Bishop Bay and Promise Island

We spent much of the day close to shore, slowing down every time we passed a stream (and there were lots of them) looking for bears. While this is supposed to be bear country we haven’t spotted any yet. Along the way we stopped at Bishop Bay where there is a hot spring with a small building enclosing a natural rock hot tub with a view of the bay. We spent about 40 minutes soaking, a wonderful, relaxing respite. We ended today’s cruising about 6:30pm in a cove on the western shore of Promise Island, about 15 miles short of our hoped for destination. It was raining hard, but with very little wind, and Greg anchored close to shore in 40 feet of water. We’ve been in very remote territory all day. We’ve seen no houses, few boats, and mostly wilderness with staggeringly tall, rocky mountains climbing straight out of the water. We saw one lone humpback whale briefly. The scenery is awe-inspiring. There are 3 other boats anchored in this same harbor.

Those Who Cruise the Northern Waters

Those Who Cruise the northern waters We’ve developed a huge amount of respect for the kind of people who make a journey like this, not as guests like we’re doing, but as a couple who captain and crew their own boat. The remoteness of much of the waterway makes it mandatory that anyone who expects to do this successfully must have a dependable boat (is there such a thing?) or set of skills Bob and Cathryn cannot ever imagine acquiring. Greg works on or repairs various components on the boat daily. He is a knowledgeable diesel mechanic, knows how to do wiring and plumbing, and is a jack-of-all-trades. He and Terry understand navigation, including information about water, tides, currents, wind and weather, and how they affect travel. They manage to balance their adventurous spirits with appropriate caution. In the 15 years they’ve been doing this, they’ve experienced an on-board fire, numerous storms, and frightening water and currents. They’ve often made this trip alone, without the aid of additional crew, which looks like a major under-taking to us due to the extended cruising time. Gold Rush has two electronic on-board systems – one Garmin and one NobleTec – with GPS data, navigation charts, radar, current charts and lots more we’ve yet to see and use. Our conclusion, based on this trip, is that we would not be comfortable making this kind of trip without someone with a great deal of experience on board, without at least trying a shorter trip first. Whether in a new or old boat, a break-down of any kind could result in being stranded, or even grounding on the rocks in a remote location with help very far away.

Gold Rush

We have not traveled on a large power boat before, and didn’t know quite what to expect from Gold Rush. It’s a 60-foot fiberglass Enterprise pilot-house trawler built in Taiwan in 1981, and Greg and Terry bought it in Juneau last year. It was in sad condition needing much repair at the time, but after several weeks of mechanical rehabilitation, they were able to bring it home to Port Angeles. Greg continued to work on it all winter, upgrading all the electrical and plumbing systems, re-building the roof to make it water-tight, re-doing the kitchen, adding kitchen cabinetry, replacing carpet upstairs, and engine work. Almost all the interior is exquisite teak. It has lots of big windows in the pilothouse, salon and kitchen. There is an enormous roof-top deck and fly bridge, a covered back deck, and swim-step. There is a half-bath on the main level. Below are 3 staterooms – one is the master with king-size bed and private bath, the second has a bunk-bed (our room) and a 3/4 bath across the hall, and the third is a forward V-berth with privately enclosed half bath. All the bathrooms have marble countertops, good-sized showers (for a boat, that is) and tile floors. The kitchen has two refrigerators (perhaps 6 and 3 cubic feet), a microwave, 4-burner gas stove, oven and double sink plus lots of storage cabinets and drawers. Greg has done an astonishing amount of work on it in the year since they purchased it, and despite this, his “To Do List” remains long. It is really lovely, comfortable and on the way to full restoration.

