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Day 8, 8/9/01
Weather: Not a cloud. Variable and mostly light winds
Paddle: Kyuquot Village then beyond
I sleep soundly through the nigh and wake at 5:30. We are up at 6 for an early launch to beet the wind, which turns out to be moderate.
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We paddle to Union island then on into Kyuquot. We stop first at the band office to register with them before going into their traditional grounds. The woman who usually talks to kayakers is out for lunch. We paddle over to the white settlement on the other side of the bay. The store is closed till 1pm so we go to the restaurant which serves good shakes, so we are told.
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I order the "Mocha Blast", and espresso milkshake, and a burger. Everyone else decides to get lunch too. All the food is excellent, particularly the halibut fish. Perhaps we will stop by here on the way out.
We buy some more food at the store (mostly what we are consuming the fastest: cookies and chocolate), fill water, and launch. We paddle a little further to the inlet on the north side of XXX island where B&J camped last time. We could camp here or on beaches out on the coast. Wendy says that she is ready to stop.
Joseph, Brigitte, Marie, and I paddle on to the coast to see what the other beaches are like. Some so-so. The farthest is beautiful, with a little knoll for camping. However, the beach is steep with dumping surf. Landing would be a mess.
On the way out I passed over a HUGE shoal of hearing. On the way back I pass over it again. This time I see a shark patrolling through the hearing. I back paddle and see that there are many sharks. At one point I count up to 8 below me. The hearing are about 12 inches long and swim in a tight school. I see them opening and closing their mouths feeding on brine shrimp. The school stays with in certain bounds and I coast back and forth from one edge to another. As I pass over the shoal parts under me. As the sharks cruise through the hearing part before them and flow around behind.
Joseph gets out his fishing tackle and jigs for hearing. This involves putting several hooks on one line with a weight at the bottom. This gets lowered into the school then jerked up periodically in the hopes of snagging one of the fish. When one is caught Joseph brings it up, nets it, whaps it against his paddle, and dumps it into his bag. This fishing technique is all news to me.
Joseph tells me the sharks are "Dog Fish", identified by a spike near a rear dorsal fin. We estimate that they are 4 ft. long. I never see one lunge for fish and assume that they are all stuffed full of hearing. Joseph says that when ever he hooks a herring the dog fish get excited and go after it. He has to be quick getting them up into the net. Maybe it is not so easy to lunge into the shoal and grab a herring.
I cruise back and forth looking into the water below me. Herring. Dog fish. On the surface I see bits of dead barnacles, dead crab legs. Occasionally a smaller fish. Kelp. Kelp crab. This gives me an appreciation for the abundance of life on this coast.
I leave Joseph and paddle back to camp. They ask about Joseph and I tell them that we found a shoal of herring. and he stopped to fish. He hooked a hearing. A shark came and grabbed the hearing and now Joseph was fighting a big shark. Then an Orca came and grabbed the shark. Last I saw he was half way to the Bunsbies. They don't believe me. The shark may have been stretching credibility.
It takes a while for Joseph to return. When he does he says that a dog fish did grab a herring. on his hook and caused a lot of trouble before he dropped the hook. He caught an even half dozen herring., which he plans to smoke over a fire.
The sun has been baking me all day. Despite my bold talk about going to the tropics for my next trip I am not sun hardy. I sit in the shade of the bug tent for a while then dip myself in the ocean to cool off.
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The mosquitoes come out as the sun sets and by dusk are vicious.