Archive for May, 2012

Posted on May 31, 2012 - by Nadia

Shelter Point soothes the soul

 

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Shelter Point Park, Gillies Bay, Texada Island

The nutritional value of enthusiasm isn’t on the food pyramid (or octagon, or whatever it is now,) but if it were, the stuff being served up at the concession stand at Shelter Point Park would be a protein shake and then some. George kept call me Josie and Marie kept correcting her and either way was fine with me. The genuine enthusiasm these two women had for life in general, and my expedition in particular, was uplifting and infectious. When Kevin and Kelly came in for dinner, they too, caught Josie fever and I caught a real affection for this industrious island.

“This is the view from work,” Marie said, waving across the broad Straight of Georgia at Mount Washington, glistening under last night’s snow, on Vancouver Island. “This is the kind of place you can’t wait to get away from when you’re growing up. But once you leave, you can’t wait to come back,” she said.

She spent a serendipitous year in Thailand thanks to Rotary International, and is scheming for ways to indulge that travel bug while she figures out her next career or school move. Meanwhile, the concession stand with the amazing view seems and unlikely crossroad for locals and travels, but it puts her in position to live up to Texada’s unofficial small-town motto: If you haven’t heard a good rumor by 10 a.m., start one.

Kelly had a similar story. He moved away for years, then came back to be near his father after his mom died. Now he’s busier than he can handle as a mechanic on an island loaded with machines and things with engines that break. He’s got plans to buy a nice power boat to take his father fishing in comfort.

Such good cheer – and a scorching hot park shower – made up for yesterday’s generally sodden situation. Today started out with a soaking downpour, which makes packing a slick mess. Everything goes in the boat wet and comes out wet. Between me and my gear, the smell, well, is best left undiscussed. The wind that stopped my progress yesterday sped me along today. The waves never got as big but I had nice following seas that tested my already sore triceps as I had to draw to the left all day to correct for a push to the right.

Tomorrow, I head to – or toward – Powell River. Kelly recommends skipping it and cutting the corner north to a couple of islands. It sounds good but I don’t have notes on camping at the nearest island and pushing for the very attractive second island might stretch my endurance. We’ll see what the weather brings, I have about 10 miles of cliffy coastline before I have to make up my mind.

Whatever I do, after tomorrow, or the day after that, I will lose cell service for the next 10 days to two weeks. The Spot satellite messenger should continue to send a daily update. I’ll be better about leaving it on for its full cycle, a couple of people said they missed yesterdays send. You can see where I am at the end of each day by looking here.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0r235Ba5xkaicrSzJ0TTEWSFVzrRIRc4A.

My route ahead will take me to places beyond the end of the road. Which happens to be at a town called Lund, and I might be able to post one more update from there tomorrow. It will take me into the Desolation Sound area. So called because Vancouver found its dense forests, high peaks, persistently wet  weather and tight, winding waterways depressing. Kelly says I’ll like it, and I think he might be right. I find the huge water I’ve been on the last few days a bit impersonal. Challenges ahead do include taking enough food and carrying and finding enough water. Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve got a handle on those things, but I will resupply a bit at Lund and a couple of other outposts along the way.

Before I go, though, a word from my guest authors:

Hello. We are Nadia’s hands. We take a lot of punishment out here and yet she still expects us to type at the end of the day. This work is crazy. The pay is lousy, health benefits basically amount to the occasional bandage, and while people say the left of us doesn’t know what the right is doing, what they don’t know is the right is waiting for the left to lead. What we mean is that we are healing up, even though we look ugly. We’ll see how we’re doing when next we blog.

(I’m having trouble loading photos. If you don’t see any, it’s not because I’m not taking them. I’ll get that sorted out  in Port Hardy.)

Posted on May 30, 2012 - by Nadia

Strait of Georgia: Canadian Air Force calling, mind if we come over?

 

May 30

Lasqueti Island, Strait of Georgia

That awkward, halting voice on the VHF radio put the cherry on it this morning: The Whiskey Gulf military range was active today. I was camped on the edge of a chain of little islands strewn just a mile or so off the coast of Vancouver near Nooscum Bay. Most of them were part of some Whiskey-something military range. I could never quite tell when the VHF voice said it what exactly the place was called.

