alana and Kevin receive several presents from nature right away. First, what is that strange blue entity peeking through the by-now-routine clouds? And then: dolphins! Well, dahl porpoises, to be exact. Two of them, at first, and then two more trailing behind. The leaders make their way to the bow of the boat, where they propel themselves out of the water and play in the bow’s wake. Wendy says they sometimes do this for an hour or more. But today there must be fish in these parts, and our playmates soon disappear to pursue dinner, we presume. The creatures were shorter and plumper than the porpoises Alana and Kevin are used to seeing in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston. And instead of being silver-grey, their skin is charcoal grey, with white ovals on their bellies—much like a miniature orca. Their brief visit lingers in our smiles all day.

A loon leads us all the way in to our next anchorage. Her four babies repeatedly dive to hide themselves as we pass them off our port side. Again, our boat anchors alone. We fill the foggy air with music and maracas and song this evening. But not before a young grizzly bear—perhaps about three years old—appears on the shore, grazing and exploring a 30-metre line of beach perhaps 100 yards from the boat. Wayne explains that bears enjoy the so-called “salt grass” that grows at the edge of inlets like this. And indeed, this blundering young one seems content to graze very similarly to a cow.

Wayne is acutely aware, however, that “Grant the Grizzly” (as Wendy later names him) is absolutely not a cow, and starts to squirm visibly in his captain’s chair after the bear lingers for at least two hours on the same shore. We honk the Steel Eagle’s horn, and the bear barely raises its head. He sniffs in our direction, and goes back to his grass, chewing off their tops. He turns over some boulders that look very heavy, and roots around at the bottom of a tree before disappearing into the woods, emerging again 10 or 15 minutes later a few more metres down shore. We’ve set garbage on the stern, and Wayne thinks the bear will come to get it. (Has he mentioned that bears scare the hell out of him?) Wendy and Alana don’t think the bear could swim over here and climb onto the back of the boat, but Kevin and Wayne both disagree—Kevin having fended off a brown bear with pots and pans (no reaction) and, finally, an air horn at an Ontario campsite years ago. We discuss pulling anchor and moving, but at least some of the crew scoffs at this notion, accusing Wayne of being scared by the multiple books he’s read about beat-up, lonely and HUNGRY 3-year-old black bears hauling horsemen off their horses, even at a gallop. Hyperbole?
In the end, we decide that if the bear were really interested in our garbage (or our fragrant dinner, for that matter), he would already have started to swim in our direction. We compromise by laying out the bear spray and the flares near the locked cabin door, and reminding each other of the boat pole’s location before retiring to bed.

July 5: Native Culture Old and New
The small village of Klemtu has a locally renowned long house – a kind of native community hall, where potlatch gatherings (for surrounding tribal bands) are held. The crew enjoyed our first full day of sunshine wandering the town, conversing with the townspeople, and buying some artwork and a painted paddle that Wendy and Wayne will display at Mabel Lake.
A highlight of this day was also a tour of a fishing boat, docked at the fish plant. The six-member crew had pulled in to the Klemtu dock at 9 am, after leaving at 10 pm the night before and travelling an hour and a half to a local salmon farm. The boat’s technology is made in Australia but used in few other nations besides here. The farmed fish are suctioned into the boat’s holding tank. Then water is flushed towards them, and instinct causes them to swim upstream—unbenownst to them, when they swim forward they get sent into a device that stuns them, and then they are flipped over and sent to another device a couple feet away where the device bleeds them out. By the time they hit the holding tank a couple seconds later they are already dead and within an hour they are chilled to 0 degrees C. This method is one of the most humane and produces fish that have longer shelf life than others harvested in other ways—up to 12 days compared to three to five for conventionally harvested fish.

July 6: Electronic Refurb in Rescue Bay
We stayed in Rescue Bay last night, a picturesque bay with mini-islands at the entrance and a snow-capped mountain on the horizon. Numerous water birds kept us company for the evening, but Grizzly Grant’s brother Garth was nowhere to be found, despite the fact that Captain Wayne backed the boat up within jumping distance of the shore. Kevin, Wayne and Wendy got their project hats on, and wired the stereo for two or three hours. Now Wayne is proud to report that his new computer can talk to the stereo system with HDMI technology – whatever that means.

We motored for two hours to Oliver Cove, where Wayne and Kevin were going to go fishing. Alas, a wind kicked up so we dove back into our books for a few hours. Good thing we all like at least some measure of solitude. Kevin and Wayne topped off the evening by beating the pants off Alana in a card game of hearts after Wendy went to bed.

July 7: Fish Tales!
This morning we had a rare day of sleeping in a bit as our next anchorage was only about 15 miles away. About 9 am we pulled up anchor and headed southward through Reid passage for about a mile. We then turned east into Seaforth Channel where we dropped out fishing lines on downriggers placed at a depth of 60 feet. Within a short time the mini-cowbell on the one line went a-jingling signalling a fish on the line. Alana pulled the rod out of its holder, and Kevin reeled in a 25.5-inch Coho salmon. It was the only fish we landed that day, but it sure was excellent with a supper of shrimp kebabs and Ceasar salad!

We pulled into Whiskey Cove at about 2:30 p.m., and everyone spent the rest of the afternoon impersonating real yacht bunnies, sun tanning on the front deck and generally lazing around with books and cold beer. This anchorage is busier than the others we’ve slept in, with a picturesque B ‘n B, several dwellings and docks, and some dock bunnies from Vancouver that landed here later this evening to test the ocean waters while the Steel Eagle crew enjoyed the sunset (and Wayne and Kevin enjoyed the bikini clad dock bunnies through binoculars).

The captain gets us safely to Shearwater Harbour, where Alana and Kevin will catch their flight home from Bella Bella. Steel Eagle will continue south.