A BOAT RIDE.
Day 291 – This morning Rob walked across the street to the “InletFront” and took some morning pictures. The campground was quiet and the water on Neroutsos Inlet was still. (And no, it is not oceanfront, per se. Neroutsos Inlet flows to the Pacific Ocean 20 km from the campground.)
Although it was supposed to be cooler today, we had our doubts. The forecasts haven’t been correct in awhile. By 9 a.m., we were on a boat in the inlet taking a 3-hour boat cruise. The boat was a small fishing boat. The guide was a local man who takes people out fishing, and on the side does wildlife & sea otter tours. We had so much luck with the last boat trip off Quadra Island, having a fisherman take us out, that we thought we’d try it again. It was great, it was just the two of us and our guide, Regan. The weather was really perfect for a boat ride as it turned out to be a hot one today.
We saw Harbor Seals, Sea Otters (nursing mothers & babies), Bald Eagles, Loons, and gorgeous scenery. When we sorted through the pictures later, we had almost 1,000 shots. Mostly of Bald Eagles and Sea Otters. And the fish…..unbelievable…..Regan dropped a fishing line in the water and immediately got a Black Rockfish. Put the line back in and again!, immediately, a Black Rockfish. Two Bald Eagles flew in from the trees to a small rocky island near the boat – they saw him catch the fish. He threw one of the fish in the water. One Bald Eagle flew in, right by the boat, and picked it up out of the water in its talons and took it back to the rock. He dropped the other fish in the water. The other Bald Eagle quickly flew in and picked it up and flew to a different rock. We could actually hear them crunching on the fish. I had read a couple of times that people fishing were catching their quota of salmon (2 per person per day) in a matter of minutes. Now I believe it.
The Sea Otters were adorable. There were lots of them floating around kelp beds. You could hear them chattering away from a distance and little baby chirps, too. When a Sea Otter caught a shellfish, he/she floated to the surface, placed a rock on its chest and pounded the shellfish on the rock to get it open. You could hear that, too; crack, crack, crack.
The scenery was beautiful. We looked for Bears but didn’t see any. Regan had seen one a couple of days ago. Humpbacks and Orcas also come into the Inlet every now and then, but not today. There was only one other boat out – a commercial fishing boat. This area is fairly isolated; the town is small, having shrunk in population by ½ since the mill closed five years ago. Fishing reigns supreme – and logging.
After the boat trip, we drove a couple of blocks to town – the town is maybe 4 blocks long – looking for a place to get a sandwich for lunch. There is one place. We stopped and got veggie wraps; they were okay. We drove back to the RV. It was getting hot. We decided to take a drive and take advantage of the air conditioning. There is one main paved road that goes through town and several small roads going through residential areas. All the other roads around here are gravel. We decided to drive the Alice Lake Loop. The gravel road was so dusty, we couldn’t see anything and the tall trees blocked most of the Lake. We did drive through a couple of campgrounds managed by the forest service and a Provincial Park. The campgrounds were quite nice, but there were no hook-ups of any kind and when it’s hot out, it sure would be nice to have A/C. There are other dirt roads around here and we’ll probably explore them in the next couple of days., maybe drive to the Ocean.
We’d hoped to kayak here. There are many lakes and rivers, plus there’s the Inlet just across the street. But the weather needs to cool off some and the bugs need to go back to where they came from. The horseflies here are as large as tennis balls. Not really, but they ARE the biggest we’ve ever seen and their bites hurt. People have complained about the mosquitoes, but so far we haven’t had many. The horseflies could kill you, though. The high today was 90 sweltering degrees. We know it could be worse; we just hope it doesn’t go there!
