The Web Log of Wind Witch

Contributed by Billy Manana,


Well, we certainly didn't plan it this way! We were leisurely wandering down the west coast after putting the boat to sleep on Garrison Bay, San Juan Island and expected to come home in time to enjoy the last few days/weeks of Darci's pregnancy. We thought we needed to stay away, giving them "space" (they were living in our house, having sold their old house in San Anselmo and not yet able to move into their new house in Ignacio.)

While entering Ashland, Oregon, intending to stay a few days to enjoy some Shakespeare plays, we got a call from Rob. "Please come home. The baby boy is not growing in utero and the doctors want to do an emergency caesarian section to deliver them now!" (Mind you, we are talking 6-7 weeks prematurely!). We made it home in about 6 1/2 hours. The obstatricians and neonatologists delayed the procedure for about 48 hours while they delivered a medication to Darci that would speed up the babies' lung development,then proceeded with the C-section.

Were we a little anxious? Does a bear ---- in the woods? We, of course, as well as Darci's parents were at the hospital. While Rob was in the delivery suite (and got to cut the cords without fainting, incidently), we all clustered outside in the hallway waiting.

Alexandria Grace was born first...4.8 lbs, a big, healthy,pink preemy. Robert Zachary was born 3 minutes later...2 1/2 lbs, a very undernourished, wrinkled and weak little guy. But damned if they both didn't rally just fine. They both have been in the neonatal intensive care unit for the week. But neither has required a respirator, blood pressure support or anything really extraordinary. Both are receiving mother's milk. Both are gaining weight...Zacary is gaining faster, but then, he needs to do so. Today they moved out of the NICU into a continuing care unit.

Darci is home. She tolerated the C-section very well. Both she and Rob are exhausting themselves being superparents. The children are in danger, if any, of being over loved. We should all have had this kind of attention.

We are now busy helping them settle into their new house. The movers arrived the morning after the delivery. The painters weren't (and still aren't) done yet, so all the stuff ended up on the driveway. Then we found termites behind a board in the kitchen.....are you getting the picture? We have been working night and day trying to help while at the same time trying to re-occupy our own house after 3 years.

Ain't life wonderful? Tonight I was informed that I was to play the roll of Santa Claus at the extended family gathering (Schmidts and Andersons) on Christmas Day. The twins will be home.

Merry Christmas

It was a bleak and rainy day yesterday, and a cold wind was blowing from the south, but we launched Wind Witch in Canoe cove, and Bill brought her over to her winter home in Garrison Bay. Schooner and I waited for the 6:00 P.M. ferry from Sidney to Friday Harbor in the SUV, and then drove out to Garrison Bay.

This morning the sun is out, and the weather is beautiful. Lainey came down the dock to greet us this morning, and we got caught up on all the news. She has been holding the package that arrived with the rugs I had ordered from Mexico, so I opened the package. They are just beautiful, and exactly what I had hoped for. Today we'll drive to town to pick up enough groceries to last us for the next couple of days until we are ready to head home.

Rob and Darci are in no hurry for us to return, as they are using our house as a safe haven while they paint and refinish the floors in their new house in Novato. Yesterday, we were perfectly happy to be heading home, but today, with the weather so beautiful, and the trees dropping leaves of lovely autumn colors, we’re having second thoughts!

Bill and I Spent all day yesterday in the Museum of Anthropology in Victoria. In addition to the wonderful First People’s section, there is a special show of artifacts taken from the Titanic with look at the sunken wreck on IMAX.

Upon returning to Sidney, we took off to see what they did to Wind Witch. The scrape has been repaired, and they got most on the first coat of paint on the bottom. It was raining, so we assume they stopped when the weather turned wet.

Then it was off to the Blue Peter Pub for the “meatloaf special”. We were greeted in the bar by Ed Rutherford and his friend John. If you have been following this blog, you will remember Ed and Marilyn on “Mettle” Don and Rita introduced us to them on our first trip to Canada in 1989, and we have seen them many times since they went to Mexico when we did in 2005, and Mettle returned to Canada on dockwise transit with Wind Witch in May.

Wind Witch got lifted out of the water yesterday, and we were so relieved to see that the damn-age from hitting the rock in the Octopus Islands was minimal. It was just a small crunch on the bottom of the keel, and they estimate that we’ll have it back in the water fixed with 2 new coats of bottom paint by Friday. This works just fine with our plan to go to Garrison Bay by this weekend.

