Port Clements and the chopped down Golden Spruce!

 

Sea Level II has been in Masset for a few days now and will be here for a few more.

Daybreak has taken some guests out fishing nearby and Karen Fisher has joined us on Sea Level II.

As the possession limits for different types of salmon and halibut are quite low we don’t want to do our fishing too early and not be able to fish down the west side of Haida Gwaii. The guests aboard Daybreak will be flying home with their catch which resets their possession limits.

Daybreak will be doing a crew change on Friday, July 7 after which we will start heading west towards Langara Island and down the west coast of Haida Gwaii.

So, Kim, Karen and I have stayed in town and have been exploring the north island (Graham Island) in a car we have rented.

Yesterday we went to a town south of Masset called Port Clements which was quite delightful.

Port Clements borders a large bay internal to Graham Island that is connected to the ocean via Masset Sound. It’s roots are fishing and logging and they have built a very nice museum that highlights their heritage.

Just outside of Port Clements is a trail that leads to the site where a very unique Golden Spruce tree used to be.

In 1997 a disgruntled inhabitant went out to this unique tree and cut it down which, as you can imagine, created a huge uproar with everyone especially the indigenous people in the area. They have since grafted seedlings to the remnants of the old tree and are growing new seedlings which they have planted in various protected locations so the tree will be preserved.

The walk in to the site where the golden Spruce tree was located is through an old growth forest and the trees there are absolutely massive. I’ve attached some photographs with Kim and/or Karen in them for scale so you can see how large they are.

One tree in particular stood out in that viewed from one direction it looked just like a normal large tree but when viewed from a vantage point 90° to that you can see how inclined the tree is.

It looks to be 20° to 30° out of plumb and I can only imagine what kind of root structure it must have to keep it standing!

Below are some photos of our hike to the Golden Spruce and the Museum in Port Clements

                                        

....and a video of the outside display portion of the museum at Port Clements including a Russian sonar bouy that broke free from it's tow line and washed ashore nearby!

So, cruising in remote locations isn’t always golden sunsets and killer whale sightings!

 

As we were approaching Port McNeill the engine was idling roughly as we pulled to the dock. Usually when a diesel engine is not running smoothly it usually relates to a fuel supply problem. I went into the engine room and switched to the alternate main fuel filter and that seemed to fix the problem.

After leaving Port McNeill the engine ran fine underway but each time we came back to an idle the engine would surge.

As we came into an abandoned cannery dock, Butedale, (which by the way is about 100 miles from the nearest significant town….ugh!) the engine was, again, running roughly at idle and then would not restart when it was shut off!

Here's where we were.

Crap!

Besides the fuel filter I switched on the wall of the engine room there are two on-engine filters which I thought must be the problem even though they had been installed less than 100 hours ago.

I changed those filters but the engine would still not start.

I then thought I must have introduced air into the fuel system by replacing the filters so began bleeding all of the fittings to ensure that fuel and not air was escaping.

After bleeding every fitting and finding fuel at each one I was pretty sure I didn’t have any remaining air in the system.

But still the engine wouldn’t start!

Shit!

All through this process every time I tried to start the engine the engine control panel did not indicate any errors or warnings.

Finally on the last start of the day an error message popped up on the control panel which gave me something to work with. 

I looked up the error message on the engine manual and it indicated that I had a high fuel pressure problem. I then went down to the engine and looked at the fuel pressure sensor, unplugged it and cleaned the contacts, and then plugged it back together.

Voilà!

The engine started right away and idled smoothly!

Below is a picture of the engine control panel indicating the problem. Not a comforting thing to see.

 

 

 

 

The next morning we got underway and the engine has been running perfectly since.

So…… It isn’t always golden sunsets and killer whale sightings!

Sometimes you have to deal with things that are a little sphincter tightening.

 

 

To end this blog post on a happy note here is a photograph of the marina in Masset that we are currently at taken at 2:45 AM (not by me but a friend on our buddy boat who couldn't sleep) just as the sun was starting to come up.

So, while not a sunset picture, it is pretty nice sunrise picture.

 

We left Vancouver on Saturday, June 10, overnited in Secret Cove and enjoyed a fabulous evening with John and Nancy at their stunning home at Red Roofs ....

Fast forward to Father's Day and we are now impatiently sitting in Port McNeil, waiting for a good weather window to cross the appropriately named, Cape Caution.

There have been 6-8 foot swells come from the west that are closely spaced (7-10 seconds) that would hit us on our port side which can be uncomfortable.

Tuesday looks better with 4 foot swells at 7-8 seconds so we’ll get up early and make the dash across. From there to Prince Rupert we are pretty well in protected waters (Inside Passage) so we don’t have to worry so much about what waves the ocean is generating.

We’ll run every day and should get in to Prince Rupert on Saturday where we’ll meet up with the Fishers aboard Daybreak.

They are bringing their boat down from Wrangell, Alaska having run it up there earlier this spring.

Our plan is to stay two nights there and then make the run to Masset on the north end of Haida Gwaii but we’ll see what Mother Nature has to say about that plan.

One of our stops en route to Pt McNeill was the Blind Channel Resort in the Broughtons which has been owned and run by the Richter family since 1970.

It is charming spot with the beautiful CEDAR POST Restaurant, where we enjoyed a fabulous dinner - complete with a bottle of Veuve (compliments of our kids who had arranged that very special surprise for us).

                     

  There is a short hike into the woods behind the resort, to a gigantic cedar tree ...

The trip has been good so far.

The boat is running well and the weather has been decent although not very warm. 

There is always interesting things happening along these waterways like this log-dumping barge full of logs and this fish processing plant being towed up to Alaska to process this summers catch.

While heading north, we saw this beautiful 1959 trawler called CURVE OF TIME.   For decades, she has travelled both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, then became an environmental awareness vessel for Greenpeace.  She has more recently been converted to an ecotourism vessel which runs tours up our Pacific West Coast and up into Alaska ... all yours for $750 per day per person!!!

Elfin Cove .... a beautiful little community with a few year round residents, a number of summer only residents and a "fishing resort".  Being early in the season, we were lucky enough to find dock space and enjoyed a wander around on the extensive boardwalk.

(the HOT LINE to ....???)

 

Clevelands joined us for a week (Wrangle to Sitka) ....

We got to enjoy many pot luck meals together with Piredmus and Daybreak before taking Cam and Nancy into Sitka for their return flight. 

We thoroughly enjoyed Beautiful Sitka ... 

This is a (crazy) restaurant in the process of being opened.  The owner was quite a character .... not sure if it will EVER open ... he has been at it for years !!??

Sunset off the cockpit, in the marina ....

The very important "provisioning"  ... way to go Nanc !!!

There is a bear sanctuary in Sitka, started by a fellow who got tired of the orphaned cubs being shot after loosing their mamas.  It is (or was) illegal to rehabilitate bears so the only way to save them is to raise them in an enclosed habitat.  The sanctuary does its best to emulate a bear's natural environment.

 

Working our way north .....

 

                                The farther north we got, the more dramatic the scenery ....

Piredmus underway.....

Daybreak at anchor ....

Saw more than a few of these big girls !!

For sale or Fire sale ???

😉

Daybreak and Sea Level docked at Warm Springs Cove  ....