Final Adventures

Daybreak finds us anchored in Home Bay, Princess Royal Island. We are heading out on a pre-breakfast excursion to walk through the rainforest and to explore the shoreline. This is a wide open bay with skeletal trees washed up along its edges.

This is an area where there has not been logging so the forest is in a much more natural state. We enter the forest and although the ground is soft, thick and mossy, the reality is that the soil is very shallow. Probably only a metre or so deep. It is quite remarkable that such large trees manage to remain upright.

After a short walk, we return to the beach. I concentrate on photographing the small things.

I could easily spend the whole morning here. There is lots to see. Sandpipers hunt amongst the pebbles and flocks of sea birds swoop and flock above the water.

Too soon we must return to the tender. However there is a problem. The water is shallow and it has run aground. People have to disembark to make it lighter. And there is a deal of pushing and shoving.

The real problem though is that the tender cannot come in close. This means that we have two options. Wellies off and wade barefoot or wet boots. I roll my trousers up, take my boot off and put my foot in the icy water. As soon as I step on the bottom I realise my mistake. Everything is covered in barnacles. There is no way I can walk barefoot. Nothing for it but to put my welly back on and let it fill up with water as I wade to the boat. It’s an adventure and fortunately Cascadia has a good welly stock and issue me with a nice new dry pair.

A late hot breakfast is eaten whilst we depart and head down the aptly named Whale Channel. There are whales everywhere – mainly humpback but we do also see two fin whales though not close enough for photos. There is a tender excursion before lunch in which we see more whales. Two make us jump by surfacing and blowing out very close to the boat.

We continue to Ashdown Island where hundreds of Steller’s sea lions laze on the rocks, squabbling and honking noisily as they fight for the limited space.

This is a busy day. We head back for lunch. Cascadia makes passage to the Estevan group of islands. We are now on the Pacific edge and away from the mountains and fjords. There is a swell on the ocean that we have not experienced before. The clouds give way to clear blue skies.

We then make another sortie to the Hickey Islands. It is beautiful here – isolated islands with a hazy mountain backdrop. However navigating between the islands can be tricky. The channels are largely uncharted and there are huge kelp beds to negotiate. Avoiding wrapping kelp around the prop requires alertness and slow travel.

There is lots of bird life though, as ever, it is not that easy to photograph them from a moving boat. No reason not to try though…

We make a landing on a very boulder strewn island. It takes a few attempts to successfully moor up close enough to disembark without flooding our boots again. We all manage part from Olivia, who is in the other boat and as she steps onto a boulder slips and gets thoroughly wet trousers. No injury though and we all think it is very funny.

We collect plastic debris and clamber over the rocks and driftwood. It is good to stretching our legs. Tomorrow is our last full day and will largely be spent making our way back to Kitimat. In the morning we have an interesting talk on the life cycle of salmon and the ecological challenges that they now face. In the afternoon we make our final excursion in the tenders into Foch Inlet. I decide to not take the camera and just enjoy the scenery… It is pretty impressive.

There is of course the obligatory waterfall…

…and creeks feeding the lagoon with flat areas that potentially could afford us a view of bears or wolves. We see none but there are loads of birds. Bald eagles soar and kingfishers flit along the shoreline.

Our farewell dinner is an extra special one with white table cloths and four courses instead of the usual three. The starter of seared albacore tuna and the spot prawn risotto to follow deserve special mention. Delicious.

Dinner is a fairly boisterous affair and is followed by a slide show of the trip which hopefully we shall be sent a link to in due course. A great keepsake.

On our last morning the weather has deteriorated and it feels very autumnal. There is low cloud and persistent rain. This is the right day to be leaving.

I have enjoyed our week on Cascadia, although it was perhaps not all I had hoped it would be. I expected to have more mammal encounters. The animals are here but very difficult to find in the dense forest. Nonetheless, there were some very special moments and as I read back through the blog I do not feel in the least bit short changed. I must offer a huge thank you to all the crew who looked after our every need and made the trip so pleasurable.

The map above plots our route and we have explored everything from the narrowest inlets, steep sided fjords and pretty coastal islands. This is a spectacular part of the world and definitely worth visiting.