Khutze Inlet

We dropped anchor at 3:00 yesterday. Khutze Inlet is a 5-mile finger off Graham Reach, the main channel we’ve been traveling recently. At the far end is a spectacular waterfall over 1000’ high. Five boats anchored here for the night, and Greg and Bob dropped 2 crab pots and 1 shrimp pot right away. It was raining when we boarded the tender to take an exploratory journey up the Khutze River at the mouth of the inlet, so we bundled up in warm clothes, visors, rain gear and waterproof boots. To our astonishment, right off we began spotting eagles perched in the cedars and firs lining the mouth of the river, sometimes 2 or 3 to a tree. Cathryn started to keep count, and by the time we returned to Gold Rush, we’d seen 33 bald eagles perched in trees, on rocks or flying low overhead hunting for fish. Greg took us a mile up the river until the water was so shallow, about 3 feet, that he turned around. We saw many more than 100 seals along the way, sometimes surfacing near the boat and peering at us to see what’s up. Later in the evening, Greg and Terry taught us their favorite card game, called “65”, and the 4 of us played two rounds – fun! The rain continued unabated throughout the night. This morning it’s raining again, and only reluctantly Greg and Bob took off in their raingear to pull the crab and shrimp pots. Only one crab found its’ way into the pots, which will make a nice omelet or appetizer tomorrow. We motored out of Khutze Inlet back to the main channel and headed north to Butedale, a tiny, almost-abandoned village at the south end of Fraser Reach adjacent to an enormous waterfall. It used to be a fish-packing camp, but was mostly abandoned some 50 years ago. The dozen or so remaining wooden buildings are collapsing into the sea with each successive winter storm. Only one resident remains, a caretaker who manages the very rustic dormitory-style warehouse where lodging can still be rented, floating dock and water supply pipe for boats passing through. Lou lives there year-round with his dog and cat. Various groups of volunteers have attempted to re-build Butedale during the past 2 decades, but each group eventually loses enthusiasm and moves on.

Klemtu

Today’s journey will be shorter, so we didn’t pull out of Rescue Bay until 8 a.m. We’ve left “big water” behind for the next few days and will be traveling narrower passages with mountains climbing straight up out of the water, Greg and Terry tell us. Greg says this is where the “REAL” Inside Passage begins. Our 400-gallon water tank is about ¾ empty, which we’re told is excellent for a week into the trip, however, the village of Klemtu fronting on Finlayson Channel on Swindle Island is our last chance to “water up” until Prince Rupert, or possibly Ketchikan. It began raining shortly after we left Rescue Bay, so Greg turned the radar on as the fog is also heavy, though sitting a couple hundred feet above the water. We reached Klemtu, a small First Nation village, about 10 am only to find it all closed up as it’s Sunday morning. Even the tiny grocery store was dark and locked. However, there’s a water spigot at the floating dock, so we tied up, and Greg filled the water tank while Terry and Cathryn went up the steep ramp (low tide) to the only pay phone here. We’d bought an International Phone Card before leaving home, and since Cathryn’s T-Mobile cell phone hasn’t had a signal in 3 days, and no internet since Squirrel Cove on Tuesday, she wanted to try to make a phone call. Cathryn called her parents and it was good to hear their voices. All is well at home. We’ve discovered again, as we learned when we were traveling to and from Baja earlier this year, that T-Mobile has lousy coverage compared to Verizon, as Terry has cell service MANY more places than we do. It’s still raining lightly, though not really cold as there’s little wind.

Fishin' Rescue Harbor

We went fishing with Greg after dinner tonight. Greg, Cathryn and Bob went about a quarter mile from our anchorage in Rescue Bay on Jackson Passage 10 miles southeast of Klemtu. Greg caught a Yellow Eye, Bob caught a Rock Cod, and Cathryn caught a small yellow eye and rock fish (unfortunately both of Cathryn’s were not large enough to keep). Greg continues to be a great teacher – Bob’s thinking about buying a fishing pole!

Bella Bella , B.C: Spy Hop!

We left Green Island at 7am after Greg and Bob pulled the shrimp pot they’d dropped last night – skunked! Bob was at the helm, and only 10 minutes after departure yelled “Whale!” There was a Humpback just off to starboard! Several hours later, having passed through Fitz Hugh Sound, Fisher Channel, and west into Lama Passage past the town of Bella Bella, we were headed north through Blanc Passage, again with Bob at the helm. Again, “Whale!” and several hundred yards ahead we saw 4 Orca whales cavorting. As we continued toward them, Greg yelled out “More whales, over there!” and pretty soon we were watching 3 sets of 4-5 Orcas tail-slapping, spy-hopping and blowing. We slowed the engines considerably, kept to a safe distance, and watched and photographed for about 30 minutes. Greg and Terry said it was the best whale watching experience they’d had in the 15 years they’ve been coming up here. We haven’t written about every single whale encounter, but we’ve seen one or more whales every day for 4 days now. The Humpbacks are always traveling solo or in a pair, while the Orcas have been in significantly larger groups.