I passed the night on Southy Island, across from the main military island. Southy was a very cute island, speckled with oyster shells and wild roses, contoured with scrub oak and hard, gray cliffs. I made the nine miles from Newcastle Island easily once the winds died, but waiting for an evening departure always makes me edgy; I never truly trust that the wind will die and the wait will be worthwhile. I hauled my boat high up into the hard, edgy rocks, pulling it over a road I made with wet logs. I consulted my tide notes, and hauled some more. The tide was due in at something over 14 feet. I’d arrived at about 7-foot. I tied my boat with two lines, though it was tough to find an anchor that seemed worthy. The next morning it was clear I had not hauled high enough, and I had hauled high. My boat rest at least a foot higher than I’d left it. The idea of it floating alone in the middle of the night makes me catch my breath.

At 5 a.m. the VHF woman gave the news. The military range was active, starting at 7. It meant I would have to detour around the islands, not slip through them, an option which had looked very attractive the night before. All week the range had been inactive. They felt the need to practice for war right now?

I slid up the coast before cutting the corner and made Ballenas Islands by 8:15. A bot over four miles in an hour. That’s about what I paddle.  A fisherman gestured frantically. I think he was trying to tell me about the military exercise. I waved my radio at him, hoping he would just call and tell me, but he left me guessing.

I headed into the Straight of Georgia proper now, wind already rising. The waves built as I set my own laser-like sites on an island 5.4 miles straight ahead. At that distance, a foreshortening happens and for a very, very long time it seems you are almost there. You are not. You are not there until you are actually there, and even then, there may be no sheltering bay. In this case, there was not.

I caught my breath and turned head into the wind. The boat rides well in the waves but it demands attention as it bucks up one side and slams down into the trough. I picked points of reference on the long shoreline of Losqueti Island, straining to make headway. I made my way to the point and around it, shifting so the waves broke on my shoulder

Now the bombers started flying low overhead, using the straight I was working as their approach. This did not help me exude cool confidence to the sea. I felt them before I heard them, and as it was impossible to look up, I couldn’t see them until they were well past. They don’t seem to have bombed anything.

I cleared a tiny point. There was a cove. Things calmed down. But the beach was rocky and steep and the waves broke with too much force. I kept on, around the next small point. Another cove. This one a calm slot literally paves in oysters. I coasted in, but saw this was to be a temporary stop. This slot clearly flooded and joined the other side at high tide, and the tide was rising. I wrapped up in a tarp against the wind and ate an entire sleeve of Date Newtons (no, not as moist as fig,) and leftover quinoa from last night. Tall stalks of pink flowers mixed with a gnarled cedar forest and lawn-like grass. I startled a bunch of feral sheep, cute, undocked tails flying. I napped. Then it was time. I floated into the next cove and around a point where the power of the windblown day still held sway. My goal was to get around Young Point and into Sabine Channel, where things were likely calmer. I had come something like 19 miles but hoped to make another four. It was not to be. I rock gardened my way into the next cove, determined to wait out the wind and go for my miles. It was 2. I dried out the tent, wrapped in my tarp and started reading Annie Dillard’s amazing novel about settlers in Bellingham. I waited. I trusted that the wind would die. And as the tide fell, I pushed off back into the cove. The wind had faded, but not gone. It was not so choppy, the whitecaps had let up, but the rollers were six feet or so and threatening to break. I could see the point I wanted to get around, and I wasn’t going to go there. I paddled about 400 yards, turned into a cove with a long shell beach and coasted into my final stopping place. And now, just as it was when I woke up this morning, it is pouring rain, but I am off the water, fed and plan on an early start to beat the winds tomorrow, because really, you can’t trust that they’ll die in the afternoon.

Posted on May 29, 2012 - by Nadia

Perma-rest of the Thermarest

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Nanaimo, Vancouver Island

Look here to see a map of my location for the last week.

I finally put down the Thermarest insurrection, but it was a battle. It started, well, it started in 1979 when I bought my Thermarest at The Wooden Nickel. After that quarter century of service, the classic sleep mat started sagging a bit in the morning on this trip. It wasn’t flat. But it wasn’t firm. But really, that describes so many of us in the mornings these days, so I didn’t complain. But the night of the crunching raccoon the mat seemed to have gained air inside its dry bag. The ensuing struggle to extract the mat was epic and Pyrrhic. I got the bag out, but it no longer held much air by morning. Get new mat was added to the resupply list of things to do in Nanaimo.

