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Day 0, 8/1/01
Packing
Day 1, 8/2/01
Weather: Overcast, light rain
Drive Seattle to Zebalos.
Awake all night. Up at 4:40 and finish loading the car. We leave home right at 5:30. Last year we had several delays and arrived at the ferry terminal just before the sailing date, too late to pick up our reservations. They filled the ferry and we figured that we had missed the boat. Then the traffic directory picked our car out of the line of RVs and packed us into the last spot on the ferry.
This
year we arrive too early to pick up our reservations. We are put at the
front of the line and are fist on the ferry.
On the ferry I call Joeseph on his cell phone. They are on the ferry that we can see off to the left. After landing, we drive north for a while and meet up with them in the parking lot of the Fanny Bay Pub. It is great to see them again. Planning this trip with them has been easy - just a few phone conversations to take care of the big items.
After
leving Campbel river the rain sets in. The clouds thicken and swerl around
the road. I feel like I am decenin into some other world. Maybe we should
put our wet suits on now.
We arrive at Zebalos a bit past 7pm and decie that it is too late to do the car shuttle. We set up our large tarp/bug tent, then Marie and I pitch our tent under it. Marie gets right into the tent for double protection from the very vicious bugs. Wendy was going to sleep in her car, but discovers that it is too stuffywith the windows up and too buggy with them down. She pitches her tent next to ours.
Rain
all night, some times gentle and sometims heavy, but always rain. I have
a terrible dream: I dream that I acidentally packed my old camping pants.
The belt is broken, they are dirty, and there are holes all over them.
Day 2, 8/3/01
Weather:
Rain!
Paddle: Shuttle cars, paddle Little Esparanza to Nuchatlitz.
Rain all night, heard on the tarp over our tent. Our tent door is open and I can see through it and the bug tent to the water. Very Pleasant to lay in bed. But we have a lot to do today.
Pack, drop kayaks by launch, shuttle cars, return. Rain on and off as we launch, then drying in the afternoon.
It feels good to be back on the water paddling.
All
along the shore we see signs of previous human activity. Here 5 large
logs stuck into an old, now overgrown gravel bank: an old dock? Where
we stop for lunch, below an old clear cut, I walk into the forest and
find an old road, now badly over grown. On the forest floor is refuge:
part of an engine block, a box spring. Just around the corners the remnants
of another dock.
The wind is aginst us all the way down Little Espanosa inlet. I expect
to find Espanola inlet rolling with waves driven in from the ocean. Instead
the wind is from the SE and mild. The tide is with us and paddling is
unexpectedly easy.
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We cross Espanola and enter Nuchatlitz, a park of many small islands. We camp on the NW corner of island 44. There is a large guided group on the middle of the north shore.
I struggle to set up the tarp. The gravel is all loose and seaks easily pull out. Several times I set up the second end only to have the first collapse on me. I drive one mettal steak into a log and break off the head. It is solid, but in the wrong place. With out the head I can't get it back out and have to use another. Meanwhile our gear is getting wet on the ground and I am still in my wet suit.
After dinner I go to set our food hang. First I try the trees behind the camp. They are guarded by several wet logs embeded in the gravel and hidden by veggitation - very trecherous. I miss all my throws. As I am walking out one log shifts and I fall on my face. Marie said she thought I was falling out of a tree. I find a better tree, but then get the rock stuck. Finally I get it over a decent branch and haul the food up. Back at camp I discover another food bag.
Finally, I discover my right sock is wet. I think my paddling boots leak. I'm going to have wet, smelly feet all trip. That was the worse part of last years trip and it looks like a repeat for this year.