Inside Passage Perspective

Our image of the Inside Passage continues to evolve. We commented earlier that we were surprised about the amount of “big” water we saw early in the trip. This continues. While we’re regularly in narrow channels, as you can see in our photos, we’re most often in areas where the distance between islands is at least as great as that between Vashon Island and Des Moines (2-3 miles), and often as great as between downtown Seattle and Bainbridge Island (5 miles). The currents and tides are trickier than anything in Puget Sound, and there are only a couple areas in the San Juans that even come close. As we said before, not really a small boat trip, certainly at least 32’ and probably larger. North of Queen Charlotte Sound the nature of the boat traffic and settlement pattern has changed dramatically. There is only about 20% as much boat traffic as we saw further south. The boats we do see tend to be quite a bit bigger, and commercial fishermen make up a larger proportion of the mix. The human habitation has also dropped off to about 10% of the number of people seen further south. The type of human presence has also changed: down south there were lots of what looked like “summer homes”; up here they are full time communities, and the architecture looks much more functional. Queen Charlotte Sound is clearly the dividing line between casual and serious boaters.

Green Island British Columbia

Crossing Queen Charlotte Sound today was another wild experience. There wasn’t much wind, and the fast-running current was going the same direction we were, but the sea swells were running 5-6 feet and the boat was rocking and rolling pretty wildly for 4-5 hours. We understood the routine this time: take everything off the kitchen counters, tables, open shelves, and put it all on the floor – because if you don’t, it will end up there anyway! It’s harder to walk around in the boat in these conditions than on any turbulent airplane we’ve ever experienced. Greg and Bob shared the helm the entire time, alternating every hour. Cathryn suffered mild nausea but no throwing up (thank you again, scopolamine), so spent most of that time lying on the floor in the salon under a comforter, nodding off at times. Terry tried to sleep but couldn’t, so rested and read. Finally we finished the open water crossing and entered Illahie Inlet, anchoring at Green Island, a lovely, secluded brilliantly green spot out of the wind, swells and current. Bob and Terry cooked up the 5 crabs from yesterday, and shortly we enjoyed fresh shrimp and crab for an afternoon snack, with plenty of crabmeat left for a crab salad for tonight’s dinner. Cathryn has decided that Green Island is her favorite anchorage spot so far. After crab and mango slaw for dinner, Bob and Greg took the tender to a small nearby beach to burn our combustible garbage. On their return, Terry and Cathryn asked to go on a tour of Illahie Inlet and the area immediately surrounding Green Island. It is a magical place! Bright yellow seaweed grows on all the rocks exposed below the high tide line, zillions of cedar trees are bright green, and the water and sky were gray and calm. We toured the shoreline for an hour seeing waterfalls, loads of colorful starfish (bright purple and red!), fireweed flowers (Greg picked a bunch for Terry), 2 otters and a seal lounging together on some rocks at the shoreline, and hoped for, but didn’t see any bears. It’s a spectacular and peaceful place, and our boat was the only one in the entire inlet. Boat traffic is significantly reduced now.

Queen Charlotte Sound

Today we make our last big open water crossing. We have 20 miles to Port Hardy at the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island, then a 40 mile crossing of the Queen Charlotte Sound. We pulled out of Port McNeil at 6 AM hoping to get much of the crossing behind us before the wind comes up, as it often does in the afternoon. So far the water is flat, but Cathryn put on a Scopalomine patch early, just in case. About 7:30, Bob was at the helm when he called out “WHALE!”. Unfortunately by the time the rest of the crew got to the windows, the whale had taken a dive and didn’t come back up in our vicinity. Greg, who did get a brief glimpse, says it was a humpback and that we have a fair chance of seeing more as we cross the Sound. The scenic beauty of the Queen Charlotte Strait reminds Cathryn of her Book Group’s reading of “The Golden Spruce”, a true story set in the Queen Charlotte Islands, (which are actually about 100 miles north, and 60 miles east of Queen Charlotte Sound) a fascinating read. On day 5, we’re starting to fall into a routine, not so much in terms of always doing the same thing, but how things get done and who does what. For example: when we drop or pull the anchor, Greg and Bob now have clearly established roles. When dropping the anchor, Greg positions the boat where he wants it while Bob pulls in the tender and secures it to the stern of the boat. Bob then takes the helm while Greg goes forward to actually drop the anchor, and uses hand signals to direct Bob in putting the port and starboard engines into either forward or reverse gear as the anchor plays out. Raising the anchor involves reversing those same steps. Greg and Terry remain relaxed, patient teachers as we acquire knowledge about life on a boat. When we make mistakes, at the helm, for example, they never get jumpy or loud, or take over from us. Instead, we get low-key instructions on how to correct our mistakes.