 

So it was that I met Bernie, the gregarious bus driver. Nevermind that Route 3 was the slow tour of north Nanaimo, Bernie got me through the sprawl. First to one recommended camping store, then the next, and finally, in an awkward dash from the bus stop to the Outfitters Warehouse at 5:56 p.m., I scored a new mat with the phrase: “You are NOT closed, I have four minutes and I know what I want.” It had been four hours of bussing.

Bernie, Steve the campground caretaker and Rich (I believe,) the driver of the very, very cute ferry all put the nice in Canadian Nice and made up for the guy at the sports store (We’re closed,) and the very bad coffee.

Boom! A cannon just fired off the bluff above the harbor at Nanaimo. It is tourist season. The waterfront mall IS pleasant and does have some services, despite what the shaggy man living on the hard-loved sailboat said. If it is tourist season, it is tourists come to what is still a blue collar working town. Nanaimo was  Founded on coal mining and the ability of the Hudson Bay Company to anchor down almost any outpost. It went on to host rock quarries that produced the limestone doric pillars for the courthouse in San Francisco, and the mill stones that ground pulp for paper at papermills across Canada and the US. I’d love to know if Missoula ever had a millstone from Newcastle Island.

I arrived in Nanaimo at 11 yesterday morning after a well-timed coast on the tail end of the flood tide through Dodds Narrows. Dodds is even narrower than Deception Pass, and can work itself into a full furry at full-tide.  There is a workaround, but it is longer and since the slack was with me I left early and enjoyed the wild limestone concretions of the island shore I followed.

I love concretions, the collections of impurities that work themselves out of limestone. Usually, they collect at the bottom like so many cannonballs. But here, amid the cannonballs, were (I swear) glimpses of giant human bodies forcing themselves out of the rock – a rump here, a belly there. And where the limestone was not smooth, it was like lace or like the frozen force of a wave. Pretty cool.

Less interesting was industrial Nanaimo Harbor, though there were cowboys in little boats riding herd on breakaway logs corralled by the giant rafts of logs that were once trees. I’m sure they are really lumberjacks in those boats, but they drove the stubby little tubs like cutting horses. Past them, and the ferries, and the chaos, I found the meticulous Newcastle Island Park, which I called home for the night and too long into today as the Thermarest Rebellion spilled into Tuesday as I waited for Post Canada to open to send the mutineer home in hope of sending it back for repair or replacement, along with a large handful of stuff in an effort to clear room in the boat for more food.

The truth is, I might be dragging my feet.  Tomorrow I start four days of crossing the Straight of George to Powell River. It consists of an 18+ mile day that includes a five-mile open water crossing; a day of island hopping up Texada Island’s cliffed out West coast; same thing, no islands; A 20-mile day with a 5-mile crossing to Powell River. It will rain the next couple of days, but with early starts, I should be able to make calm crossings and avoid the wrath of the force whose name shall not be spoken. I’ll check in again from Powell River. (Oh, and sorry about the photos. I’ll try to fix the size when I get consistent wireless with a plug nearby.)

Posted on May 27, 2012 - by Nadia

Listen to the kelp

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Wallace Island., British Columbia

Kelp is the telltale of the sea. The long ribbons, unfurled lace or bullwhip tails stream in the direction of the current. Even when the wind, eye or logic say otherwise, the kelp does not lie.  After an early morning start while the day was calm, the kelp of the afternoon made it clear to me that the phrase “Everything’s going my way” comes from sailors. Wind was at my back, tide (both ebb and flood, go figure) were going my direction. After a brief stop at the site I had intended to camp, I pushed on into a clear blue afternoon and made something in the neighborhood of 24 miles.

Wallace Island is a BC Marine camp with lots of campsites and campers but I found the more remote Cabin Bay empty and gorgeous: Carpeted with walls of moss and an island annex that juts out into the Trincomali Channel. About a mile wide, with an even tempered current, the Trincomali looks like the Hudson River, but without any people.

Extremely high tides kept me scampering around as I let the tide bring my boat as close as I could before I hoisted it into a nest of huge drift logs for the night.

Yesterday was the day of the varmint. I saw least a half dozen raccoons fishing as I went by; one giant raccoon brawl and at least two mink. The raccoon fight was brutal. They tumbled out of a gap in the rocks, locked together and snarling and screaming. When one fell or jumped into the water to get away, the other dove right on top of it and kept fighting. I thought they both would drown. Then they got out and it carried on. I could hear kits mewing in the rocks. Domestic violence, apparently. As I approached my campsite, I saw another raccoon, this one looking a bit shabby, blind in one eye and soaking wet. It took one look at me and loped in the direction of camp. Oh, boy, it thought. Peanut butter and almonds for dinner. I hung my food and kept a tidy camp. As I nestled into my sleeping bag, I hard the hard crunch, crunch, crunch of someone eating pretzels. I got up and spotted a raccoon, digging up clams or crabs in the shallow water, crunching through their shell. My human food stash went unmolested.

