Still catching up......Sunday, 16 June - With our electrical and overheating problems behind us, it was time to go sailing again.  We were up at 0800, and off the dock by 0930, under partly cloudy skies, with light and variable winds (so again - motoring, but with the sails up).  All of Hecate Strait is shallow, but crossing the inlet east of Skidegate, Sandspit, and Qn. Charlotte, it is extremely shallow.  We were crossing on a rising tide, but the depth sounder was still reading 10 feet - not a biggie sailing in the Florida Keys, but shallow enough in BC waters.  We then turned southbound, with an east wind building.  After a couple of hours we were sailing a broad reach into Cumshewa Inlet, and continued a further 15 miles to the northwest corner of Louise Island, a place called Beattie Anchorage.  There are some public mooring buoys here, but they are very large steel drums, more suitable for steel fishboats and tugs than yachts.  We tied to one for awhile, but it became obvious we'd be fending it off at various times during the night - so we moved about a hundred yards to some shallower water behind a small islet, and anchored.  Ray strummed his guitar after supper, while the sunset gave us a bit of a colourful show.

Sunset from Beattie Anchorage

We had a tide to catch in the morning, however....so we made a reasonably early retirement.
The following day, Monday, was planned for a fairly short sail.  We still had to get up at 0600, though, to catch the tide approaching high slack, as we were going through a very narrow and shallow passage on the west side of Louise Island, appropriately called Louise Narrows.  Our boat is almost 12 feet in beam, and the narrows are in some places only about 20 feet wide.  They dry out at low tide, so we only had the height of tide for water to get through.....we ended up with 9 feet at the lowest part, and averaged 11 feet of water.  Ray, standing on the bow, could see bottom clearly all the way through.  We were clear of the narrows by 0800, with only about 10 miles left to go to our planned anchorage of Thurston Harbour.  So with a bit of time to kill, we stopped in Selwyn Inlet, and did a bit of fishing.  We managed to land 5 fish - 3 ling cod which were too small to keep, a rockfish which was marginally small, and a dogfish, which we didn't really want.  The dogfish put up a bit of a fight, though, so was fun ( it's actually a small shark)

Ray with his Dogfish

At 1100 we decided we wouldn't be eating halibut for dinner, and continued on into Thurston Harbour - a very protected inlet on the south side of Selwyn Inlet, and south of Louise Island.  There is a lone mooring buoy here, too.....and it's a smaller, plastic one - so we tied up to it, tested it with a good backdown, and then settled in.  It had been raining on and off all morning, but started to clear up in the afternoon, so we dinghied ashore for a hike.  This area used to be a logging camp area, so it was easy to follow an old logging road.  There was fresh bear scat on the trail, and many places where the bears had been ripping up the moss looking for grubs and tasty morsels - but we didn't see any bears in person.  We walked past an abandoned shack which looked like it had blown off its foundations in a windstorm, then followed the logging road alongside the inlet for a few km., and then returned on the gravel beach.  The only other local fauna we found were a racoon and a number of pigeon guillemots (shorebirds with bright orange beaks and feet).

Guillemots

Walking in the woods

Looking out from Thurston Hbr toward Selwyn Inlet and Hecate Strait

We did a nice pot of chili for dinner, and hit the sack by 2200.
Tuesday, 18 June was planned for a fairly long day back to Qn Charlotte, via the abandoned Haida Village of Skedans (native name Koona).  So again we were up by 0600, and underway at 0700, motorsailing northbound, and mooring in Skedans Bay opposite the old Haida Village.  The mooring was in the middle of large beds of kelp, so the approach was very slow and convoluted.  In the mid 1800's a smallpox epidemic wiped out a huge percentage of the Native population, killing tens of thousands of Haida.  The remaining people were encouraged to leave their villages, and most resettled at Massett or Skidegate.  This village was one of the abandoned ones, and by the early 1900's much of the totems and homes were already returning to nature.  The Haida have a program of protection for their cultural/spiritual places, called Haida Watchmen.  Their principal duty is to protect these sites from pilfering, or irreverent acts....but these people love to act as unofficial guides, and explain the history and the different poles.  We were met on the beach by Dave, who is the watchman here, and he led us to his cabin, where we met his aunt, Irene, who is also a watchman.  She was weaving cedar bark into traditional Haida hats....a very interesting process.  Dave then led us around the old village site, showing us the remains of the poles and several longhouse foundations.

A Ceremonial Pole....the rings denote special occasions or potlatches

Watchman Dave explaining a deteriorating totem

A mortuary pole, and Dave

Another pole going back to nature

Jade-1 Moored off Skedans, in Kelp Beds

Dave showed us some photos of what some of the totems used to look like

Foundation of a large Longhouse

Irene weaving cedar

Panorama of another Longhouse (needed the panorama to get it all in)

We bid Dave and Irene Goodbye, promising to return shortly, with Ray's wife who would be visiting us shortly.  At 1100 we set off northbound in overcast skies, fog, rain, and very little wind.   We had a 35 mile run along the coast of Moresby Island, turning in across the shallow bank to Skidegate Inlet, finally arriving back at Qn Charlotte at 1830.  Who should be on the docks there, but our friends on "Some Lucky", who had just returned from circumnavigating Gwaii Haanas while we'd been messing around with boat problems.  They invited us over for drinks, so we quickly had a bite of supper and then joined them on their boat , getting lots of good advice on things to see and do when we venture further south on Moresby.  We had a great visit and chatted until after midnight.

The moon reflected in the water off the bow of a fishboat as we stumbled home from Some Lucky.

Wednesday, 19 June welcomed us with a bright sunny day, even though we slept in a bit, and didn't rise until after 0900.  Ray went off to town to take care of our laundry and some shopping while I worked on a few maintenance issues - a ripped sail needed mending, one of our propane burners was acting up, and the computer keyboard was not responding - but all were reasonably quick fixes.  We had a bit of internet, so managed to update the blog (that was the no-picture one previous to this one). It turned out that another hockey game was on, so we went back to Howlers to watch game 4 of the finals.  You know you've been in town long enough when the bartender welcomes you and knows what you drink!
So that takes us up to today - Thursday, 20 June.  We had another late morning, and then sailed across the inlet to Sandspit, after cleaning up the boat a bit.  We walked the 5 km to the airport to welcome Ray's wife Kathy on the 3PM flight.  Ray had booked a room at the airport hotel for the night, so we were able to shower before greeting Kathy.  She had some frozen meat and the ignition parts I needed, so took that back to the boat while Kathy had her orientation session with Parks Canada, and then Ray and Kathy remained at the Hotel while I did my ignition repairs, some more sewing (one of the side panels on the cockpit enclosure), and then took to getting all of you up-to-date with this blog entry.  We will be leaving in the morning to visit Skedans and a few other interesting spots in Gwai Haanas....but we'll also be out of wifi and cell coverage for about a week, so this will be the last posting for about that long.