My World Tuesday ~ the wild southwest coast

I am back on Haida Gwaii after six weeks in Victoria, British Columbia doing training and housesitting.  I have been to Victoria several times but only in the area of the Inner Harbour, the area the tourists visit.  I knew of places like Esquimalt, Metchosin, Sooke and Port Renfrew but had never experienced them.  What amazed me the most about the Greater Victoria area was their public transit system that lets you get to some pretty wild places for a mere $2.50 bus ride.  One of these places was East Sooke Regional Park located on the extreme southwest tip of Vancouver Island and a beautiful 30 minute drive/ride from Victoria.

East Sooke Regional Park is the largest park in the Capital Regional District of Victoria covering 1422 hectares(3512 acres) of westcoast wilderness.  There are over 50 km(30 miles) of trails through old homestead orchards(above) and farmland(below), dry bald moutain tops(didn't make it) with panoramic views and wild west coast trails(what this post is about!) that includes 10 km(6 miles) of permanently protected virgin coastline.

A friend and I entered the park at the old Aylard Farm homestead in search of the T'Sou-kes(pronounced Sooke) petroglyphs.  We thought we had walked the whole ten kms of rugged coastline however if you notice on the map above we barely made a dent in the trail system(our route is marked in red)! It sure felt like 10 kms!

The vistas were breathtaking!

Isolated anchorage at Campbell Cove

It has been a cool spring but some flowers were in bloom.

The climbs were not always easy but the payoff was worth it...

Sometimes you got a surprise

 and always a great view such as this one at Creyke Point

There are lots of beautiful pocket beaches(high tide) with crystal clear water,

air plants like "old man's beard" and the red barked Arbutus trees,

wind swept spruce and douglas fir

and amazing geology everywhere you looked.

Rock sculpted by water.

Art created by nature!

Ring necked seal petroglyph "bruised" into the rock at Alldridge Point which was designated a Provincal Heritage site in 1927.  There was a second petroglyph but I could not find it!  These were "bruised" into the rock by the Coast Salish (the T'Sou-kes, prounounced Sooke) thousands of years ago and was a technique unique to the Strait of Juan du Fuca.

The power of mother nature was evident every where.  Some of these stunted coastal pines were 300 years old!

The view across the Strait of Juan du Fuca at the Olympic Mountains of Washington State.

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SkyWatch Friday ~ Change

When I left the house this morning to a hike the skies were clear blue.  A twenty minute drive to East Sooke Regional Park and the skies were already changing.

The blue sky was quickly covered and snow covered mountains and clouds were hard to seperate.

The weather and the skies are truly fascinating. 

(All photos are looking southeast across Juan du Fuca Strait.)

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Beauty

What I wake to every morning...

Wordless Wednesday ~ Yellow Submarine

While visiting the Emily Carr exhibit at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC with a friend and her little friend we came across

John Lennon's Yellow Submarine!

SkyWatch Friday ~ finally the skies clear

My view from here faces almost due east and this is the first morning in five weeks that I have had a almost cloudless sunrise and isn't beautiful?

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Watery Wednesday ~ The night the ferry sank....

View The Night the Queen of the North Sank in a larger map

The marker on the right is where the Queen of the North sank and the marker on the left is where we were.

On the night of March 21, 2006 I was on board a 52' schooner called the "Anvil Cove" riding out a storm at an insecure anchorage just off Limestone Island on Haida Gwaii. I was part of a team of volunteers who were delivering supplies, building a cabin and setting up the 2006 Limestone Island research camp. We had travelled from Queen Charlotte City to Limestone Island earlier in the day towing a herring punt full of lumber and supplies. We had off loaded the supplies, anchored the boat and headed ashore to join the rest of the team to start opening camp, build a new cabin and make supper. As the day wore on the winds picked up and created some rough seas.

Photo: Anvil Cove Charters

The Anvil Cove is a steel hulled boat built on the Island and she is heavy. This night we also had a 25' aluminium herring punt tied up along side and her anchorage was not as secure as her captain would like. I offered to stay aboard with the captain the night of March 21/22, 2006.

When you work and live on the water your radio is your lifeline. It is on all the time and this night was no exception. I was sleeping in the midship bunk and Barb was in the aft bunk. It was a noisy night as the herring punt slammed up against the boat in the rolling sea and high winds. Around 11:30 p.m. the weather started to settle and we could begin to relax. There was chatter on the radio with captains talking between one another or to their loved ones at home. I had dozed off when I heard Barb say "did you hear that?". It was about 12:30 a.m. on March 22, 2006. I hadn't, but I was now awake when another call came over the radio. It was broken and full of static but we got bits of it...."Queen of........hard aground.........", "vessel calling in please repeat.." came a voice from Traffic(like air traffic controllers), a few minutes later we heard "Queen of the North hard aground and taking on water, standby for coordinates" from a calm but abrupt voice. "Are you calling in a mayday" came a voice from the Coast Guard listening in, there was no response that we heard. By this time Barb and I are bolt upright and listening to the conversations. On some radio channels you only get one side of the conversation and for much of this event that is what happened.