The breeze this morning is dying down, but I’m taking a late start and hoping for a calm and similarly blessed afternoon. I am two days out from Nanaimo and camping is a bit limited so today will be short, staging for an early push to town tomorrow.

Posted on May 25, 2012 - by Nadia

The best tales are told on full stomachs

Friday, May 25, 2012

Bedwell Harbor, South Pender Is., British Columbia

I met a man of 10,000 stories and a generous impulse who fed me no less than eight eggs, eight sausages, three bagels and a bowl of clam chowder. Dennis Connor reminded me of one lesson the bull-headed Taurus in me sometimes forgets: If you don’t stop and listen you don’t get to hear the stories.

 

Dennis is a talker with a lot to talk about. His synopsis of events leading up to his final evacuation, on a stretcher, from Vietnam, was among the rawest account of the war I have ever heard. He said he spent the next 20 years “being mad at the world,” but it took him to Alaska as skipper of a crabbing boat, India as an engineer to install the nation’s first roller coaster and Africa, Zaire, I think, to install a major electrical transmission line. Lots of jobs that kept him away from his wife and kids but his stories of them were full of love. She died 20 years ago but he talked about her as though she’d just left. Somewhere in there is the explanation for why he loads up his custom-rigged inflatable Zodiak and takes to the San Juan Islands, living in deluxe camps for a couple of weeks here and there, taking gorgeous photos along the way, feeding strangers who pull up to the adjacent site, looking gaunt.

I left Anacortes on a windy Wednesday morning that forced me to turn a two mile crossing into four or five as I had gain some purchase on the wind in order to ferry across between three separate islands. After doing one three mile detour, I tried to shortcut another, thinking the wind at my back would counter the tidal current coming at me. That was not the case, or at least not enough, and I had to work hard to avoid being swept back into Rosario Straight and wherever the ebb tide would take me. Lesson: Shorter is often not easier and wind does not trump tide in a kayak. So I was pretty pooped when I reached my Strawberry Island (my third Strawberry Island of the trip.) I napped, ate, and watched the tidal currents collide into whirls and standing waves as I waited for the slack tide that would allow me to cross. Indian paintbrush, and lots of dainty pale pink bell flowers decorated the grassy bluff and made a perfect pillow even as a light rain fell. The mile or so crossing was uneventful and the obvious rip tide against my target shore gave me good lessons in how to find the calm in the nooks and crannies of the coast.

Odlin Park hosts one of the coolest Eagle Scout projects I have ever seen. A scout named Corwin Perren had installed a solar charging station capable of charging an iPhone or GPS using  USB chord or auto charger. I didn’t have anything to charge, but if I had – in a week or two I will – I would have been singing Corwin’s praises, so I’ll sing them now.

Navigation became increasingly tricky as I jumped from Lopez to Shaw islands and into the chain known as the Wasp Islands. My maps lack much detail, many islands don’t appear at all, and my GPS is only marginally helpful in the San Juans. It will be more useful now that I’m in Canada as I have full topo maps loaded with my route.

An ebb tide slowed my progress and I hardly had time to wolf down the leftovers from last night’s quinoa and chili dinner before heading across Presidents Channel to Spieden Island. A sailor wandered by as I ate and warned me against counting on Spieden for much shelter from the currents. So many large passages come together at the series of long, skinny islands that they are filled with tidal rips and whirling currents. He suggested an alternative route, outside the stack of long skinny islands. So it was that after an hour of concerted crossing, passing through whirls and boils gentled by the slack tide, I reached the easternmost point of Johns Island just as the tides turned in earnest. I watched as a thin black line of water rose up and closed my route around the point with a line of standing waves and churning current. Cutting inside, I scared a half dozen young harbor seals into the water who appeared to be basking on the bank of a river. A river, because water poured over an invisible ledge, forming a waterfall, about two feet high, from the ocean to the ocean, creating an obvious stream that ran perpendicular to my path. I ferried across it, glad for every river I’ve ever boated. I continued river kayaking through a turbulent narrow and popped into a sea the color of an old Coke bottle and just as smooth. But I was done. The next two and a half hours were a crawl and I reached Prevost Harbor, Dennis and his smorgasbord, sore and tires, with a fresh batch of blisters to add to the ones I already had.

