A Tiny Place on the Water

Today I am taking you back to Vancouver Island - to be more precise to the North of Vancouver Island. "North" begins at Campbell River, the "end of civilization" at it is often called. Beyond here, "there's nothing up there worth seeing" as anyone below Campbell River will tell you. Nothing could be further from the truth.

After you have passed Campbell River, you enter the extensive wilderness of Vancouver Island. Here, you can find small primitive campgrounds where you can be on your own - our first night here was spent in a campground just north of Campbell River and we were the only people there. It was a bit unusual, especially when we heard someone walking around the campground in the middle of the night - someone with four legs! We never found out what animal it was - a bear? an elk? - but it didn't bother us and we eventually returned to sleep.

This part of Vancouver Island is mainly used by the lumber industry which you are aware of by the many lumber truck signs along the road. This sign below means that lumber trucks enter the road from the right. There are also signs with the front of the truck on the right side (just flip the image horizontally in your mind) which means the lumber trucks enter from the left. At least this is what I figured out after observing this for several (many) kilometers.

The lumber floats on the water, something I had only seen in Scandinavia before, and it is also worked by little boats here.

The North Island has some quirky outback communities, one of them is Telegraph Cove. It is a tiny funky place on the water and is a complete boardwalk "town" with wooden buildings built on stilts.

Right at the beginning of the boardwalk you can see what this place is all about and why you find quite some tourists here:

Some of the best whale watching and grizzly bear tours start here in any kind of weather. These tours are not cheap, but I do think they would be a wonderful thing to do.

One of the whale watching boats

It's a dangerous place!

Unfortunately we didn't... but we visited the Whale Interpretive Center at the end of the boardwalk. It has some fantastic exhibitions and give you a lot of food for thought. This exhibit is the skeleton of a fin whale, the second longest animal in the world.

The busiest place in this small community is the marina with all its little and bigger boats and fisher boats as well.

Another great place to visit is the Killer Whale Cafe almost at the end of the boardwalk, right across from the small office of the Grizzly Bear Adventure Tours.

We ended up here twice during our stay on the North Island. Not only does it have a fantastic Killer Whale Pale Ale (try to say that very fast!) but it also serves the most delicious fish and chips we ever had.

You could choose between cod, salmon and halibut. While the Geek and Kaefer had cod I opted for halibut and a glass of Killer Whale Pale Ale - oh yummy!!!

Coastal Clean-Up

I had meant to write this post since last Saturday, but somehow I never got around to do it until this morning, Wednesday, four days later! The Geek needs the car this morning for a doctor's appointment, so it was his turn to take Kaefer to school and I have a blissful morning all on my own. What a gift!

So, last Saturday we participated in the coastal clean-up, went out to the beach with our orange buckets and collected trash. It was a typical grey day out at the ocean, but that didn't held us back.

There were quite some volunteers combing the beach for trash with their recycling and trash bags.

 

We had to keep track of what we found, and Kaefer was responsible for filling in the data.

Kaefer and the Geek even got up the cliffs when they saw something hanging in the plants.

 

Empty bags of chips, tons of cigarette stubs and some old underwear....

 

 

 A bottle of alcohol and a soda can - you can tell from Kaefer's face how "enthusiastic" she is about those finds.

 

But all in all, we were quite surprised how clean our beaches already are.

 

Afterwards there was a barbecue at Bodega Dunes for all the volunteers. It was quite a cheerful crowd and we met some very nice people. But before that, we went down to that beach, and just about 600 feet from the shoreline there were two whales swimming - it was the cream on top of an already beautiful day!

Back from the Sunset Coast

We just returned form our two weeks trip up North on Highway 101 along the Oregon and Washington coast. It was a very relaxing, quiet trip - we didn't have any special plans or destinations that we wanted to reach. When we liked a place we stayed there for a while. There was lots of time for reading, writing and even sketching and painting. It was one of the most beautiful trips I ever had.

We explored fisher ports like this one in Brookings,

saw many lighthouses - this one is Heceta Head,

watched seagulls eating their breakfast,

had super fresh seafood ourselves,

ran at the beach,

sat around the campfire,

explored tide pools and learned that this is an ochre sea star (pisaster ochraceus),

didn't mind the often misty weather of the Pacific Northwest,

visited the rainforest in Olympic National Park and got eaten alive by mosquitoes while camping there,

watched young elk,

got very muddy boots on our hikes and walks,

found treasures on the beach,

flew kites,

discovered the lost whale in the Klamath River on our way back home,

and fell deeply in love with the Pacific Northwest.

Did you go somewhere and fell in love with the place?

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Whale Watching

Today we went to Bodega Head, hoping to see some whales. There were days when we never saw any whales and other days when we saw many. Today falls in the second category.

So this is the middle of January - I remember this to be winter - right at the Pacific Ocean. It is supposed to be cold and very windy. Instead, the sun is shining and there is almost no wind. Unbelievable...

I spent some time taking pictures of the waves that thunder against the rocks at the shore. I love the mist that hovers above the waves before they break. Seagulls were sitting on a huge rock right in front of me, others were noisily flying around.

Apart from the waves at the shore, the ocean was like a blanket which made watching for whales super easy. You just watch for spouts - when you've discovered one, you focus in with your binoculars and actually see real whales.

About two miles out there was an entire pod of whales, very likely humpbacks, playing around. A little bit further south we discovered another big whale who traveled south - probably a gray whale.

If you look really hard you can see the back of the whale

Everybody - there was quite a crowd - was excited, either looking through their binoculars or taking pictures.

 Kaefer and the Geek

The whale watching volunteers who are at Bodega Head every weekend from January through April (whale migration time) and sometimes even during the week if there are many whales, were happy to tell everyone about the whales and answer any question that would arise. They had some interesting stuff on their display table, like this vertebrae of a juvenile gray whale.

And even without looking for whales, it was just a gorgeous day.

Afterwards we went to the "Sandpiper" in Bodega Bay, our favorite restaurant there. Tonight I opted for the Fisherman's Crab Stew - messy but oh so yummy...

As you can see I already nibbled a bit before I remembered to take a picture...

So how did you spend your Sunday?