A close look at green surf anemones!

The above GREEN SURF ANEMONE photo was taken last February.

We've managed to dive several times in Effingham Bay. If you choose to sail here, BEWARE as there's a high wooden deadhead which is grounded to the seabed. It shows up on radar if you come in at night.

 I was anxious to see the green surf anemones which are clustered around the islet in Effingham. The best time to see and photograph them would be at high tide, so we anchored nearby and Larry tied 2 lines to the islet shore as a precaution. We hung on to one of the lines and snorkelled over ... they are very beautiful. Unfortunately, when I tried to descend I wasn't able to dive down this time (that has happened to me about 5x over the last 30 years). 

In addition we realized that a horrid accident had happened (due to a minor oversight) and our faithful camera was flooded! Fortunately, 40 good pictures taken in our earlier dives here this year are stored as well as this favourite photo of green surf anemones taken last year. We'll have to decide about whether to get a new camera.

A Sunny Day!

 We awoke today to another rainy day. In the forseeable future only rainy days parade across rhe weather forecast.  

So we were fortuntate to have a day with mostly sunshine on Tuesday ... that's the day that we detached from our secure anchorage and motored to Refuge/Toquaht Bay to see the waterfall. We saw our first other boat far in the distance. We theorize it might have belonged to the owner of an aquaculture farm in the vicinity of Refuge. The boat left from a brand-new caravan parked up above some wooden buoyed platforms which betoken aquaculture activity.

As per our cruising guiides' instructions we  approached the waterfall at high tide. The falls were most interesting because of the foam ... looking much like soap bubbles ... collected in the vicinity of the falls and stretching all the way out to the Bay. Of course, in this complete wilderness, the 'SOAP' is not due to human intervention ...  it is likely whipped up by the force of the water tumbling over the rocks.

On our way out, we were fascinated by the beautiful scenes on the river. which were mirrored in the water

Back to Barkley Sound

 Here we are again ... totally isolated in the little 'thumb' of Effingham Bay where we dove last February. We left Victoria's Inner Harbour with an afternoon tide and motored to Becher Bay ... next day we awoke to challenging weather. The wind was good for sailing, but we encountered a lot of  detritus in the water and we kept a constant watch. In the two days of sailing, we had to evade a complete tree and two huge deadheads which disconcertingly vanished beneath the surface and then would bob up in their own eccentric rhythm. The wave heights were at 2-3 meters. Luckily, we still retained our 'sea legs' and didn't get sick. The rolling never stopped. Our night in Port Renfrew (which faces South ... just the direction the waves rolled in from) was quite miserable. We arose ... somewhat fretful  ...   but the beautiful sunrise erased our prior surliness.

The weather was forecast to be horrible, so once we got here we decided to tie to trees. We have one bow tie to the North and two stern ties to the South. We always spend an hour driving around in the dinghy to find suitable trees to tie to after anchoring in the middle of the little thumb and launching the dinghy. Then, Larry runs out the portside line to the shore while I monitor the line run smoothly. Larry ties it over the water with enough clearance to undo the knot at any state of tide when we want to leave. We usually seem to use nearly all of the available rope, and I drag back enough line to secure it (with 3 turns) to the portside winch. Larry then winches us in. This way we'd probably already feel safe with forecast winds coming in at 55 knots.

We then follow up with the same system for our other rolled sternline and Larry we connect the 'flaked' line from the forward hatch to the bow and yet another tree. We now feel perfectly secure here. Not only that, but we've been able to dive and take some beautiful photos. I/m grateful to the folks who fixed my knee to enable scuba diving once again: Dr Galas, Dr Torstensen, Dale Rainsford (physiotherapist).

... the above written on Sunday January 8th ...