Author Archives: Patrick
Spring
Winter had been rather mild. Only a few days of frost and snow when at “Commodore’s Boats” shipyard, on the Fraser river. Hopefully Bo, the manager, only works on wooden boats and we were not in lack of wood for the stove ! Just the time to replace some planking, to make a new paint, and some and many other works…. and we are back to our tramping life, from anchorage to anchorage. We go back to the indian culture in Vancouver museums, meet again our friend Ronan who settle himself on Protection Island, just two paddle strokes from Nanaimo by kayak, chat with Tim the street poet and his dog Doggy, and, gently, spring come back : the birds bustle about , the flowers reappear on Newcastle island and at Silva Bay, on Gabriola, fishermen, Steller lions and eagles stuff themselves with herring. It’s also on Gabriola that we discover the petroplyphs, testimony of a civilisation who, 150 years ago, was florishing.
Meanwhile the world is collapsing : killings, beheadings, murders, kidnappings, bombings, enslavings…always for a good reason, as if we had learned nothing from the past. It’s difficult to look for future with optimism….
In a few days we will sail again, Alaska is waiting for us, we need the purity of elements and nature.
Dick
Dick passed away.
He was 14. As a real sailor he went away in a stormy day, leaving us orphans. He had been with us everywhere in the world, from Tunisia to Norway, thru England, Ireland, Orkneys, Shetland, from Maroco to Africa, crossing the Atlantic, the Pacific….sharing our life, day and night, at sea, at anchor or in the port. In ten years he will sail more than 46 000 nautical miles, never afraid, always waiting for dolfins, agreing with our tramping life. He has always been the star, in the arms of the guinean childs as in the ones of the cunas women. As Fancesca Ivaldi , who took very well care of him in Grenada said : “ though he was small, he filled everyone’s heart”
We will miss him terribly, with him it’s a quarter of the crew who disapears.
We have buried his ashes in indian territory, beneath a small pine, the deers and all the other dwellers of the forest will be his companions.
Bye Dick
Vancouver Island
After Vancouver we make a small trip in the Fraser river to see the yard were we will go for our winter works, and we start our rounding of Vancouver island. Discovery passage, Desolation Sound, Johnstone Strait, Squirrel Cove, Octopus Islands, Alert Bay, Columbia Cove, Nuchatlitz, Hot springs Cove, Ucluelet…all these places are full of history, a maze of islands, fjords, rapids where the currents can be violent, up to 15 knots, all these anchorages we discover, making slowly our way up to the North, with its rains and fogs. The fauna differ : the sea birds are different, loons, auklets, murres, tufted puffins, the sea otters savour their crab while crawling, the whales are here too. The black bears stay on the the beaches, turning the stones in search of food. We will meet some ashore also, a little too close…We will not see the wolfes, nor the grizzli of Port Harvey, but he will impeach us to hike too far.
Alert bay, in the North, cultural center of the First Nations. The museum is extraordinary, we really enter in the indian culture, and the totems in the village are not only for the show : when they are not the pride of the band they stand in the graveyards, ultimate tribute to the deads.
The west coast is more beautiful, more wild and our meetings more scarce, but more special : so with Bob, in Nuchatlitz, who established here more than 40 years ago, who made all by his own hands : his house, his work shops, the oyster farm, his boat and all this at hours by sea from the first village. He will offer us vegetables from his garden to welcome us, and in the evening the neighbours will invite us for a memorable dinner, with a salmon fished and barbecuded by Bob…At the Hot springs we will take the bath of the year, we could feel in a hammam !
Ucluelet, our last call before Victoria were we took shelter from the first big storm of the season and where we could admire the millenars red cedars on the “Wild Pacific Trail”. The canadian geese flights follow each other, filling our nights with their calls, they migrate southward. Autumn is here, it’s time to come back.
