We woke up to a haunting fog surrounding the boat. Thick, and grey, and heavy. Deep silence all around us, with no wind movement and no visibility in any direction. We were not very far from shore, our memories told us. But now we could not see past the end of the bow or the stern.
Our range of visibility opened up a little bit over breakfast. We still couldn’t safely pull up the anchor, but we could have fun in the dingy checking out the little islands all around us. First Cap’n Adam had to row the dinghy through a tangle of kelp at mouth of our little bay. Then we dingied at low-throttle wherever we could. And we found a huge tidal lagoon with its own waterfall.
Returning to our bay, still in the thick fog and back through the forest of kelp, we noticed a few seals sitting on a submerged rock. As we passed by, several tiny seal heads popped up all around them. Soon there were about a dozen or so sets of sea dog eyes, ranging from very small to fully grown, watching our movements. So this is the quiet and special we felt coming in here last night – there are at least a few litters of seals, with their mommas! A seal nursery!
We quietly returned to the boat, and watched for an hour or so as the fog slowly lifted. Sitting on the bow of the boat, I was entertained by 3 young seal pups, popping their heads up ever closer to the boat. They seemed to be playing a game of chicken, each one getting a little closer than the last one had. Before too long, it was only 1 baby seal who kept closing in. I sat as still as I could. It finally freaked itself out on its last attempt, and splashed away dramatically. I giggled silently to myself, and hoped they would return, but their game was over.
After lunch we were ready to continue on our way. Today we decided to leave the archipelago a bit, and explore Drury Inlet of the coastal mainland. With our regal crown mountains still ahead as our bearing, we motored to the mouth of the inlet. We passed through Stuart Narrows, which we were cautious of as the tidal current can get very strong there. We will have to time our journey back out of this inlet for the same reason.
Now don’t get me wrong, all of British Columbia is beautiful. But entering Drury Inlet (more like, “Dreary Inlet”) we felt an instant shift. The trees looked a little more wind beaten and haggard. The flat strips of land on either side of the inlet have been logged a few times, their scars are not hidden. The rolling gentle landscape of the Broughton Archipelago was replaced with some hard-angled and functional coastline. We had left the magic of the village of islands.
We found a nice spot to throw down the anchor, in a cluster of small islets called the Muirhead Islands. But we both agreed that we would head back out into the archipelago tomorrow, as soon as the fog and the tidal current allowed us to go.
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