We are staying at the Cedarwood Inn and Suites in a little cottage in the back with a small kitchen and lots of flowers all around. We are just across from the beach, with a view of San Juan Island and Haro Straits from our living room window. Today we are going to the Anthropology Museum of British Columbia in Victoria. This is a lot like being on a vacation!

Wind Witch is heading to Sidney through the Stuart Channel between Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island. We’re going to haul the boat there and work on fixing the dent in the keel. Then for the next two weeks we’ll be stowing things away for the winter, and heading for home .

Surprisingly, before we left Nanaimo, we ran into Pierre and Danielle at the municipal dock. They had just aborted a plan to leave their boat “Lila” in Port Hardy for the winter. They got up there, took one look around at the conditions, and decided to take the lovely “Lila” down to Vancouver for the winter. So we talked and talked about American politics, Canadian politics, and the French Canadian separatist movement, all while consuming several litres of wine at the “Dinghy Dock Pub”! Imagine! they had never heard of Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

Traveling south from Nanaimo, we squeezed through Dodd’s Narrows going against the full current. Barely making 1 knot, we were hurled around in the whirlpools until we finally broke free of the strong currents and made our way slowly through the channel. It was that, or wait another two hours for slack water. We stopped for the night in Pirate’s Cove on DeCourcy Island, and the following morning we continued south to the town of Chemainus on Vancouver Island. Lots of people have told us about how this old town has been attracting tourists by painting dozens of murals on buildings and homes, and how they have active theatre and arts programs. Add to this all of the lovely hanging baskets in town, and quite a story-book atmosphere is created. The small, friendly marina, grocery store nearby, internet café, nice shops, and interesting places to walk to make this a cruiser’s dream. So we stayed there an extra day, and will probably return next year. To top it off, the weather these last few days has been simply spectacular!

We went to the library because it has internet access, however, it’s not working today. So we’re sipping lattes here at “The Vault” and posting the blog and getting mail.

Well, the summer season is really over. It’s a bit chilly, and fall is definitely in the air. The good thing about it is that there is no longer a problem finding places to dock and anchor, and the crowds have all gone home. We stopped in Tribune Bay on Hornby Island on the way down. The long sandy beach there, usually busy and active with laughing children and family outings, was quiet with several couples bundled in jackets and sweaters walking down the long sandy beach, and a few people taking their dogs out for a romp. A trip to the general store revealed the usually missing locals going about their daily business without the hustle and bustle of the potato chip and soft drink crowd.

We entered Nanaimo through the Newcastle Island Passage, and planted our anchor in an open space in the middle of the anchorage. We’ll treat ourselves to dinner tonight at the “Dinghy Dock Pub”.

When Noelle flew into Campbell River, I decided to go to meet her at the airport. This involved taking our dinghy from the anchorage in Rebecca Spit over to the Taku Resort, and then catching a local taxi across Quadra Island to the ferry terminal. From there I hopped on the ferry for the short ride to Campbell River, and then boarded an airport van for the ride out to the airport. It was great to see her, and we made the return trip talking a mile a minute getting caught up on all the news. Bill, who had been left behind, had a bottle of wine opened, and a roast beef in the oven when we arrived back at the Wind Witch. After dinner, we went out to look for the full moon. We could barely see the moon through the clouds, but the effect of the moonlight reflecting on the beach and trees of Rebecca Spit was magnificent.

In the morning we headed out for an adventure to Gorge Harbor. We carefully squeezed through Uganda Pass and rounded the corner to the entrance channel of Gorge Harbor. The entry is through a narrow channel with a steep granite cliff on the port side. There are rust colored Indian pictographs on the side of the granite cliff, and we were delighted when we spotted the stick figure and what appears to be some sort of vertical lines on the cliffs above us. In the harbor we found a good place to anchor, and then headed for the general store. Noelle had noticed a recipe in one of my cookbooks for hot dog appetizers, and we had to buy the ingredients so we could try it. (Cut a package of hotdogs into 1 inch pieces. Put pieces in a pan with a can of coke and boil until the coke evaporates. Serve with catsup and mustard is separate bowls using toothpicks for dipping.) We actually tried it, and as Noelle says, it was “shockingly good”.