Port McNeill, Vancouver Island

We pulled into Port McNeill about 1:00 and dropped anchor for the night, our shortest day of cruising so far, about 40 miles. We loaded the crab pots into the tender and dropped them in the water not far from the boat. Terry went into town in her kayak, while Greg, Cathryn and Bob installed the down riggers on the tender and took off a couple miles up the coast where we fished in 100’ of water looking for king salmon. It was a warm, sunny afternoon of trolling, but after a couple hours we concluded today was not the day for us to land our first fish. When we got back to Gold Rush we found Terry had not returned from town, so we grabbed the laptop and headed across the bay. We tried to post to our blog but couldn’t get an internet connection, so headed back to the boat to start dinner; it was Cathryn and Bob’s turn to cook. Back at the boat we were joined for an hour by friends of Terry and Greg’s, Preston and Lois. These folks spend their summers on their 50’ Nordic trawler on the Inside Passage, and winters in their 40’motor home, often in Baja. They haven’t owned a land-based home for several years, but are now building an RV garage with small apartment above it on Whidbey Island. After dinner we pulled our crab pots. The first had 5 big Dungeness crabs, so we were really excited, but the next three pots only resulted in 1 more crab. Still plenty for a meal and a snack.

Telegraph Cove

We woke this morning to clouds and cooler temperatures, but no rain. There’s also fog, but it hangs 200 feet above the water, thus not requiring that we travel using radar. Terry whipped up Denver omelets for breakfast while Bob made coffee, and we headed into Johnstone Strait, which runs most of the northeast shoreline of Vancouver Island before hitting the Queen Charlotte Sound and Islands. The water this morning is flat with little current. Halfway up the Strait at the confluence of Barnet Passage and Hanson Island we spotted a couple of whale sightseeing boats, so slowed the engines, swung out wider toward the middle of the passage, and spotted EIGHT Orca whales! They were feeding, so dove out of sight for a minute or two at a time, then re-surfaced with big blows. We were far enough away we had to use binoculars to see them clearly, but Bob used his big lens and took about 100 photographs. We all slept like logs last night, our best sleep yet, and even Greg didn’t awake until 6am, which he says is “sleeping in”. Terry and Greg remain amiable, amusing, friendly, patient hosts on their lovely boat, and they have an enormous collection of boating stories that are amazing to hear. Insert pics of orca whales 18 19 20

A Day of Narrows and Rapids

Can you imagine “shooting the rapids”, upstream, in a 70,000 pound boat? Well we did it today, twice. This morning we passed through “Hole in the Wall”, a 2 mile channel that’s about 1000’ wide much of the way, but narrows to 400’ at the mouth. The tide was against us and running 6 knots according to the charts. This afternoon we did the Upper Rapids of the Yaculta Channel. This channel was about a mile wide but with currents as strong as those at Hole in the Wall. We’ve included a picture of both, but they don’t do justice to the reality. At Hole in the Wall there was white water swirling, eddying along the shoreline as the water whipped around the corners. In the upper rapids the water would “boil”, and create giant whirlpools. In one place you could see a 3-4 foot difference in the height of the water, due to the wild currents resulting from the changing shoreline and bottom profile. It was exciting. Bob was at the helm as we passed through Hole in the Wall, with Greg close at hand. Greg piloted us through the Upper Rapids with Bob glad that he was watching. Greg worked up a sweat fighting the wheel as the current tried to whip us around. At one point our forward speed dropped to less than 2 knots, and this was at the same engine RPM that usually pushed us along at 8 or 9 knots. Insert pics of sail boat at upper rapids and hole in the wall 08/05/09 6 PM