This morning, Dennis did me one more favor. By the time I was up and camp torn down, not only was breakfast on but he had this observation: A strong northwind was blowing straight into camp. As I needed to go due north to check into customs and continue on, I had two choices: stay put and gamble that the afternoon would improve for the 4.5 mile crossing of Boundary Passage, or let him ferry me across. We ate, the wind rose. We tied the kayak to the pontoon of his Zephyr and we crossed the steep chop of the channel. With every lunge and crash I thought my boat would fall apart. But it weathered it well.

So it is that I am now decamped in the sheltered bay of a nature preserve with a luxury hotel – Poet’s Cove — across the way. Fletcher and Kristy just arrived in a tiny skiff from Seattle and told me the hotel lets kayakers use the hot tub and showers for just $5. You bet I’m going to shower in the shirt I’ve paddled in every day. Plus, I can fill my dromedary with fresh water and maybe even charge my camera. Roughing it is getting easier all the time. But I know I can’t get used to that. Still, it’s nice to find a little prize mixed in with the peanuts and popcorn of life’s lessons.

 

I cannot quite figure out how to work blogging into a regular day of travel. I’m so tired after setting up camp, that I can barely make dinner and confirm the next day’s route. So, for now, my entries might be sporadic and a bit longer than I’d like. Nor have a figured out how to get photos of sea life, but I will.

Betsy, I have seen lots and lots of harbor seals. With their haunting black eyes, they clearly come from the distant past to speak for our ancestors. The harbor porpoises are our mothers. They watch, but keep their distance. We are old now. There are eagles everywhere, leading me along, sometimes reminding me to think twice, other times to redouble my efforts. The starfish are amazing. Mostly huge and purple. And I saw something attached to a rock that looked like a bright red, football-sized sow bug. My cursory critter identification card is no help. I’ll do a better job of describing the sights and sounds as my (if my, and oh, please let it,) adrenaline settles down and I can just paddle.

 

Thanks for reading.

Posted on May 22, 2012 - by Nadia

An auspicious start, or, how Rocko solved the salami situation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3, Anacortes, Wash., 

In teams of six, women raced the impossibly slender native-style canoes around a course in Penn Cove. It was the annual Water Festival at Coupeville, Wash., and the activity felt auspicious. I love canoes and canoe racing and my heart soared to see these women, mostly coastal Native American and First Nation’s people, picking up a skill prized by their great grandparents. I would set out after my great grandmother from this very spot, the next morning.

The next day offered two lessons: Just because Costco sells oatmeal in 54-packet boxes does not mean it all has to make the journey. And always, always, close the tailgate and glass before moving the car. Thank you, Isuzu, for that craptastic design of your rear window. Thank you Michael and Mark for earning your shattered-glass scout badges without complaint. We crammed a substantial amount of oatmeal and other life essentials – two tents, mess kit, Jolly Ranchers – into the boat, held a hilarious photo shoot and waited for a tide that never came in.

Once launched, I warmed up on the relatively tame Penn Cove crossing, but the wind had risen as we had waited and the big leaps across Oak and Crescent Harbor were dotted with whitecaps. It was an excellent refresher on leaning into side waves. The boat handled absolutely great and when I rounded Strawberry Point in the lee of Comano Island the seas settled to glass and it was an easy cruise to Deception Pass State Park, where I camped for the night.

The tide seemed low when I pulled in, and it only got lower overnight. I don’t understand the tides at Deception Pass, but as my concern was the current there, I accepted my fate and loaded my boat across 50 yards of tidal mud, then dragged it using three wet logs in rotation the extra 10 yards into the water, which got further away every minute. Luckily, it was raining so the logs were nice and slick.

Deception Pass, at the north end of Whidbey Island, is a notorious tidal bottleneck. A huge body of water attempts to clear the narrow pass with each ebb tide, creating whirlpools and rapids that challenge even big power boats. Flood is just as bad. For kayaks, there is a 15-minute opportunity at slack tide to slip through the quarter-mile wide canyon. Slack was at 10:29, I had at most a 30-minute paddle to get to the harbor outside the pass and wait.

