Nature Nerding: July 2009

James managed to fully convert me to sailing this summer. Here's the route for our second, lovely trip.

We started off with a night in False Creek and dinner in China Town. It's still free to anchor in False Creek, but you need a permit and can only stay for 14 days out of every 30 in the summer months. It's a great place to hang out in the middle of a big city.

Sailing out of Vancouver.

We stopped in at Jedediah Island (between Texada and Lasquiti Islands) on our second day out. The island was once a homestead and the descendants of the sheep and goats they kept are still around, despite the fact that the whole island is now a Provincial Park. It made Jedediah a totally unique blend of Scotland and BC. Very fitting.

Old farm tools.

In the orchard - apple, plum, cherry and walnut trees.

Sheep skull.

Big doug-fir

The view from our secluded anchorage on Jedediah.

We headed over to Hornby next and immediately ran into Reid, Laura and Zoe. Here they are attempting to get their 2 year old to stay still for a family portrait. We had no idea they'd be there and suddenly we were having a BBQ on their family cabin with T and A, our newlywed friends who we'd also run into on the Island (somewhat expectantly.)

James got pretty excited about the honeycomb sandstone.

The lovely pub at the Hornby ferry terminal. Great food, great beer, amazing view, good ambiance and it has a push mower on it's living roof. Five stars.

Purple martin at Ford's Cover on Hornby.

Heading into stormy weather. This was one wet day, but we also had tail winds pushing us north to Lund all day.

Roscoe Bay, West Redonda Island in Deslolation sound, home to thousands of moon jellies. The narrow opening beyond the sailboats in this photo is the entrance to the bay. It can only be navigated at high tide, so once you're in, your trapped for 12 hours.

View from the top of Llanover mountain - a short hike from Roscoe Bay.

Western toad

I think these are parasitic pine drops just poking their heads up.
Update: our local chief plant nerd informed us that these are actually gnome plant, making this a very exciting sighting for me.

100 metres from the end of Roscoe Bay is Black Lake. There were thousands of little froglets with little tails, just out of the water, making it slow to walk as we didn't want to step on any.

And then we found the source.

Tadpole with cute legs coming in.

Oysters

Fancy boat sailing by as we headed from Roscoe Bay over to Prideaux Harbour.

Crab claw on reindeer lichen

Looking west up Desolation Sound.

Flying the spinnaker up Toba Inlet

We went most of the way up Toba Inlet and then turned back. There are very few (or possibly no) anchorages in the inlet as it is often 400-500 metres deep. Our depth sounder stopped working properly, either because it was too deep or because the sides were too steep. We also got chased by a hoard of nasty deer flies.

From Toba we headed over to Quadra Island via "Hole in the Wall" - a narrow little passage with strong currents. We headed out on a quiet hike to Newton Lake. It was great to spend some time in a shady forest.

A group of 4 or 5 trees that all fell over together.

Fresh water swimming is such a treat after being salty for many days.

Carnivorous sundew

Banana slug munching on a mushroom.

Slug sex!!
Check out this dude's PhD project page for full details on what's happening here... unless you're the type that gets squeemish about penises being chewed off.

Millipede sex.
These little guys smell like almonds when you pick them up (no we didn't disturb the lovers, I've only ever picked up single millipedes).

And back at the boat...

Early morning in Waiatt Bay, Quadra Island.

From Quadra we headed to funky Cortes Island for a night and then suddenly discovered a little island called Mitlenact on our charts. It's located 6km south of Cortes in the middle of the Straight of Georgia. The whole island and it's surrounding waters are in a Nature Provincial Park and humans are only allowed on a small part of the island. There are thousands of birds nesting here: glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, black oyster catchers, pigeon guillemots and crows.

They have a volunteer warden program on the island - volunteers stay in this little driftwood cabin for one week during the summer months.

The island is also in the rainshadow of Vancouver Island and gets very little rainfall. They have prickly pear cactus and many other unique plants like this gum weed.