The Cabin in The Octopus Islands

About noon today after passing through “Hole in the Wall”, we pulled into the Octopus Islands Marine Park, a beautiful set of rocky islands that has been set aside for protection and also provides excellent protected anchorage sites. We dropped anchor and took the tender to a nearby island that is still in private ownership. On the island is a small open cabin (no doors and windows, just the frames) that has been vacant for the last twenty years. It’s now sort of a “driftwood museum” in which hundreds of boaters have left their mark in the way of folk art signs made of driftwood and “treasures” found on the beach. Some are quite elaborate and show real creative talent. We included one here, and when we have time we’ll upload more into Picasa for those who are interested. It’s wonderful that a place like this could evolve over so many years and yet remain free of vandalism.

The Pace of Cruising the Inside Passage

We’ve now been traveling 3 full days. When we reach our anchorage tonight at Port Neville we’ll have cruised a total of 27 hours at an average speed of 8 knots (9.2 mph), which means we’ve covered approximately 250 miles of our estimated 650 mile journey. Greg says after today we’ll be able to take it at a more leisurely pace. If we want to give ourselves an extra days’ margin, just in case, we’ll need to cruise 7 hours a day to cover the average 66 miles per day remaining. This suggests that a 10-day cruise between Port Angeles and Ketchikan is really pretty much the minimum. It’s easy to imagine spending a month each way exploring all the inlets. This isn’t to say by any means that it isn’t worth doing on the 10-day plan, but it’s hard to imagine doing it on one of the big cruise ships that makes the whole trip to Juneau, twice the distance as to Ketchikan, in only 7 days.

Squirrel Cove - We Made It

We pulled out of Nanaimo at 7 AM and are crossing the Georgia Strait. Much less eventful then yesterday’s Strait of Juan de Fuca crossing. Greg and Terry say it’s about the most benign crossing they’ve ever had. There’s an 18-24 inch chop, which in our little boat would produce a lot of banging around, but Gold Rush, at approximately 70,000 lbs just cruises through with only a slight roll. Cathryn is much more comfortable today. We cruised the western shore of Jedediah Island first, followed by the west shore of Texada Island. The forecasted 15 knot winds never materialized and the water grew increasingly flat throughout the morning. We’re hoping to make it to Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island for tonight’s anchorage. One of the reference books says there is wireless Internet available at the Squirrel Cove Trading Company so we hope to put up posts to the blog tonight. We’re finding Gold Rush to be a very comfortable and attractive boat. Most everything inside is teak or other wood, very pretty. Greg tells us this boat is considered a Pilothouse Trawler, for those of you who know boats. It has a fly bridge on which Greg and Bob spend much of the afternoons so far, sometimes joined by Terry and Cathryn. There’s lots of freezer capacity, and Greg and Terry tell us they hope to arrive back in Port Angeles in 3 weeks with a freezer full of halibut, salmon, crab and shrimp. We’ll see. (We have not had time to process photo's of Squirrel Cove, yet, so perhaps we will add then latter.)

Dodd Narrows

Well it was an interesting afternoon. Everyone took turns napping and taking the helm. Late in the afternoon as we approached Dodd Narrows, an aptly named place through which the current runs incredibly fast except for a few minutes at slack tide, Greg debated long and hard about whether we should attempt it. Consulting tide charts, it seemed slack tide would be at 6:15, and we arrived there exactly at 6:00 p.m. To our surprise, the current was still running hard, and Greg went through another round of debates about whether to go for it or wait until tomorrow. Noting that we were still making progress against the current, he decided to shoot it, and nervously steered hard as the current tried to turn us sideways and into the rocks on the west side of the narrow opening. It felt pretty nerve-racking for 4-5 minutes, then we cleared the tightest point of the rocks and shot through clear. We were all pleased, especially Greg! Another hour into the Nanaimo Harbor where we anchored for the night, had dinner, and sat talking in the salon. We all expect to sleep well tonight! Unfortunately tomorrow’s weather forecast calls for winds in the Georgia Straits that are higher than we’d like, so we may be in for