We thoroughly enjoyed the walk we went on down the marina road spotting several huge old growth trees in the forest and nibbling on various kinds of berries growing along the side of the road. I resisted the urge to pick enough Salal berries to make the jam recipe that is in that same cookbook. Noelle stopped to gather a bouquet of fragrant green mint to take back to the boat. She put it in a glass of water and it’s thriving.

Next morning we headed for Roscoe Bay, hoping we would get there when the tide was high enough to let us through the entrance. Well, it wasn’t high, and it wasn’t low, so we inched our way in with only about 18 inches below our keel. After our bad experience in the Octopus Islands, we didn’t want to have any more trouble. Roscoe Bay was almost deserted. There were only four boats in there when we arrived. Noelle and Michael were there with us two years ago in July, and it had been crowded with countless boats and many campers on the beach at the head of the bay. The boating “season” is definitely over now. People are returning home, and the kids are heading back to school. We were the only boat anchored in “Waterfall Cove”. It was beautifully quiet and peaceful.

Black Lake is just a short walk through a lovely fern, spruce and alder path, so we decided to take Schooner for a swim. While walking along the path to the lake, we noticed that someone had really cleaned up the little stream that runs from the lake to the bay. There were signs posted saying that it’s an active salmon spawning stream. It was then that we noticed an obvious beaver dam across the stream, and nearby were the gnawed pointy stumps of trees that they had felled to build their structure. At the lake, we enjoyed watching Schooner play “get the stick” in the clear fresh water. Arriving back at the boat later that afternoon, we noticed thousands of delicate white Moon Jellies gliding peacefully through the water all around the boat. The whole bay was literally swarming with them, and looking at the surface of the water, you’d think that it was lightly raining, but it wasn’t. It was just all those jellies slowly surfacing and then sinking back down again. Later we found out from a friend that it is an amazing experience to put on a diving mask and swim with these creatures, as they do not sting, and you become totally immersed in their softly gliding world.

We headed back to Heriot Bay, but instead of anchoring, we pulled into the Taku Resort. Noelle stayed in the cute little “Tree House”, and we plugged into the electricity at the dock. That evening, Noelle treated us to dinner at the Heriot Bay Inn in celebration of our 47th wedding anniversary.

Monday was our last day, so we chartered a taxi to take us to the other Indian museum and village at nearby Cape Mudge. At a park in the village, we saw a newly completed dugout canoe-painted and ready to go, several painted totems poles, and large granite rocks with ancient petroglyphs carved in them. Later at the Tsa-kwa-Lutin Lodge we saw rubbings from these same rocks. The details of the carvings were much clearer in the rubbings than they were just looking at the rocks themselves. The big disappointment of the day came when we found that the museum there was closed on Monday. Darn— we were really looking forward to going there and we had specifically asked the taxi driver to make sure it would be open!

That evening Pat and Steve Strand, invited us over to their house for dinner. Their summer home is on the east side of Quadra Island in Quathiske Cove overlooking the ferry to Campbell River. We met Steve and Pat in the Sea of Cortez cruising on their boat “Danzante”, and have kept in contact with them since then. Steve is a marine biologist, and he’s the one who told us about swimming with the jellies. They treated us to a fabulous dinner of salmon that they caught on a recent fishing trip, and fresh baked (and picked) blackberry pie. We discussed good books and told stories over great food and delicious wine. After dinner they drove us took back home to the Taku Resort. Hopefully we will see them again when we come back next season, and we’ll have more books to discuss, and more good stories to tell. We also had to say goodbye to Noelle as she was leaving early the next morning on the 7:00 a.m. ferry. What fun we’ve had, but we have to send her back to Michael, who’s been impatiently waiting her return.

We left Don and Rita in Port McNeill, and headed south toward Heriot Bay so we could be there to meet Noelle, who is flying into Campbell River to spend Labor Day weekend with us. We rode the current down the Johnstone Straights, and when it began to turn against us, we stopped in the small inlet at Port Neville, and anchored comfortably for the night. In the morning, we continued into Discovery Passage, rounded the southern tip of Sonora Island, and entered Okisollo channel. We went through the upper and lower rapids at nearly slack water without incident, arriving at the Octopus Islands Provincial Marine Park by mid afternoon. We have been to this beautiful marine park many times, and have enjoyed it each time. This time we didn’t enjoy it so much. As we were leaving the next morning, we got careless, and banged right smack into a big sunken rock. Ouch! Why weren’t we being more careful? Why didn’t remember that there was a rock there yesterday at low tide? Now we surely have big gouge in the keel that is going to need to be repaired before we leave the boat for the winter. Aw shucks. I hate it when that happens! But since there was no present danger, we headed on down the channel toward Surge Narrows. Now these narrows are to be taken ONLY at slack water, but because of the incident with the rock, we were running about ½ hour late. When we got there, we decided to go for it anyway, and were shot through the narrows with whirlpool eddies swirling wildly all around us. The current there can run up to fifteen knots, and can be exceedingly dangerous. We had a very wild ride, but were soon anchored peacefully in nearby Village Bay.

