We awoke to a cool, overcast, but fog-free morning and rose at about 9:30 am to share Morning Prayer after breakfast. Two hours later we raised Braesail’s anchor with no difficulty and were soon motoring out of the beautiful cove next to Mound Island and heading toward the nearby First Nations village of New Vancouver, where a new dock and a long house were dedicated in 2003. We were able to see some well-kept buildings among which people were walking, the breakwater, the dock and float at which some fishing craft were moored, and two totem poles.
We continued to motor among a vast array of islands in a wide variety of sizes and shapes and were soon viewing the ruins of a once-thriving First Nations settlement on Village Island. Government resettlement activity caused the Kwakwaka’wakw village to be abandoned about 50 years ago, and the pilings near the shore, the houses, the totem poles, and the other structures have been crumbling away and are being reclaimed by the forest. We could see some white-shell midden beaches, and could imagine that life was very rich for the people living in the area over the centuries before the destructive interference of Europeans. We’d read about a few First Nations folk who still reside in the area and give tours and talks about the history and culture of the place, but we found it very sad and not a place where we wanted to stop.
I took a turn at the helm as we motored on to Potts Lagoon, reached via some interesting twists and turns around rocks and islands. On the way, we saw a barge being pulled by a tugboat, and on the barge was a sizeable house! I’ve seen boat houses and houseboats, but never before a house ON a boat! Walt navigated during the final portion of our journey, and we quickly located a good anchoring spot a fair distance from shore and from the two other boats already resting at anchor. Several colorful float-homes could be seen across the lagoon,
and a somewhat noisy logging operation was in full swing behind a nearby island. By about 2:30 pm we were settled for the day, and, having discovered that we had I tiny bit of connectivity, we spent some time catching up on e-mail and news. After a snack of apples and cherries, we both felt sleepy despite our late-rising, and so we spent the latter part of the quiet, soporific afternoon napping in the cozy aft cabin.
I cleaned the galley after a tasty soup-and- chips supper, Walt returned to some reading, and I wrote this blog entry as the setting sun suffused the skies and seas with a soft rose-petal pink. After a shower (several hours of motoring not only replenishes the house batteries but provides some hot water as well), it will be time to return to bed before a fairly long journey on Friday.
Braesail - A grand yacht in the Salish Sea 