The Endless Summer

July 11, 2020. Westview Marina, Tahsis

Weatherbound

I had considered heading out today, southward down the Tahsis inlet back towards the open ocean. But the weather had other ideas. It started raining heavily overnight, and continued all morning. In fact, it didn’t start to let up until about 1400. That led to a pretty sedate morning for me. I stayed on the boat as the rain poured down. I managed to make the best of the weak internet connection, and caught up on some news and emails.

I also took advantage of the Telus connection, and had a good chat with Sara, and another with my parents. All seems well back home. Breakfast was simple cereal and tea, and lunch was the remains of the frozen pizza I had cooked yesterday.

I managed to get a few small boat chores done, in hopes of getting off the dock tomorrow. I cleaned the bilge again, and was gratified to see that only a small amount of water had accumulated since last time. I got ahead on the engine checks, and did some cleaning up. Three days stuck on the boat in the rain can lead to a bit of a mess inside, so it was good to get things tidied up.

Finally, around 1330, the rain started to ease, and by 1400 it was down to a typical west coast drizzle. I really needed to stretch my legs, so I put on a hoodie and a shell, and walked over to the marina office, to pay for another night in the boat motel. The staff here are a bunch of young, accommodating people, who have been pretty helpful with my stay. Not that they have much to do – there has only been one other pleasure boat that came in since I got here, and he left today, so I think I’m the only transient left. There are a couple of boats up at the end of the dock that appear to be here longterm, but otherwise, tourist traffic is pretty thin.

After I ponied up for another night on the dock, I headed out for a walk. This time, instead of turning right, where I went yesterday to go to the store, I turned left at the top of the marina hill. It seems like this might be the more “civic” part of Tahsis. I walked past the library not far from the marina, then the Tahsis health centre, and the RCMP station. I came to a trail called the “Ubedam Creek Trail”. It started at the bottom of a creek that was rushing under the road, swollen with all the recent rain. I turned off the road and hiked up the trail. It was a bit longer than the one I did yesterday, and climbed up some nicely built stairs past the pouring creek, through the wet rainforest. It didn’t go too far, though, and I was at the top and turning around in about 10 minutes.

Ubedam Creek

Back on the road, I kept going away from the marina. I passed a boat ramp that was reasonably busy with a few trucks and trailers launching and retrieving sport fishing boats. Tahsis in general has the air of a community that is on the verge of becoming a ghost town. I’m not sure if that is made worse by COVID and the miserable weather, but it seems that, if it wasn’t for sport fishing, there would be nothing keeping this place alive. In the past, I understand there was a mill here, and there is a big empty industrial looking area at the head of the inlet. It’s totally empty now, though.

 

Eventually I came to the end of the pavement, but the road carried on, gravel, with all the pot holes full of rain water. I kept going, and after climbing a short hill, came to a sign for the “Bull of the Woods” trail. Someone has put some work into developing trails around here, so there must be some other tourist traffic to enjoy them at some point. I turned down the trail, which paralleled along the inlet. Offshoots dropped down to beaches in a couple of places. The temperate rainforest was in its element, soaked from all the recent rain. Ferns and brambles overgrew the trail in lots of places, and I was soon pretty soaked by brushing through their wet leaves. I passed Douglas Fir, Western Yew, Red Alder, Western Hemlock, Broad Leaf Maple and Sitka Spruce. How do I know? As part of the trail development, they had been conveniently labelled, making for a pretty good west coast botanical education.

Botanical education on the Bull of the Woods Trail

After checking out some of the beaches, the trail took me back up to the gravel road. Instead of pushing back through all the wet undergrowth, I turned back along the road, and headed back to the boat. So far, the rain is still holding off, but the afternoon wind has started to whistle up the inlet, making some moderate waves outside of the log boom breakwaters that protect the marina. The boat is straining at the docklines, as the wind pushes against the cockpit enclosure. At least it has cleared up enough that I can see out through the plastic of the enclosure. It’s also keeping me warm, despite the cold wind, and it’s great to be outside in the cockpit after a long morning in the boat.

The trail brought me down to this beach

My current soundtrack – Spotify has chosen the original sound-track music from Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer, by the Sandals. Wikipedia tells me it was a 1966 surf movie. Kind of fitting, especially if I get my paddleboard out in some waves at some point!