Naps and Sun

At the moment Greg and Terry are taking short naps and Bob is at the helm (his helmsmanship having improved significantly by this time – so it’s now deemed safe to leave him on his own). The waters are calm, and if we make excellent time the rest of the afternoon, we’ll get through the Dodd Narrows before the tide turns and it becomes impossible, in which case we’ll anchor for the night and make it through in the morning. Earlier today we had a sighting of a Minke Whale crossing about 100 feet in front of the boat, and shortly after a school of half a dozen Dall’s porpoises crossed about the same distance ahead. A bald eagle flew low overhead early this morning, so we’ve gotten off to a good start on collecting animal sightings. Greg and Terry are affable, good-humored people who we think will be easy to travel with for 11 days, and Gold Rush is lovely, well outfitted and comfortable. The Nunns have fascinating stories from previous trips like this one, and farther north, and we’re learning a great deal! So far so good. We are happy!

We Survived!

We made good time across the Strait, through the San Juan Islands, and into South Pender Harbor to go through Canadian Customs. The boat runs about 9 knots unless the current is speeding it up or holding it back. Greg took care of the seemingly perfunctory Customs procedure, then we cast off for Ganges on Salt Spring Island to do our grocery shopping. Terry and Cathryn gathered groceries while Bob and Greg got fishing licenses and found the drugstore where more Scopalamine patches could be purchased. We debated whether to stop then, but decided to push onward and see if we can make it through Dodd Narrows before calling it a good, long day!

Under Way

We’re under way! Yesterday afternoon we left Olalla with the Toyota RAV4 loaded to the gills. We had 3 kayaks on top, 2 crab pots, loads of groceries, 2 carry-on suitcases for the flight home and a large suitcase of things to leave behind on the boat when we leave Ketchikan, to be collected later. We met Greg Nunn, owner of “Gold Rush” at the boat, unloaded everything, drove to his house to drop off our car and pick up Terry, then returned to the boat. Last night we slept more briefly than normal as we were in bunk beds in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar lights and noises, then got up at 4:30 a.m. for coffee before casting off from the Port Angeles marina. The weather on departure was not what we’d hoped for. As we entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca the fog was thick, it was barely light, and so we took off under radar. The seas were running 5-6 feet with swells, and the boat was wallowing as a result. Bob, taking his first turn at the helm, soon learned how easy it is to over-correct in steering when in the fog. He managed to take Gold Rush through 360 degrees in no time. Perhaps not coincidentally, shortly Cathryn was throwing up, then lying on the floor in the salon under a blanket for the next couple of hours while she waited for the Scopalamine patch (anti-seasick medication courtesy of sister Lynn) to kick in. By 10:30, Cathryn felt fully recovered and joined the rest of us for egg sandwiches, the fog lifted, and we had warm, sunny weather.

Inside Passage!

Mackenzie was recently surfing Craigslist and found a posting from a Port Angeles couple looking for companions to cruise the Inside Passage with them from their home to Ketchikan on their 60-foot boat. We were intrigued enough to schedule a meeting with them last week as we passed through Port Angeles on our new RV check-out tour, but labor pains related to their newly arriving grandchild interfered. We did, however, get to tour their boat while there, as we mentioned in the earlier post. (We mysteriously left out why.) We joined them last night at Tides Tavern in Gig Harbor to meet each other and discuss the possibility. They’ve been doing this for 15 years on their 37-foot boat, and last year bought this 60-foot boat in Alaska and brought it back to Port Angeles. He has his Coast Guard Skipper’s license, is a licensed diesel mechanic and a general jack-of-all-trades, and she’s a teacher. He’s retired from many careers, including an Alaskan fishing guide for many summers. Their boat, “Gold Rush”, is a 1981 fiberglass Enterprise. The plan is we’ll drive to Port Angeles next Sunday, August 2. We’ll go through Canadian customs at South Pender Island, stop for provisions on Salt Spring Island then head north. We plan to take 9 days to cruise the distance with about 5 hours of cruising daily. Along the way we’ll fish for salmon and halibut, stop at hot springs for a soak, kayak (we’re taking our kayaks with us), and drop crab and shrimp pots to catch our own dinner. We’ll make reservations to fly home from Ketchikan Thursday morning, August 13th. Greg and Terry are nice folks with adventurous spirits and mellow personalities. We told them we’ll want a bit of time most days to read a book, take a nap, have some “separate” time, and they completely agree. We’ll post entries periodically while on this trip, as they tell us we should be able to find internet a few times along the way. So, off to the next big adventure!

