Dara and her husband Mark’s daughter, Ohana, is 8 months
older than Ava. 4 other couples were in
the group, 2 of which had 2 children each on the trip, ages 4-8. Daddy and Mommy flew from CA to Seattle late
on the 2nd and stayed with Dara, Mark and Ohana in their lovely
home, spending a whirlwind day on the 3rd getting ready for the
trip. The group convened early on the
morning of the 4th to caravan to the BC Ferry at Tsawwassen, took
the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and drove south to the boat put-in at
Yellow Pt., 4 miles across the strait from Blackberry Pt. 5 of the adults paddled their own kayaks
across. The remaining 7 adults and the 6
kids made the crossing in the amazing umiak, the 30-foot-long wood and skin
seagoing canoe that this wonderful group of people collectively constructed
this past spring. One group member, Web,
attached a rowing rig to the umiak, which the men took turns on to provide most
of the power. The remaining adults who
were not holding babies paddled with canoe paddles.
We carried almost all of the water, food and gear we would
all need out to the island with us, and there was still a little bit of space
left in the umiak. It’s an incredible
watercraft. Laden down, it took us 2
hours to cross the strait on the 4th, and only an hour to cross back
on the 8th with a lightened load.
10-month-old Ava (we can’t believe she’s 10 months old! How time has flown!) didn’t seem to mind the
life jacket she borrowed from Ohana too much (Mommy and Daddy foolishly left
all of our life jackets at home in NJ).
Ava enjoyed playing with the laminated map of the islands in the boat
and leaning over the side of the umiak to watch the water and algae go by when
we crossed the strait. Douglas fir,
birch and madrone trees formed a dense forest, broken by occasional meadows in
full summer bloom, on the islands, all of which created a landscape of hazy
rolling green hills in front of distant snow-capped peaks. Biggest madrone trees we have every
seen. Glorious. Mommy bought a flower guide to BC on the
ferry and used it to identify several flowering shrubs in the understory.
The beach was composed of sand under a thick layer of wave-smoothed
shell fragments and pebbles. Ava
consumed an unknown but probably large quantity of all of the above. Several large tree-trunk-sized driftwood logs
dotted the beach and served as benches, clotheslines and gear storage
racks. The two families with the
youngest children (us and Dara and Mark) set up their respective tents just
behind the beach in a shaded clearing around the camp center. The other tents were spaced out south along
the forest-beach boundary.
The gear-hauling capacity of the umiak lends itself to
luxurious camping. Subsets of the group
were each responsible for a group dinner and a breakfast. Every adult on the trip is an experienced
outdoorsperson and a foodie, so we ate well.
We learned a lot about Dutch oven camp cooking on this trip. The 3 DO’s plus another camping oven device
produced pizza, brownies and Mexican lasagna. Web is a talented diver and caught and cooked
rock crabs for the group on each of the 3 full days we were on the island. Daddy went out with him one day and caught
two crabs. Web and the older kids also
showed us how to dig clams and collect oysters during low tide every
morning. We found that digging these
clams was more difficult than collecting them on the Jersey Shore. The kids were far more proficient at clam
gathering than we were. Another member
of the group, Omar, fished from both the umiak and a kayak and caught a huge
lingcod on the second day at camp and two beautiful kelp greenling on the third
day. The lingcod filets were broken into
pieces, battered and fried in butter, and the kelp greenling were grilled whole
on a grill over the campfire. Delicious
fish. Ava ate an impressive amount of
both of them. She also ate a few bites
of fried oyster. We also ate oysters raw
and grilled. Awesome.
We were pleased that our backpacking diapering strategy of
rinsing out fleece diapers and leaving them to dry in the sun adapted well to
ocean washing and driftwood drying.
The one ATV track “road” on Valdes Island runs in a valley
on the island below high sandstone cliffs behind Blackberry Pt.. We saw many bald eagles and turkey vulture
catching thermals above those cliffs, and on a walk along the road on the 4th
day, we saw a pair of peregrine falcons swooping and diving above them. On a walk on the road on the 3rd
day we met a Valdes Island resident on his ATV, and he recommended that we take
a side trail down to another point on the island, owned by First Nations, with
an abandoned First Nations settlement on it.
One of the houses, right on the beach, he said, has the biggest fig tree
in Canada in its yard. We found said
tree (no picture, unfortunately), and it certainly is impressive. It forms a dome. We couldn’t actually see the trunk through
the young shoots and low branches covered in blackberries under the main
canopy. Bald eagles, gulls, goldfinches,
and pigeon guillemots frequently flew past camp. More cliffs, laced with beautiful honeycomb
weathering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb_weathering),
rose from the water a few miles north of Blackberry Pt. Group members Omar and Tracey graciously lent
their kayaks to us for a paddle up to those cliffs on the second day we were
there while Dara watched over a napping Ava.
On our way back from the paddle we came upon a family of river otters
hunting at the base of the cliffs. They
inspected us for a few minutes before reatreating to their den under some large
boulders at the water’s edge.
Ava spent hours watching the other children, playing with
the plants and objects on the forest floor in camp and on the beach, and
playing in the tideline with her parents.
She loved playing with seaweed, eel grass and wet sand and splashing in
the water. She did not like having sunscreen
applied or her hat or sun protective clothing put on her. She also got stung by a little bumblebee but
recovered quickly.
We are most grateful to everyone in the group for including
us. It was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable
trip.
Ava helps deal with arugula stalks from Dara's garden the night before the trip up to BC:
The island:
On the ferry:
Loading up on Yellow Pt:
Arrived!:
The "camel sucker" (thanks to Grandpa Lee for that name for the hydration pack) is still the most favorite object:
Ava was a big fan of the tent:
Ava got into coffee grounds one morning:
Digging for clams:
Eating fried lingcod:
Daddy caught a crab:
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