It was a short hop from there to Rebecca Spit where we did a load of laundry and provisioned for Noelle’s coming visit.

Alert Bay and Telegraph Cove
August 25, 2007

We wanted to show Don and Rita the potlatch exhibit and museum at Alert Bay, so we leashed up the dogs, and boarded the ferry at Port McNeill for an outing to Cormorant Island. When we arrived in Alert Bay is was well past noon, and we were all starving. We picked a nice restaurant, ordered lunch, and waited and waited for it to be brought to us. Two hours and 4 bad hamburgers later we got out of there and walked to see the cemetery with the totem poles and the U’mista Cultural center. There is so much to say about this amazing place that I just couldn’t begin to describe it. Suffice it to say that there is a treasure trove of masks, coppers, carvings, and whistles all confiscated by the Canadian Government years ago, and then finally returned to the people to be displayed in the museum built to house these artifacts. U’mista means “homecoming”, and these treasures are finally home where they belong.

While walking back from the museum, we ran into a couple we had met at Pierre’s Cove. Strangely enough his name is Pierre as well. His wife is Danielle, and they are French Canadians originally from Quebec. We had a grand old reunion while sipping Latte’s waiting for the ferry. What a cute couple! They will go to Alaska next season, and then bring their boat “Lila” (Hanse 41) down the coast to Mexico. We invited them to stop by to see us in San Francisco on their way down.

The next day, Don and Rita drove us to the small community of Telegraph Cove, about a half hour east of Port McNeill along the Johnstone Straits. It is a beautifully restored village of colorful homes built on pilings with a boardwalk connecting them. There are numerious shops and restaurants along the boardwalk, with an excellent whale museum at the end. The whale museum has the skeletons of many sea mammals on display, including a large Mincke whale hanging from the ceiling. A helpful docent pointed out the skull of a sea lion, and then brought out the skull of a bear and held it close for comparison. It was hard to tell the difference! Even the flippers of the sea lion were strangely similar to the forelegs of a land mammal – clawed toes and all. After strolling through the various shops on the boardwalk, we stopped at a restaurant and had salmon bisque with a salmon salad sandwich sitting out on the deck in the sunshine that had just emerged from behind the clouds. Great conversations about old times and old friends, delicious food, and a beautiful day to enjoy it!

At the bookshop there I bought another book “Totem Poles and Tea,” the story of a young woman who went to the village of Mamalilikula in the 1930’s to be both a teacher and a nurse and work with two elderly missionary women in the village. Since we had just been to that deserted village, it was fascinating to get a glimpse of the life that had once existed there. One note: The author witnessed a clandestine potlatch ceremony there in the 1930’s, so it’s not true that the last potlatch ceremony was held there in 1921. It was just the last potlatch held there that the Canadian officials got wind of.

Rita and Don are here visiting with their little dog Cocoa. They keep their Panda 38 at Richmond Yacht Club, and have been friends since we all bought our boats in 1983. We are considering taking them to the pig roast on Saturday, but I think they will have to leave before then. We’ll see. Tomorrow we go to the U’mista Cultural Center in Alert Bay, and later we’ll go to Telegraph Cove to the big Orca Museum. While in Echo Bay I bought the book “Listening to Whales”, by a woman who lives there, Alexandra Morton. It’s fascinating and informative. She has studied vocalization of dolphins and whales for over 25 years, and her life is full of amazing adventure. She and Billy Proctor have been friends for a long time, and I got insight into who Billy Proctor is while reading this book. Between the two of them they share a vast amount of knowledge about the history of logging, salmon fishing and wildlife in this area. They both share this information in various books they have written, and have been active in bringing the dangers of logging and fish farming to the attention of the public. They are my heroes. WoW

Yesterday we headed for Pierre’s Bay for the famous pig roast. It was Bill’s birthday, and we had been looking forward to going to this party for a week. Unfortunately I only called to make my reservations the day before. I was informed by Pierre’s wife, Tove that they were all full. At this time, we were right at Echo Bay, so we just pulled in there again and dropped anchor. Luckily, I forgot to turn the radio back to channel 16. I was on channel 66, used mostly by boaters to contact harbor masters. Later that afternoon, I heard someone else ask about the pig roast, and Tove told them that they had just had a couple of cancellations. Bingo- And that is how we got to go to the pig roast after all. Pierre said he would call us in the morning to tell us when to come in.

