Shiriri Saga#18 Paths of Glory.

Jervis Inlet ("old Jarvy," First Lord of the Admiralty) is a fijord that leads deep into the heart of the Coast Range.

June 6 AM Paths of Glory.
Sailing up the long winding reaches of Jervis Inlet is like visiting my favourite maritime sailing books -The series by Patrick O`Brian beginning with Master and Commander and following the life of Jack Aubrey through fourteen books in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. We sail up Agamemnon Channel(HMS) with Nelson Island (Horatio) to port and discover that nearly every island and bay carries names of historical ships and characters in O`Brian`s books. The naval officers who charted these waters with Captain Vancouver must have been bursting to accomplish this massive task quickly so they could get back to Europe where "real glory"(and promotion) was to be won in battle. This mountainous, forested coast bears the names of glory yet.

That BKW (breakwater) in Killam Bay should have warned us off. Old logging shows mean old cables and other junk.



PM Anchor Tango.
The anchor is snagged on some old logging cable. We have tried to anchor near an abandoned wharf on a narrow ledge along the precipitous sides of Jervis Inlet that winds for miles deep into the heart of the Coast Range. The cable holds the anchor from being raised completely to the surface and will not let go even when I try dropping the anchor quickly. I am exhausted. Heather suggests a cup of tea, and by pouring it carefully into the murky water we win free! No, unfortunately we did n`t think of that, but the tea break and a brainstorming conversation leads me to try motoring in circles and that breaks the rotten cable. We cross the Inlet in the dusk and anchor in a hundred feet on the glacier smoothed rocky bottom of Dark Cove. Thankfully it is a calm night or we would have dragged across this bottom for sure!



Thats HMS GOLIATH(74) . I wonder who KILLAM was?


June 7 A Stress Test.
Princess Louisa Inlet near the head of Jervis Inlet really is a spectacular place! We motor through the narrow entrance of Malibu Rapids at slack water and twist our necks from left to right looking at sheer rock faces leading up to the snow caps and glaciers of the Coast Range. We can hear the roar of water falling down the slopes even over the sound of the engine. At the head of the fijord is Chatterbox Falls splashing right into the sea and a dock for visitors to the park. At last we do not have to anchor!



Just look at those nearly vertical contour lines!

This spectacular place features in a classic boating book A Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet. We look for the family and their little cruiser Caprice but know in our heads if not in our hearts that their time is long past. All the books we read bring the places we visit alive, link us to personalities and events in the past and give us a sense of participating in a story ourselves.

We do go ashore and have a chat with the ranger who tells us of an unusual bear that is hanging around that seems to have no fear of humans. One of the crew has a really healthy fear of bears so we do not wander far from the boat. The problem here is that the falls are so loud that the bear could not hear us coming and move out of the way even if he was of a mind to. It turns out that it is not funny at all when I touch Heather`s arm as we walk beside the Falls and say "Roar!" in a friendly sort of way. Ah, these rational fears!

Shiriri Saga # 17 Dragging The New Bruce Anchor

June 5.
The forecast is for gusty winds as we approach Pender Harbour, so we keep winding our way passed several possible anchorages until we reach Garden Bay - the innermost one. It is a beautiful place with high hills to shelter us from southerly winds. The chart tells of a mud bottom, but we feel safe because before leaving on this trip north we bought a new anchor and chain. "Blow ye winds hi ho!" At first we anchor facing a northerly wind but the next day we move again in preparation for the southerly gale that is on its way. But still, we have this excellent anchor, right?

This bay has literary associations for us because it is the home of Fishing with John by Edith Iglauer and we can see their home close by. We go for walks ashore, do some more scraping and sanding and generally enjoy ourselves.

That night the gale arrives and, far from being sheltered, the bay catches big gusts that rush down from the heights above. These are the worst conditions for Shiriri because she lunges backwards in the gusts, coming up tight on the chain anchor rode and then moves forward on the slack chain in the lull. The next gust catches her bow a glancing blow and she heels and sails off to one side only to be brought up with a sharp snap, turns, and sails off in the other direction. The new Bruce anchor is jerking and swivelling from side to side in the soft muddy bottom of the bay. After several worried hours of this, the inevitable happens and we break free of the bottom and drag rapidly backwards between several anchored boats, finally coming to rest just off a dock at the head of the bay.

We retrieve our anchor with difficulty. Not only is it stormy and pitchy black, but the usual hand signals between bow and cockpit are useless in the dark. I crank the windlass and run back and forth to communicate with Heather who is steering blind and controlling the engine. Finally we motor back out into the biggest open space in the bay and re-anchor with lots and lots of scope and spend a few more hours keeping an eye on lights ashore as bearings to see if we will drag again. The wind slowly drops and we get some sleep.

