Killer Whale Recording

Here is a couple of our hydrophone recordings overlayed with a couple of our photos of the Killer Whales we encountered during our sail down the westcoast of Vancouver Island. Enjoy!

West Coast Vancouver Island Species List

(in order of appearance)

Rhinoceros Auklet
Common Murre
Pigeon Guillemot
Bald Eagle
Northwestern Crow
Hermit Thrush
Mew Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Common Loon
Red-throated Loon
Caspian Tern
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Red-necked Phalarope
Black Turnstone
Belted Kingfisher
Great Blue Heron
Greater Yellowlegs
Common Raven
Sooty Shearwater
Northern Fulmar
Parasitic Jaeger
Cassin’s Auklet
Marbled Murrelet
California Gull
Dall’s Porpoise
Harbour Porpoise
Sea Otter
Harbour Seal
White-winged Scoter
Northern Flicker
Steller’s Jay
Fox Sparrow
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Rufous Hummingbird
River Otter
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Red Crossbill
Bonapart’s Gull
Canada Goose
Common Merganser
Spotted Sandpiper
Tufted Puffin
Surf Scoter
Varied Thrush
Pomerine Jaeger
Transient Killer Whale
Steller Sealion
Pink-footed Shearwater
Western Gull
Winter Wren
Song Sparrow
Lesser Yellowlegs
American Robin
American Dipper
Green-winged Teal
American Mink
South Polar Skua
Pacific Loon
California Sealion
Humpback Whale
Grey Whale
Pileated Woodpecker
Black Oystercatcher
Cedar Waxwing
Brown Creeper
Wandering Tattler
Hooded Merganser
Red Squirrel
Red-necked Grebe
Eurasian Collared Dove
Starling
Barn Swallow
Black-footed Albatross
Heerman’s Gull

Learning Curves and Leaving

A day you don’t learn something is a slow day. Today I learnt “datum” (the start point for all depths on a chart) was the singular for “data”. That aside, we have had other learning processes on the boat. The weekend before leaving, the anti-siphon valve on our engine failed, which meant the engine back flooded from the wet box and started filling the bilge via the air intake. So I learnt how to remove all the injectors and so on to clear salt water from where it should not be. I was thankful for having 4 spare oil filters on hand as we live far from a metropolitan area. Lesson 1- we will always shut off our water intake now instead of “usually” shutting it off, even for short periods. Lesson 2 – lots of spares is a good thing.
With the engine running again we did manage to get out for a bit of the weekend and found a humpback and orcas for Lorraine and Tara who’d travelled west and north to come and see us. They brought all sorts of food plus a care package full of edibles and drinkables from Lorraine’s Mum that we all enjoyed and are still finding after they were stowed for space and sailing.
At Sea-fest in Alert Bay, we didn’t win a prize in the around the island kayak race but we did win a hamper of native food in the Artfest raffle. What a treat; smoked, canned and dried salmon, oolichan smoked and 2 jars of grease, dried seaweed and some new potatoes to go with it. We were fortunate to be able to share some with those who appreciated it before we left and still have a good supply. George and Susan from “Top Brass” also gave us some home canned salmon and Dave and Maureen the day before we left, brought a case of home canned salmon down to the boat along with a box of veggies from their garden. Dave’s comment was to make sure we came back. How could we not after such kindness. Ten days later we have just eaten the last of the garden veg and are savoring the salmon. Our final learning curve was a lesson on simple but nourishing food. We met Yoshi, a Japanese sailor who we had for dinner and he gifted us a special type of nori and other seaweed and told us how to cook and eat it with rice (and celery with every meal).
On leaving we tried to say our goodbyes to as many people as possible, but as we learnt on our first departure from Oz 6 years ago, sometimes just slipping away quietly is a good thing too.

Work is Finished, Time to Set Sail!

Well we have finished our last work contract here on the BC coast and are getting the last few things ready on Narama. We will leave in the next few days. Setting out on such a huge voyage seems a bit bitter sweet when you love your work and where you live. We know that this voyage will be hard work but also very rewarding. We will miss our friends and this great place! We promise that we will try to keep in touch as much as possible with our blog, but we don't take any internet or email connections with us at sea. So hopefully you can wait until we make each landfall and find a local internet cafe.

Our bit of work involved counting Steller Sealions and their pups and sampling for DNA and scat on the entire North BC Coast and into Alaska.

Fun and Games

For those who don't understand all the joys of boating, I will let these pictures talk. We decided to take a few layers off this year to really smooth out the bottom. I was warned at the beginning of the weekend that if we were still in the yard on someones birthday there would be little amusement. For two and a bit solid days we sanded until the arms were more than a tad tender. A big pasta meal a friend brought down and cooked on board as we finished up was a savior on day two (thanks Trudy) and in the hot weather.....sooo looking forward to Baja, the paint went on and polishing started. The threats had eased over the weekend and polishing was OK on Heidi's birthday(I married the right girl), though we still did not hit the water untill a day later. The good news is we gained nearly 1/4 of a knot. That's about 1hrs less sailing each day on the long passages we are now one step closer to making.

Using different coloured anti fouling each year we sometimes end up with two colours on the hull using the last years left over. The also gives us a quality comparison and we are sure the black works best. Why.........you tell me??

Helsinki to Sao Miguel

Ice in the Baltic

When Stephen and I arrived in Canada on Narama after six months of long ocean passages interspersed with some cruising, we jokingly said to our friends that we highly recommend traveling great distances by air rather than toiling on the surface. After our recent travels I’ve reversed that opinion. We arrived in Helsinki jet-lagged, dehydrated and sick from recycled air and slightly shocked to find ourselves in freezing temperatures and near blizzard conditions after warm sunny days in Victoria. A mere 15 hours of airplanes and airports and we were dropped half way around the world, stumbling and poorly adjusted. The last nine days however, have reminded us why we are planning another major voyage on Narama; it’s not just the destination, but the travelling we love. We boarded MS Expedition in Rauma, Finland and set out across the Baltic Sea. We had a gorgeous warm spring day as we crossed Germany in the Keil Canal with cranes flying north over our heads, then occasional Common Dolphins playing under our bow as we headed south in the North Sea. We slowly pealed off layers of clothing as the temperature rose until we greeted Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island in Tshirts. Staying on the surface and watching the wildlife and climate slowly change as we cover several hundred miles is fun, flying is for the birds.

MS Expedition

Home in Alert Bay

We were motoring across Queen Charlotte Strait, heading home towards Alert Bay when a group of Dall's Porpoises came to play under the bow, seeming to escort us home. It was a miracle of a day in March, not a ripple on the sea and bright sunshine. The clarity of the water was wonderful, tempting us to jump in for a swim. The fact that we were still wearing toques and big winter gloves as well as our parkas, kept us above water.

We have been home for a week now, catching up with friends and correspondence and necessary evils, like income tax. We head away from Narama next week to Finland and the Azores for work on the MS Expedition, but we keep thinking about our upcoming voyage and leaving this precious coast for who knows how many years. Any town where a pub night means that you get to meet the elected and hereditary chief, biggest property baron and owners of most of the establishments and watch them cut a rug on the dance floor is a place worth calling home! I think that this perspective will make our voyage of personal discovery even more valuable; every coast on the Pacific has tiny communities full of character and we can't wait to meet them.