Thank You Teddy (& the squire from Hyde Park)

In 1908, one hundred years ago, Theodore Roosevelt designated 1442 square miles of the Olympic Peninsula as a protected area. 30 years later Franklin Roosevelt upgraded the designation to that of a National Park. Teddy, during his Presidency, preserved enough land in national forests, parks, landmarks and other designations to cover all of the east coast states from Maine to Virginia, plus Vermont, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Land he preserved includes what would become the Grand Canyon, Olympic and Grand Teton national parks. We just returned from a tour of the periphery of the Olympic National Park, where the roads that allow us access to places have amazing names like “the Hoh”, Shi-Shi, Elwha, Sol Duc, Hurricane Ridge, Hama Hama, Duckabush, and Staircase. It’s clear that there aren’t the same opportunities to leave geographic legacies like this for our generation, but don’t you think that maybe there is something we could do that might have equally large benefits to future generations? Perhaps we should remind our elected officials that the current debate over climate change and “cap and trade” legislation could be thought of from this perspective?

A Successful Shake-Down Trip

We spent Tuesday on the Washington coast, walking Rialto Beach in the morning with Bob taking photos and Cathryn collecting rocks along the way, then hiked out to Second Beach in the afternoon. Between our morning run and two beach walks, we did 10 miles today. It was cloudy and cooler than Monday, more typical of the beach. Wednesday we moved on to Heart O’ The Hills Campground just outside of Port Angeles, up the road toward Hurricane Ridge. Among other activities, we toured the 60’ motor vessel “Gold Rush”, pictured above. “Gold Rush” may play a role in an upcoming trip for us next week. Perhaps we’ll write more on this later. Thursday we moved to Staircase campground near Hoodsport on lower Hood Canal. We were joined by our friend and neighbor Hobie Denny in his VW Westphalia. Hobie led us on a lovely 5-mile hike along the Skokomish River. Following dinner together outside, we sat around a campfire, talked and had wine, altogether a beautiful day. Friday morning we packed up and headed home, having completed our shake-down cruise. All in all, a very success venture. We’re happy with our choice of the Arctic Fox and were able to try out most of its’ systems (we never had power hook-ups on this trip, so microwave, oven and air conditioner will have to be tested some other time). But the solar panel did a great job of keeping our batteries charged even in cloudy weather without our having to skimp on using inside lights and various small appliances. We even successfully completed a first trip to a “dump station”, an activity we approached with much trepidation. It actually was neither difficult nor distasteful, although we don’t think we’ll ever fight over who gets the privilege of completing this task.

Our first Camp

Our First Camp We pulled into Mora Campground around 2:30 and picked a pull-through site with lots of privacy. The process of setting up went very well; it’s actually quite a bit easier and quicker than the Chalet was. We spent the afternoon walking on the beach at the town of La Push 5 miles away. The air temp was 67 degrees, 15 degrees cooler than further inland. However, to our surprise the sun was actually out on the Washington coast, which is almost unheard of! We had a nice dinner then sat by the fire reading books and having a glass of wine, then retired to bed. Happy to report that we slept well in our new bed. This morning we went for a run, then came back and SHOWERED in our own bathroom, about which Cathryn is ecstatic! It’s only been 24 hours, but it feels like we’ve accomplished our goals in terms of our new accommodations. For those of you who suffered through all the Baja posts we made regarding the “mechanics of life”, we may be able to move on to other topics; we’ll sure try. But the three things that led us to sell the Chalet and move to the Artic Fox (a bathroom, a bed that is easier to get into and out of – especially for Cathryn who had to climb over Bob in the middle of the night at times – and a bed that is easy to make without having to completely re-make it daily) have clearly been completely satisfied with the Fox.