* The funny thing looking back on this anchoring episode is how ordinary it seems in retrospect. The Bruce anchor actually performed well that night, all things considered, but we have dragged it through some pretty high class harbours since then. No anchor is foolproof in all conditions and we kept on learning!

Blown Away.

Today I will dig the remaining row of last seasons potato crop and prepare the ground for other vegetables. Two weeks ago I planted this years crop in new ground . I used certified seed potatoes and did a careful job of it. These homely vegetables that are so taken for granted are a mainstay of our winter diet. The generally mild winters allow us to keep them from freezing in the ground by spreading fall leaves on the surface. It is a patch dedicated to potatoes alone that is the size of most suburban lawns. Then there are other big beds for strawberries, beans, peas, beets and so on. There is a greenhouse for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Higher up the terraced slope grow raspberries, espaliered fruit trees, kiwis and grapes. Surrounding all are rock gardens, flower beds and lawns, because beauty is an essential crop as well.

All this keeps us busy through the summer; growing, weeding and finally, harvesting. We eat what we grow with only occasional visits to the produce section of the supermarket throughout the year. We have n`t just recently discovered this as a new age idea of eating organic food or helping the planet ( though both are worthy goals), my family always had vegetable gardens and our grandparents mostly lived on farms. We would n`t have to go back through more than three or four thousand years to find our more remote ancestors hunting and gathering, living off the land and experimenting with improving wild grains and replanting the immature edible roots they found to grow to full size before harvesting. From such small beginnings we have progressed to modern industrial human societies that rely on networks of trade and finance to supply the necessities of life.

We grow, and then preserve like mad through the summer and into the Fall. About the time I am bringing up the winters firewood we will be proudly and thankfully surveying the long shelves of preserves and a freezer filled to the brim with fruits and vegetables. When the boxes of apples and squash are emptied by mid winter we will nibble on dried apples and other fruit. All this is not to tell you how virtuous we are but to show how normal this is for us and was for all our ancestors back into history.

All this is not work, like going to the office or factory every week day for life is work. This is growth from which the most basic blessings flow. The skill-set to do this lies just beneath the surface in all of us. Mostly, we have come to believe that growing things is second class dirty work suitable for second class people. The way of life to which many in the world aspire has risen like foam to the top in our industrial societies. We have education, wealth, lots of toys and ownership of the earth`s resources. We are also very vulnerable if the systems we trust with our lives should falter.

Just remember that glass of cold beer with the lovely head of foam on top. How pretty, how fragile, how easily blown away.

Shiriri Saga #16 Begin it now!

Jededia Island is tucked into the flanks of Lasquiti Island, just across the channel from Texada Island in the northern part of the Strait of Georgia.


Scrape, scrape, scrape. Paint, paint, paint. Heather and I are anchored stern to a rock face in a bay at Jededia Island. It is early summer, we have left our winter cave at last, Heather has a clear bill of health from her doctor and we are making our way north to explore the islands and channels at the northern end of the Strait of Georgia. When it is rainy we scrape off the old oil finish on all the teak and mahogany brightwork and when it is sunny we sand and refinish with cetol - a far more bulletproof finish than was our first choice.

This island has become a provincial park quite recently thanks to a big citizen`s fund raising campaign and we enjoy the freedom of walks ashore through the woodland trails, abandoned farm fields and orchards. At a south facing bay we discover a cairn in memory to a climber who lost his life on K-2 and whose legacy helped make this public bit of natural beauty possible. Here is written his favourite quote that we write into the first page of our ships log.

Whatever you can do or dream you can,
Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power
and magic in it.
Begin it now!
Goethe.

After all the waiting, we are just three months away from our big jump offshore and are feeling a little jittery. This affirmation is just what we need!

A few days later we are ready to sail on to Pender Harbour but that morning we speak to a woman who has anchored with some difficulty the previous evening. She has just a little sailboat and is bound for Alaska all by herself. Her partner with whom she shared the dream of this voyage has recently died and she is setting out alone to accomplish their dream. She is running on high octane courage and has reached the northern limit of many summer cruisers. North of here it gets wilder. She too is feeling the jitters, so we say, "Stop! Before you leave you must go and see that cairn and read the words."


Her story, and the life and death of the mountain climber put our own worries back into perspective and we sail out of Deep Bay with renewed resolve.

Courage.

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
The Lotus-Eaters.
Tennyson.

