7 June 2023

Breakfast, then anchor up and away to our next location. Heading west, the sun behind us, Rochelle requested and got a chair, that Captain Eric acknowledged was ‘for the Queen.’ Having gotten her Highness seated, he took a knee in fealty.

A mountain that appeals to me because of its verdant, probably avalanche shaped, valley (mouseover to see closer.) The granite prominences, some up to 3,400 meters high – this one’s a mere 1,260 meters – are usually snow-topped and decorated with waterfalls beginning at their very tops.

Here’s a serious waterfall. Trina says she’s jealous of all that water; her little town of Gibsons is in a drought. According to the charts, this lovely waterfall and the lake that feeds it are unnamed. I like the way it has split at its top into a major and minor falls.

Farther along, we stopped to fish, Sandra wanting to put a line in the water. Marjan and Jen also have licenses and Eric set them up. Minutes (like two or three) after putting lines down in our second spot, there were three hits. Jen’s line came up without its lure, but Marjan pulled in an 18 pound Ling Cod, and moments later Sandra had a fighter on the hook. When she brought it near the surface, it had a half-digested octopus in its jaws, probably regurgitated as it fought. A big one, once gaffed and brought in by Captain Eric, it weighed 28 pounds. Before clubbing them, Eric thanks them for providing so many people sustenance. ‘An eating machine,’ said Eric. He likes to let them rest so their blood mostly returns to their organs, and then likes the butchered fish to ‘age’ for at least 48 hours to ‘firm up.’ When, later he was filleting them (and harvesting the cheeks for ‘special treat, tastes like crab’, and the collars and belly meat (for ‘stew for my mother. She used to make it, but now she really likes it when I make it’), and the innards for bait for the tomorrow’s shrimp trapping.

After lunch (lovely quiche with brie, but sorry, no picture) we geared up and went out for a long expedition, first up an estuary and around through lupine fields,, and then past some Harlequin Ducks to a little island where we set foot on not-so-dry land for the first time in four days (?). Landings here in Fjordland Conservancy are tightly controlled, in order to preserve ‘high quality bear habitat.’ One the islands, evidences of last year’s bear diggings for roots, something they do after salmon season wanes and they’re still building reserves for hibernation.

The rising tide – up three inches every 15 minutes, according to Captain Eric – made returning to the Zodiac problematic, and then it got stuck on the bottom once we were all aboard, so we waited until the tide and hard pushing got us free.

From there we traveled up a cove famous for poisoning Captain Vancouver’s crew, visiting a waterfall where we saw a mink swimming and a likely bear lie-down, maybe a mother and cubs? 

At the head of the estuary we settled between two sets of rapids and waited, hoping for action, but the only thing that happened was Jen found a beautiful heart rock. On the way back down the estuary, we saw the mink again: quick, snake-like, slinking quickly through the sedge, very aware of us. No bears here.

On the way back, we could see to the top of the ridge where ‘our’ waterfall had its start (mouseover for detail).

Leaving the cove and starting across the inlet, a view of our boat, Great Bear II, brought the sheer scale of this place into sharp focus.

At dinner (Portobello burgers with onion jam, yam fries, and poppyseed slaw – sorry, no picture – and Fragipani tart), a whale spout across the inlet, a mile away (so no picture), probably looking for Halibut. We hoped he’d come close, but he did not, but performed a beautiful lunge feed, a third of his body emerging from the water, before turning down the inlet and away. Still no bears here.

After dinner, after sunset, in the prolonged northern twilight, Captain Eric expertly butchered the enormous Lings.