Our journey north has started. With much anticipation and even more sunshine we arrived this morning to the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We took care of the logistics of customs and immigration and took the opportunity to get a little leg stretch in on the dock. There was also the opportunity to practice the tossing of the monkey fist, which rapidly became a spectator sport. Plentiful supplies of the infamous Nanaimo bars were also stocked by our hotel department.
The waters we are navigating have a deep, rich history. Part of that history is reflected on the maps and charts we are using; Vancouver Island for George Vancouver, Georgia Strait for King George the III, Discovery Passage, named for one of Vancouver’s ships. The history of inhabitation and exploration goes back much further than Vancouver, and this is more recently noted with a name change: the Salish Sea. Native peoples have plied these waters in magnificent canoes for thousands of years. The renaming is a nod to the first inhabitants of the region, the Coast Salish. This sea is a unified bi-national ecosystem which includes Puget Sound, our jumping off point yesterday afternoon, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the San Juan Islands, British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and the Strait of Georgia. In all it takes in 419 islands, a total sea surface area of 16,925 kilometers and a total population of approximately 8 million.
After dinner we navigated Seymour Narrows, home to the infamous and former Ripple Rock. The rock was historically a terror to navigate; however on April 5 of 1958 the top of the rock was blasted off in what was described as one of the largest non-nuclear planned explosions on record. Our passage tonight was highlighted with a setting sun reflecting off the glass - calm waters of a slack tide punctuated with a pod of killer whales milling nearby. Sweet dreams and safe navigations.