Now here is where it gets weird. The next morning, we were listening to channel 66, waiting for Pierre to call, and there was an emergency call to Pierre from Roberta Hawthorn saying that her husband was in anaphylactic shock. (remember the old friend I recently met in the drug store in Port McNeill?) She asked if they could pull into the marina. She sounded pretty frightened. Bill called Pierre and offered to come over and take a look. Everyone was very grateful, so we hoisted anchor and headed for Pierre’s just over in the next cove. By the time we got there, Roberta’s husband Jim was beginning to recover, as he had already treated himself with medications that they carry with them at all times. We chatted for awhile until Jim was feeling better, then they were off, and we stayed for the pig roast.

The pig roast is fun. Some people from the Des Moines Yacht Club in Seattle decided that Pierre needed a pig roaster, and promised to bring him one the following year. When time came for the members to go up to the Broughtons, no one had made the roaster. So they got together and built it in a hurry and somehow managed to get it to Port McNeill, and then on a ferry to Pierre’s Bay. This pig roaster is an amazing thing to behold, so I think you should go to www.pierresbay.com to take a look at it. They fire up the charcoal, wrap the pig in chicken wire, and put him in the cooker at about noon. Then they just let him roast all afternoon. At 5:00 pm, cocktail hour begins in the big white tent. Tove circulates in the crowd and startes the music, and pretty soon everyone is having a lot of fun. At 6:00 she tells everyone to go get their potluck dish, and the banquet is laid out. Now everyone has to sit down, because she calls table numbers so as to avoid a stampede. It is very civilized as people line up at the potluck table, and then head over to the piggy to help themselves! And a good time is had by all.

We love Echo Bay, so we stayed there another couple of days hiking, going to “Billy Proctor’s Museum”, and reading. Hiking up the old logging road was an experience. We followed the skid road through misty, moss covered trails that were sprouting mushrooms all over. We followed a black hose for about a mile, and it ended in a little dam in the stream. This is the water source for the marina and the little Echo Bay School. I had never seen such a variety of mushrooms as I did on this hike. Some were jet black, others looked like white lace. Some looked like oyster shells with yellow, orange, and brown all around. There were big giant mushrooms, and tiny little elfin ones all standing in a row, and the sunshine peeked through the tall trees to illuminate the fern and salal plants in the underbrush. All was damp, wet, slippery and beautiful. We had to watch our step when the trail lead over makeshift bridges slippery with moss and sprouting fern. At the top of the trail, we were treated to a beautiful view of Cramer Pass below.

Then we took the short walk to “Billy Proctor'sMuseum”. We’ve been there before, and really didn’t expect to see anything new, and therefore were not disappointed. But we did get a chance to chat with Billy and soak up the warm sunshine before heading back to the boat. He also has a little gift shop where he sells books and crafts by local artisans.

Next on the itinerary was a trip to nearby Village Island. We anchored among the ruins of the ancient Indian village of Mamaliliculla and the later day mission. A foggy mist was hovering over the cove, as we set out in the dinghy to explore. We landed at a derelict float, and wandered through thick underbrush to find the abandoned mission hospital and several degenerating, collapsing houses. The large cedar pillars marking the entrance of the long house are still standing. This was the site of the Nimpkish Indian “Christmas Potlatch” ceremony held in 1921, believed to be the last of the potlatch ceremonies held on the coast. These ceremonies had been banned by the Canadian government since 1884, and after this one, a number of the participants were charged with violation, and their ceremonial regalia was confiscated and distributed among museums and private collections. Much of this treasure has been recovered, and is now on display at the U’mista Cultural Center in Alert Bay, and at Cape Mudge on Quadra Island. We saw the last of the totem poles in Mamaliliculla, now fallen to the ground, and being reclaimed by the damp earth, mosses, fungi, wild roses and rampant blackberry vines.

