Codville Lagoon

As we continue our march up the protected Inside Passage, we anchored in Codville Lagoon for a few days to catch up a bit and wait until the fuel dock in Shearwater opens on Monday.  We plan to fill all the fuel tanks when we get to Ketchikan, but we want to be sure we have enough fuel to get us there – we need fuel for the engines as well as the generator (to charge batteries) and for the diesel-fired heating system.
We’re in a big protected anchorage and the birds have been entertaining.  Of course I saw the best bird action the first afternoon out in the kayak on one of those very rare occasions that I’m not dragging any cameras along.  20140517 7357 barrows goldeneye female  RESIZEA Barrow’s goldeneye duck was alternately trying to impress and harass his two girlfriends – they appreciated his dancing but not his ambushes so there was a lot of squawking and flying away before the routine would begin again.  The mergansers were just hanging out on a log, and there were lots of little murrelets cruising around.

We got to enjoy a few hours of rainy weather to catch up on some mundane things like dusting and vacuuming inside, as well as catching up on editing the growing pile of photos I keep taking.20140517_028 codville lagoon wide RESIZECodville Lagoon is labeled as a Marine Park on the chart, and there was a tiny official sign from BC Parks at the head of the trail that leads up to a lake.  (The official sign only said: “There are no trash facilities here – carry your trash out with you.”)  We read about the trail in some of the cruising guides with a warning that the trail was muddy.  After our experience hiking in Pruth Bay we developed a healthy respect for the “muddy” description so we donned our knee-high boots.  Luckily we discovered that the trail had been improved since the guide book was written.  There were some places with boards on the ground or short little boardwalks to get through some of the worst spots, though we were still glad for the boots because it was still pretty soggy here and there.  The lake was a real surprise – about a mile long by 3/4 of a mile wide with a reddish sandy beach along one side.  We saw lots of deer prints in the sand, as well as some wolf prints.20140518_047 codville lake RESIZEWe’ve enjoyed our hikes through the woods – we are in a temperate rainforest and it has a very special feeling to it with thick layers of moss on tree branches, “nurse logs” (dead trees that provide a perfect haven for new trees and plants to grow on), a variety of ferns, tiny mushrooms, lichens, etc.  We like these little details in nature so I’m carrying a macro lens more often when we hike.20140515 7205 macro douglas fir new growth RESIZE20140515 7242 tiny forest mushrooms  RESIZE20140515 7208 macro fern curl vertical RESIZE20140518 7317 lacy lichen 2 RESIZE

Pruth Bay and a Mystery

We anchored in Pruth Bay (about 20 miles north of Fury Cove) near the Hakai Beach Institute, an independent scientific research outstation with some nice facilities and a lot of different sized boats.  The attraction for us was access to some beautiful remote sandy beaches open to the Pacific.  As with all the shorelines around here there were countless logs piled up high up on shore, weathered to a silvery finish.  20140514 7047 pruth west beach lots of logs RESIZENote that some of the logs can be really big (Jim is in a red jacket sitting at the far end) – this is one reason people don’t run their boats at night in this region – hitting something like this would really ruin your day!20140514 7050 pruth beach huge log RESIZE

One of the beaches was a short hike through the forest on a maintained trail with boardwalks, but the other beach was a much longer hike, past a pond, scrambling up and down and through quite a few places that were very very muddy… but well worth the mess.  We found very few shells on these beaches, but the northern beach had a lot of different colored granite rocks, polished round and smooth clacking gently in the surf.  I must confess to having a weakness for beachcombing, and that includes interesting rocks as well as shells.  Let’s just say that I couldn’t resist some things, and it made my heavy camera bag much heavier as we slogged through the mud and scrambled up and down the trail.  We read reports of wolf sightings here, but we didn’t see any.

While I was photographing some of the little shore birds (dunlin, whimbrel and plovers) Jim called my attention to an otter that popped up from behind the dune and scampered down to the ocean.  20140514 7121 otter on the beach RESIZE

20140514 7127 otter running RESIZEWe came back to the beach the next day and enjoyed a picnic lunch, and we spent some more time photographing the shore birds as well as some macro subjects in the forest.  We saw several eagles soaring, and a mink in the woods.20140515 7193 sandpiper RESIZE

We had an odd thing happen that had us concerned at first.  We left our dinghy tied up to the Institute’s dock near the sign saying that visitors were welcome.  When we got back several hours later it looked like our dinghy had been ransacked – there were things taken out of the under-seat bag, and the life jacket and shammy tucked between the seat and the fuel tank had been taken out.  The boat was other wise clean and neat so it couldn’t have been otters.  Otters leave a horrible mess – nature’s equivalent of a frat party.  There was no one around to ask, so we wondered if maybe someone from the Institute was checking out our dinghy, and it made us feel a little creepy.
The next day we tied the dink up and went ashore, and when we returned we found a few things laying on the deck, but the boat was otherwise clean.  Jim found someone to ask about it, and they told us it was a raven.  Apparently the local ravens know that boats might have fish or food, and they boldly go looking for things, getting into bags and coolers.  Mystery solved!20140514 7091 raven RESIZE