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Day 4:
Jarvis Island, Barkley Sound |
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The tide was very low the next morning, revealing the charted shoal to our
west. Two people were already at
work with a net, possibly catching bait. |
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We set off for the Broken Group. En route we saw a gaggle of "Little
People", quite common along the west coast. We picked up this term up
Iain Lawrence's Far-Away Places (a good
book to read if you are heading north of Vancouver Island -- it's actually a
pretty good read period.) "The Little People are elusive," writes
Lawrence, with affection and respect.
"We saw their campsites and their firepits years before we saw the first one
on the water. They're hardy and brave, and they can fit
themselves into places we could never hope to reach. I envy the Little
People for their freedom and admire them for their endurance."
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We toured a cove on the west side of Jarvis
Island, which is in the northeast corner of the Broken Islands Group on the
above map. Watmough described this as one of the best single-boat anchorages
the Broken Group. We really liked it. Although we'd hardly been
underway at all, we couldn't think of a good reason not so stop here, so we
did. This is the view looking west from the anchorage. |
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After breakfast we set off on a dinghy tour to
visit the sea caves on the south shore of Dempster Island, which are the
best in Barkley Sound. They were amazing. Here's
James leaving the one shown. The
water action behind him is surf boiling, not the dinghy wake. |
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We went way inside
this one. |
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This cave is at the southeast side of Gibraltar
Island. It goes a long way in, and the roof sloped down sharply. The
swell rushed in and produced a loud thundering sound when it hit the end.
It was really wild. |
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We continued out to the Swale Rock light, at the
northeast corner of the park boundary, before turning into the passage along
the south side of Nettle Island. We saw a few pleasure craft underway,
but we were mostly alone. Plenty of good dinghy territory through
here. A couple of sailboats were anchored at Nettle Island. The
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve Warden Station is here too. There
were several wolf warnings on their bulletin
board. |
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We stopped off in the lagoon between Jaques and
Jarvis Island for lunch. A sailboat and a classic wooden boat were
anchored inside, and a gaggle of kayakers were passing through. The lagoon
was very pretty. We had tried to enter on our way out to the caves,
but the passage on the east side had no water. The tide was higher, so
we left out this side. |
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With the higher tide, we were able to poke around in the islets just south
of our anchorage. More great dinghy territory here. We finally
returned to Dirona to bake some bread and bask in the warm sun.
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