From Billy's Journal:

We awoke this morning in this small, deep bay surrounded by big, steeply sided granite and basalt mountains, most of which are snow capped and/or harbor a glacier. Waterfalls cascade down into the bay literally all around us. It rained last night and, while the mountain peaks glowed and sparkled in the early morning light, cool, white mist clung to the lower mountain. The mountains are so steep and tall, the bay so small and hidden, we couldn't get satellite GPS signals for navigating this morning. On leaving, I spotted an Orca swimming and blowing in the deeper water of Tribune Passage at the bay entrance. Last night, after pitch black descended, I kept thinking a fan was on in the boat, but couldn't find it. Liddy pointed out that it was the water cascading down into the bay and hitting boulders on the shore that was making the noise. I wrote a bunch of letters to friends and family yesterday evening, but had a devil of a time getting them out via the Single Sideband Radio. The mountains are too tall and too close to allow radio signals to easily escape.

Now we are in Echo Bay Marine Park at anchor. We are only 10 miles away from Kwatsi Bay, but it is completely different. Warm, bright, with wild daisies growing in profusion on the shore. There is a huge midden here. The Kawakiutl Indians must have been living here for 10,000 years or more. It is bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. A very faint warm breeze blows across the bay. There is a big fine beach for Schooner to play on and a lot of grassy meadow above for him to roll in. He is really happy.

From the journal of Billy Manana:

We are in the Broughton Archepeligo at anchor. We are, again, sick of crab. While in Claydon Bay 2 days ago, we were catching up to 12 crabs/hour! That's a lot of crab to cook, clean, crack and pick. This is a very remote area, but many cruisers, mostly in power boats, are here and around.

We have spent 3 days in Port McNeill resupplying and restocking. On the way up here, we ran out of fuel in one tank (my error) just before going through a shallow, high current and narrow passage, "the Blow Hole". I had to reverse the fuel pump for the diesel heater in order to prime the engine - it simply will not prime any other way. We spent the night at Lagoon Cove. Very weird. We had "happy hour" with a bunch of elderly Washingtonians. Very joyful - kind of like Happy Hour in a mausoleum. Got out of there fast and headed on up to Port McNeill.

Took a B.C. Ferry from Port McNeill to Sointula on Malcolm Island It was once a Finnish "ideal society" at the beginning of the 20th century based upon Communism ala Karl Marx (Lennin was not yet on the scene). The small museum of relics from this era was interesting, and the fish and chips at the "Hamburger Hut" were the best.

While in a grocery store at Port McNeill, Liddy recognized a woman she had known 20 years ago in Tiburon, Roberta Hawthorne. She now lives in Sullivan Bay in a community of colorful float houses on Broughton Island during the summer, and on Grand Cayman Island in the winters Not bad. We met up with her again later when we tied up at the marina in Sullivan bay

The mountains and anchorages here are beautiful, and the weather is generally good, if cool. The news of record heat waves across the USA this month seems very remote.

When you look at a chart of the inside passage of Vancouver Island, you will notice that there are a cluster of islands right in the middle about ½ way up. Navigating north through this island cluster is extremely difficult due to the rapid currents in all of these passages. No matter which route you take, there will be rapids to navigate, and you’d better be sure you are there at slack. We choose to go through the Yuculta Rapids, known as the Yucultas. Luckily we arrived at the rapids exactly ½ hour before high water slack, which gave us the push we needed to get through before the tide turned, and made it impossible navigate. When we got there, we were being shoved through this narrow passage at 10 knots! But soon the tide turned, and we went looking for a place to anchor for the night before we started getting pushed back. We found this nice little harbor on East Thurlow Island called Shoal Harbor.

We were greeted at the government dock by some cruisers offering to help us tie up. This was the site of a thriving mining town in the late 1800’s and there are still some old buildings here to prove it. Later this afternoon, we plan to walk up the mountain to an old deserted mine on the hillside. The guide advises you to take a flash light, as there are numerous vertical shafts in there. Uh oh, don’t think I’ll be going in, thank you. Everyone here is very friendly. Something must happen to the cruising mentality when you get this far north. Even the Seattle cruisers engage in conversation! The guy on the boat across from us was boiling up some crab that he caught that afternoon, and later, his wife brought a sample over. I made a delicious crab omelet with the sweet little morsels!