Goodbye Haida Gwaii

 Morning Commute

 Crows chatting in front of Queen Bee Cafe

After the rain Sandspit

   

 Queen Charlotte City   Farmer's Market

We decided that yes, it would be fine to spend some winter months in Haida Gwaii either in Queen Charlotte Village (officially it is now a village and not the historic Queen Charlotte City…it has a lot less than 1000 residents) or the sleepy community of Sandspit, if you really want some alone time, solitary beach walks and more sun than QC village. QC is a friendly social place with community activities and amenities not found in Sandspit. So maybe one day this will be our winter vacation destination.

We left Sandspit at 2am to do the dreaded Hectare Strait crossing. The idea was to take advantage of favourable tide and to get across before an unfavourable wind. We bucked across the bar, an  annoying long long stretch of sand and shallow water than guards the entrance to Skidegate Channel. The swells were low and minimal once we got into deeper water.

The trip across was uneventful except for the massive apricot- hued moon that set around 4 am, sinking behind the San Cristobal Mountains of Haida Gwaii.  We had returned to the night sky, milky way and constellations that for us signalled the arrival of fall. The moonset gave us something to watch until sunrise. That, and the mysterious bright light of a boat we could not find on radar, a ghostship. Boris did some adjustments and poof, there it was, about 6 miles away. Other than that we were all alone.

We arrived at Larson Harbour 11 hours later, the same location as our take off point for the islands. The last time we were there the entrance had been a seething surging  kelp infested cauldron. This time it was a friendly flat sunny welcomed anchorage. The wind never materialized. Later we spent a couple hours in the dinghy touring the protected lagoons surrounding Larson, a wild and beautiful place.

ys