It snuck in during the night. We wake to a sky cloaked in veils of smoke. A red/orange sun and rust brown air are gifts from hundreds of fires burning up the interior forests and agricultural lands of BC . All land further than 1/2 km distance fades into smoke. We have our “Navigation for Dummys” tools, ie: navigational software, depth sounder and compass. But the claustrophobic combination of hot, smokey air and minimal visibility is spooky. I feel a renewed awe and respect for the cultures that navigated the oceans without any of those tools.

Since the smoke seems thicker to the south and wind is light we decide to go north to Mitlenach Island, the seabird sanctuary and anchor overnight. As we approach Mitlenach a few hours later we pass a couple of whale watching boats watching 1 humpback feed – a good sign that other whales may be around. Another sailboat is just leaving the very shallow, rock strewn anchorage on the SE side of the island. This is definitely a CALM WEATHER anchorage at halfmoon (not too low) tides. Just as we set the anchor for a NW breeze the wind turns around to the E and we almost end up on the rocks! Terry grabs the stern line and hops in the dinghy. Amazing the force of a 3 knot wind – it takes all his strength to row that dinghy and haul the stern of Blue Parrot around towards the shore.

A herd of harbour seal heads bobbing in the water have been watching all this activity. The whole herd follows us as we lower our snorkel gear into the dinghy and row it out to the rocks. As we pick our way carefully between the sand anemones and enter the cold, murky water a dozen seals approach us but they don’t come too close. In the plankton soup they disappear at 2 meters away. They don’t seem to want to play with us so we turn our attention to other ocean flora and fauna. A silver swarm surrounds us – streaming silver sides and swishing tails. It’s a shoal of juvenile herring. No wonder the humpback whales are here! We revel in herring world a while.

Swimming with so many herring is delicious but the water is too frigid to tolerate for long in a 3ml shortie wetsuit.  As we haul out to warm up we hear 2 humpbacks breathing just outside the small anchorage.  Is it hard for them to breathe deeply in the smokey air? Hoping to catch sight of them we follow a trail up a cliff which overlooks the NE shallows. We can hear a humpback breaching out there but the smoke is so thick that we can’t see anybody. Oh well. Cormorants, gulls and fascinating flora are plentiful. The interpretive signs help us identify dried up plants that are past their flowering and fruiting stages.

After a rough night in the anchorage keeping Blue Parrot off the rocks when the NW wind backed to W and freshened we are tired sailors. But the breeze is still blowing so we raise the sails and head towards Twin Islands in the smoke.  2 humpbacks are busy feeding as we sail past. We don’t want to disturb them so we continue on towards home.