“Rocko! No!” The belated holler of Rocko’s owner announced the solution to my grizzly bait problem. I had had the brilliant notion that a two-foot long salami was the perfect sea faring food. This proved not to be the case. It had to be strapped to the back of the kayak and by the time I reached camp, the bungy had worn a groove in the meat. It was gross and wet and I hung it far from my tent. Now, Rocko had it in his teeth, solving the problem of how to get rid of a giant salami.

Introductions made, the owner of Rocko became invested in my launching. Her natural tendency being to walk the dog by letting him loose on the tidal flat while she stays in the car and smokes, she insisted that I not launch. It was windy and pushy, but I had looked and it calmed down around the corner 100 yards away. I was going. Then she insisted I had to be gone by 8:30 as the tide was shifting. That may have been, but I was concerned with current in the pass, not tide in the channel – though related, they are not, at this spot, strictly correlated. She stepped out of the car and screamed across the wind: IT IS 8:30 RIGHT NOW! YOU HAVE TO GO! Nevermind that she seemed to be one of those people who set their clocks 10 minutes fast, her intentions were good and certainly added a sense of urgency to my racing across the mud flats, dragging the boat over logs. I got launched and around the bend and all was calm. It was 8:45. I had over an hour to sit and watch big power boats idle as they, too, waited for the currents to ease so they could dash through Deception Pass.

Thanks to the wake of a tourist boat that blasted through the pass, I got to practice my rock gardening on the island at the mouth of the pass. I’m sorry to the barnacles that absorbed my frantic braces. Other than that and my racing heart, the actual paddle between the steep canyon walls was placid and beautiful.

On the other side, the wind was up and I thought about stopping for the night in several places but the presence of fighter jets screaming overhead from Whidbey AFB tipped the scale in the direction of moving on. By 2 p.m. or so, I was at Washington Park, a gorgeous boat ramp and campground about five miles shy of Anacortes.

I scrambled to set up both tents as it had rained all day but I landed in a lull. There had been small craft warnings since noon and the forecast called for the same with building winds the next day. I had come about 30 miles in my first two days and my elbow announced that was a bit hot of a start. I planned a layover day to let the weather pass and get my logistics in order.

I have not yet figured out how to eat on this trip. Or even how to protect my food. Yesterday, a raven knocked my peanut butter off a table, cracking its side, creating a mess. I bagged it, but to the nose of a midnight raider, that bag was a trifle. I awoke to raccoons fighting over my peanut butter outside the storage tent. So what there are no bears here. Three a.m. found me in my jammies in the rain, tossing a long line over a slim branch in the rain and hoisting two drybags worth of food out of critter reach at least.  I’ll dial it in, but for now, I just finished a three egg hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, ham and pancake breakfast and am ready to blog.

As energy – both mine and the computer’s – is a concern, I won’t be posting as frequently as I did on the bike trip. I’ll add photos as I get the camera up and running (I forgot to bring it to town today.)

Thanks for following. As I get going, I’ll try to be more newsy and less me, but for now, every wrinkle has a new lesson I need to learn.

URL for seeing where I am at the end of each day: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0r235Ba5xkaicrSzJ0TTEWSFVzrRIRc4A.

Posted on May 20, 2012 - by Nadia

2012 adventure starts in city of sin and splendor

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Port Townsend

Port Townsend was a port city of sin and splendor when Josephine “Josie” Keys White and her husband Elmer John White lived here in 1897 and 1898. Situated at the mouth of Puget Sound, it was a place for sailors to get drunk and captains to get new crews. EJ was a correspondent for Associated Press here when he reported on the arrival of gold from the Klondike in 1896. And it was over that winter that Elmer John and Josie decided that they, too, would follow the call of adventure. In April of 1898, EJ boarded a steamboat for Skagway, Alaska, and a job at the Skagway News. Josie followed, toddler in tow, in June.

So it is that tomorrow, I will load my kayak and follow in their weathered wake. The Inside Passage has spoken to me since I watched it slip by from the rail of an Alaskan Marine Highway Ferry when I was a sophomore in high school. I’ve paddled it a bit since and its layers of islands and curved passages has always called to me: Look around the next bend, and the next …

This trip continues my 2010 bicycle trip from Josie’s parents’ homestead in Kenton, Okla., to Sumner, Wash., where she went to visit her sister and ended up marrying EJ White.

While I did not party like a sailor in PT, I am as tired as one who had been crimped. I hope to come back and explain what rough and tumble towns Josied moved to with EJ. But for now, I have an adventure to start in the morning.

Thanks for tuning in.