I am now safely stowed at Scarlett Point Lightstation, 25 kilometres north of Port Hardy. Coming in on the Coast Guard lifeboat we spotted humpbacks off the port bow. Me, standing on the flybridge, and thinking how I need to knit a new toque quick as my left ear is tingling with the cold below my ballcap. Yesterday, I sunburned my left arm driving the 385 kilometres from Nanaimo to Port Hardy. It was humid and 30 C there, but here? This is wool country. White clouds, like layered cotton batten, obscure the horizon. Rock cedar islands shifting in varying shades of green and grey that a thesaurus can't explain. No wonder the Coast Guard paints everything red and white.
We’d hadn’t yet reached the station when the captain brought the lifeboat to a dead stop. A small grey craft was making its way towards us from port side.
“We’ve got a huge wake,” he explained, “and that’s your ride.” My ride? And so, there in the middle of the channel, Laury and I, exchanged rides--she with her two small bags and me with gear for a month.
After having just completed my first marine weather report with the help of Ivan, I am sitting down this afternoon to read Instructions for Marine Local Weather Observations.
Email is working but I've yet to find my phone service, so if I don't call or message you, that's why.
Email is working but I've yet to find my phone service, so if I don't call or message you, that's why.
Day 1 @ Scarlett Point
1 comment:
Hi Wendy,
Good to hear you made it safe and sound. Looks like stunning weather even if cold. Interesting that you ran into some humpbacks. I have a picture of my dad (now 80) as a young boy standing on the floating carcass of a humpback in Bamfield. I assume the whale was captured but those were different times.
Take care, Johnna
Post a Comment