Photo: BC Ferries

The Queen of the North was built in Germany in 1969 and bought from her original owner in 1974. She serviced Vancouver and Vancouver Island until 1976, was decommissioned until 1980 where, after an extensive refit she began servicing the Inside Passenge and Queen Charlotte Islands in May of that year. She is/was 125 m(406 ft) long and could carry 700 passengers and 115 vehicles. She was stable in the water and handled the rough winter weather of the Hecate Strait with ease. She had just come back from her yearly refit only a couple of weeks earlier.

The chatter went back and forth on the radio but we only got bits and pieces of it. About 40 minutes after the first transmission we heard "109 all clear". Barb and I talked for a bit and then went to sleep. We had no idea she had sunk! In the morning all was calm and we headed to shore to have breakfast with the rest of our crew. When we asked if anyone else had heard the radio chatter, they said "no". There is no power on Limestone island but we did have a battery and a transit radio, so as we prepared breakfast the boys connected the radio. Most of us did not eat. What we heard over CBC Prince Rupert left us speechless. The stories coming over the radio were harrowing and heart breaking and had not been censored by BC Ferries yet. How in a country like Canada could a ferry sink, our ferry? It was just unbelievable.

I could not find a credit for this photo

Taken as the Queen of the North was sinking on March 22, 2006

There are all kinds of stories about what happened but the end result was "human error". There were 46 crew(crew do two weeks on and two weeks off and live aboard so there are two complete crew shifts on board) and 51 passengers when she ran into Gil Island at 17.5 knots. Two people were missing and have been declared dead. The ship sank in 427 m(1387 ft)of water and remains there to this day. It sank in less than an hour. We now know that that last transmission we heard was the time that all passengers and crew where clear of the Queen of the North(just over 40 mins).

The fifth anniversary of this terrible accident is today and it is one of those events that you know exactly where you were when it happened.

P.S. For anyone who would like to read more just google "Queen of the North". I actually found the visual simulation of what happened that evening with the actual radio transmission..."the voice was not as calm as I thought".

Scenic Sunday ~ If I didn't know better...

I'd think Mt. Baker in Washington was getting a little restless!  Click the photo for a better view.

(Taken from the deck of the house I'm looking after at 6 p.m. March 19, 2011. Mt Baker is approx. 150 km east of here and can be seen on a clear day!)

Sunday weather watching...

Watching the wild weather on Sunday!

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SkyWatch Friday

                              It seems of late that our daytime skies have been grey and heavy

and then as dusk arrives the skies clear to expose a beautiful evening sky.

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My World Tuesday ~ Housesitting

As some of you may know, I am a wanderer.  I have lived on Haida Gwaii in British Columbia since 1999.  One of the "rights of passage" when you are new to the islands is to be a housesitter while you decide whether you are going to stay(island living is not for everybody).  This lifestyle turned out to be a good fit for me and I became a regular house/pet sitter on the island.  One day in 2005 I "googled" housesitting and found Housecarers.com a great housesitting site orginating in Australia. 

A homeowner can post a request for a housesitter for free and a housesitter creates an ad which costs them $50/year.  As a housesitter you can check off the areas you are interested in visiting and when a housesit comes up in your area of choice you are sent an email.  This is a worldwide housesitting site.

Homeowners are also able to contact you directly through the site.  For those like me who enjoy travelling and spending time in areas this is such a great opportunity.  Housesitting in it's true essence is looking after someone's home in the manner in which they would like in return for free accommodation.  The site is full of great information for both the homeowner and the housesitter.  As with everything, it is buyer beware.  Do your homework and don't be afraid to ask questions and always follow your instinct.  I have had nothing but great experiences(one housesit cancelled last minute but that's when your resourcefulness as a housesitter comes in!)

This is my most recent housesit located on southern Vancouver Island.  Housesits can be just that, looking after the house or it can involve looking after pets, animals and plants.

These are two of my charges.  Pets are not always a housesitters choice.  They require schedules and looking after.  For me I love to walk (8 to 15km/day) and I prefer to do it with a dog.  In this case the cat is more willing to go for a walk than the dog!

These are some of my other charges.  I have housesat chickens before but usually in small numbers, here I have about 100 of them.  It has been an interesting experience and I am surprised how much personality these birds can have.  The roosters like to take my ankles out but the chickens are actually quite friendly and enjoy talking to and stroking!

There are "ordinary chickens",

handsome chickens,

exoctic chickens,

and stunning chickens!

The dog who is a Kuvasz which was originally bred as a Hungarian livestock guard dog  prefers it's new role as a house pet!  So this handsome group are the "watch" geese for the livestock who stand on guard and send up the alarm against raccoons and these....

eagles, who scope out the area several times a day for any stray birds.

 One of the assets of this housesit was the proximity to walking trails.  At the base of this property there is gate access to the wonderfully maintained Galloping Goose Trail that runs for 60 kms from Victoria, BC to Sooke BC.

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SkyWatch Friday ~ Weather

Ever changing weather over the Strait of Juan du Fuca between Canada and the USA.

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