Spruce

Tuesday. This must be Clarke. Another idyllic anchorage, another gorgeous day. Is it always this nice? I suppose it is summer, so statistically it should be sunny a significant chunk of the time, but all of the time? We’ve been pretty lucky since our departure from Victoria. 

A friend who kayaks in this area every summer recommended a trail over Turret Island, last night’s anchorage. 

It took us a few tries, but we did find it. A short, well beaten path to a huge Sitka Spruce. Kay was the one who found the path last night at high tide, when it was easy to get to. By the time she returned to Quijote with news of her find, it was late enough to make me decide to wait until this morning to go look for it. 

The problem with my decision is that the morning brought low tide. A very low tide. A negative tide.

So there I was, rowing toward the mud flats at the head of the bay, eel grass tangling the oars. This did not look good. The dinghy came to a rest in the mud. I was only twenty feet from rocks that would take me away from the shore, but from there, I would need to cross another expanse of tidal mud. There was nothing for it but to remove my shoes and slog.

The shoes came off and I sunk to my ankles in the mud. It’s a delicious feeling, mud squeezing between the toes. Unfortunately there is a lot more than mud to walk across at low tide. Shells, barnacles sea slugs, sea weed, God only knows what.

So shoes need to go back on, and the flats needed to be crossed carefully to keep the shoes from being sunk and sullied. But how to clean the feet without clean water? I decided it was more important to keep the insides of my shoes clean than to keep the insides of my socks clean. I pulled the socks over my muddy feet and slipped them into the shoes. 

Then I tip toed across the tidal mud from rock to shell and across a gravel section that made the going easier. I finally clambered up into the trees and found the path. Thank God.  It would have been discouraging to go through all that and not find the path I was looking for. 

The woods were cool and lovely, the trail was well worn. A hundred yards in it came to an end at the site of a huge old growth tree. A spruce, gnarled with age. 

I didn’t want to stay long with the tide coming in on the dinghy, so I reversed my course and returned to the boat, where I went after shoes and dinghy with brush and sponge respectfully

I took note of the coordinates, so in the future it will be easier to find the path. 

48°53’59"N 125°20’30”W. 

We’re at Clarke Island tonight. From a sandy white beach, a trail apparently leads to the far side of the island. We’ll see about that.