Shake Down Cruise

We left Olalla Monday morning to take a four-night Olympic Peninsula shake-down cruise in the new 5th wheel “Arctic Fox”. The plan is to spend two nights at Mora campground near Rialto Beach, one night on the Elwha near Port Angeles and the final night at Staircase near Hoodsport, all of which are in Olympic National Park. Monday we drove about 225 miles, and the 5th wheel handled very well, however we have verified that moving a “house” is not the key to good gas mileage! We got about 10 miles per gallon on this first leg. The brake controller for the trailer (the mechanism that applies braking to the trailer whenever the brake pedal in the pickup truck is applied) didn’t seem to be working properly, so Bob called the 1-800 phone number for Prodigy and a tech named Dan diagnosed the problem in about 2 minutes. Sumner RV had used the wrong wiring harness when they installed it. They had obviously also failed to test its proper operation! Dan was able to give us the name, address and telephone number of a Prodigy dealer in Port Angeles, about 10 blocks away from where we were parked next to the road when we made the call. We called them and they told us to come on in, and they would take a look, which we did just as we ended the phone call! About 10 minutes after we pulled into Mobuilt RV, the tech came out, moved a wire to the proper location, and off we went! Nice to have our first on-road problem so easily solved.

We've Been Remiss

Since getting home at the end of March we've been remiss about keeping our Blog up to date. In part because we were not sure what, if anything, we wanted to do with it on an ongoing basis. We’ve decided to keep going with it, since it served a useful role easing the process of keeping our friends and family informed about our location and well-being last winter. Since we plan to be gone even longer this year, we think it can play that role on an ongoing basis. As a result we've decided to post a series of postdated entries that essentially bring the Blog up to date on some major happenings over the last three months, with emphasis on the things we've been doing to make next year's travels even better. We promise not to let anymore large gaps occur, although we do not intend to try for daily posts as we did while we were in Mexico. Until we leave in the fall we will probably only post “significant” events, since our daily lives, while pleasant enough, don’t deserve memorialization! Given the more periodic nature of our posts you may wish to take advantage the feature on the blog where you can sign up for email notifications of a new post. Bob also intends to make some changes to the blog and try out a few new things, so don’t be surprised if you see some features come and go over the next couple of months. If you know of any good sources of blog tutorials, let him know. The updates are posted in the normal blog fashion: latest first, so you have to go back to the April post to begin the update.

Crab Season

We've been having a good crab season this year. This week we caught 7 on Thursday and 4 more on Saturday, including one big guy which was 8 1/2 inches across. We found a new site about half a mile north of us at Anderson Point that has been very productive. Thursday night we had a crab feed for 5 and are starting to freeze the leftovers. We feel so lucky to live where we do.

Our Arctic Fox is Delivered!

Last week we got a call from Sumner RV informing us our Arctic Fox is here! We'd been told when we ordered it that the delivery was scheduled by the manufacturer, Northwood of La Grande, Oregon, for August but that they often deliver early. But we never expected this early. On Wednesday we went to pick up the new 5th wheeler, and after a two-hour orientation, most of which we will probably not remember, we were ready to hit the road. On the way home we stopped at the YMCA in Gig Harbor, where they recently expanded the parking lot, so have lots of empty room to drive around, and spent half an hour practicing maneuvers and backing the trailer around corners. We then drove home to Prospect Point where we're going to store the trailer at our friend Hobie’s. It took us over an hour to get it into the parking spot which involved two 90-degree turns in short order. Without going into details, let’s just describe it as a “learning experience”for which our practice in a big empty lot did not prepare us for close quarter maneuvering. But we've dug out an old set of walky talky's to minimize the noise pollution we produce in these situations.

4 of July

We went to the Tacoma waterfront last night on George and Josi's boat for the fireworks. We had perfect weather for spending the evening on the water, and it was still 65 degrees when we got back to the dock at 11:30 PM. As you might imagine, the cruise back to Gig Harbor was a little wild with literally hundreds of boats moving in the dark at the same time - not all of them perhaps crewed by folks with all of their faculties. As you can see, the movement of the boat produced some interesting effects. Here is a link to the complete set of photo's . http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=BobWhite1&target=ALBUM&id=5355039336027506257&authkey=Gv1sRgCIfevpeGze3MTw&feat=email