When you make a dream come true and it’s everything you wished for it’s time for celebration and giving thanks to everyone and everything that made it possible. To be in this beautiful place on this little sailboat with its “cute” little old engine with whales visible in every direction – Jude and Terry are in humpback heaven! Sutil Channel is the primo place to be for Humpback Whales.
We have been anchoring or mooring Blue Parrot on Read Island where we’ve enjoyed meeting the locals – characters all. Living off-grid with only water access and no stores makes building your own home and bringing in supplies a challenge. Driving the kids across the Island to school on logging roads in Winter snow is reserved for the truly committed year round residents.
We haul our inflatable dinghy up on the government dock to repair a leak in the port pontoon. Two coats of Marine goop should do it. A 60-something character named John who’s been everywhere on the west coast from Alaska to Antarctica regales us with tales of tattered sails torn in the fresh winds of Johnstone Strait and mammal eating Transient orcas diving under porpoise pods and emerging with tender babies to gulp down for lunch. They aren’t called “killer whales” for no reason!
The winds really rip across Read Island into Evans Bay. These are the outflow winds sucked out of the deep waters and towering peaks in Bute Channel. We are fooled by the brisk breeze in the Bay but it weakens to a paltry puff out in Sutil Channel. We turn north into Whale Passage where a few boats are fishing – always a good sign when looking for whales. “There they are!” Terry points to 3 humpbacks feeding along the shore of a Penn island. They are shallow diving. “Look! The middle one is fin slapping. Maybe herm is trying to shock the fish” We are motoring through the passage in their general direction “Oh, a breach!” The lead whale has breached, maybe to check out the scene visually. Maybe to let us know the 3 whales are there. Herm breaches again as the 3 swim around the point of the island. Is herm showing us their trajectory since we are behind them – we are 300m back. They round the point traveling faster away from us.
Time for a swim. It’s HOT in the relentless summer sun. Blue Parrot is open to the weather. We don’t have a bimini for shade or a dodger for rain or any other kind of protection. Jude jumps off the bubble boat for a refreshing dip – with clothes still on – a strategy that ensures constant cooling as the clothes dry on her skin. She is enjoying the very cold water as recreational boats pass with people sitting in the shade of biminis. Commercial whale watching zodiacs zip along at 25 knots filled with folks in survival suits. Jude splashes around for a good 10 minutes wondering whether the whales will get interested in a human splashing around in the water. But they don’t. sigh……