These opening lines of Tennyson`s poem The Lotus Eaters have stuck with me ever since I read them in high school. I`ve always been moved by visual ideas and here the picture from Homer via this Victorian poet, of Odysseus rallying his crew to see the loom of land ahead which gives them hope of survival after many days storm tossed on unknown seas has always been a powerful one for me: long before I went to sea myself and needed to hear those words in earnest.

I painted this picture on the side of a wooden box and later, on the computer, experimented with putting the lines together with the image. Combining words with images interests me, as you can tell from this blog, and here I am borrowing from Tennyson to dig a little deeper into my own understanding of courage.

There are so many forms of courage. What they all have in common is the link to a common ground shared by all who must achieve an end beyond their usual abilities. People are supported by all of life at that moment and it acts through them. It does n`t have to be a big heroic act, it just has to be a courageous thing for that person to do. The person who finally puts aside an addiction through sheer will power would have done a courageous thing within their life experience. A soldier, continuing to think and act cooly while under fire might simply be carrying out what he has practiced many times to do: courage, for him might take a different form, like refusing to follow an illegal order. There must be so many people who are living lives that call for courage that it would seem to be a common human capacity that we all can reach for, a kind of constant in the human condition, rather than a rare event associated with heroic deeds.

Odysseus is calling to his companions to rise up out of despair, to take heart, reach within themselves for the strength that lies deep within all of us and step forward. It is such a powerful thing to do that I feel it yet.

Shiriri Saga # 15. The Photo Shoot.

Shiriri , just before the knock down.

"How did I get sucked into doing this?" I mutter to myself as I hoist our big mainsail on a stormy winter`s day. Heather has had an article accepted by a sailing magazine and a photographer has arrived for a hurried series of pictures of Shiriri in action poses. There looks to be plenty of action very soon with a gale funneling up Captains Passage combined with the photographers insistence on some shots under full sail.

Gwyn and Heather pose precariously.

Shiriri carries a lot of canvas in her normal working rig of main, fore, forestays`l and jib: suitable for light airs only, with the expectation that sails will be lowered or reefed as wind strength increases. Our photographer has his eye on the spectacular shot however and somehow he has taken control. We find a deep cove on Prevost Island that has some shelter, hoist all sail, cross our fingers and start to zigzag slowly downwind towards the open sea while he directs us from a chase boat. "Get those pictures now!" I mutter as I carefully gybe Shiriri back and forth down the narrow bay.

"OK the wind has dropped out by the beacon. Sail out there!" comes the order from the chase boat and out we go. I can see why he wants this particular picture, so full of power and drama. He is a professional. But not a professional sailor, and I should not be signing my job away. Once off the point in the full blast of the gale and with the rocky headland right under our lee I have to gybe again and Shiriri, never the stiffest boat in the world, rolls on her beam ends and lies there, sails thrashing. It feels like the moment lasts forever and that we are frozen, unable to act.

An interior shot looking aft from galley into the saloon.

Fortunately, if her crew fumbles momentarily, Shiriri can still shake her head and get back up on her feet and is quicky sailing heeled rail down out into open water. I must have finally given my own head a shake and decided that a photo of Shiriri`s red bottom would have to satisfy our photographer`s lust for the perfect picture, because I get the big mainsail down and head back into shelter despite excited commands to "Keep those sails up!"over the radio.

We finish with all the other shots throughout the afternoon and then he is gone as quickly as he arrived. We look at each other and agree we have learned a few things that day. The obvious one is never hand over command to someone else`s agenda but the more important one was that Shiriri is a tough boat who will keep coming up for more. Without that pressure to risk ourselves we would not have made that manoeuver and found there was a lot more to her design ancestry of East Coast fishing schooners than a romantic appearance.

Shiriri Saga #14 Underground.

The figurehead with her first white undercoat.

The summer of caring for my recovering mother is finished but we still have months to go before the doctor can be sure that Heather`s angioplasty is a success. We hear of an underground house that needs house sitting until the following Spring that is near the bay where we can keep Shiriri for the winter. We move in and look around at this interesting design.

Large windows face out over Captains Passage and Trincomalli Channel, the entrance crosses a pond, and an atrium is full of an enormous bouganvillia. The whole concrete house is enclosed in a mound of gravel. After life on the boat it seems cave-like but after caring for my mother in my childhood home for weeks it also feels like freedom! She now can manage on her own with visiting professional help.

Sea lions swim past in Captains Passage.

This continued pause in our sailing plans could have been difficult to accept but for some reason these winter months are some of the most productive times ever. Heather completes a children`s novel- The Patti stories. Life on the Farm, and I paint and draw every day and cover the long blank windowless side walls of our cave. We walk the windy headland trails and keep a close eye on Shiriri in the fifty knot winter gales that reach into her bay from the south- east.

Shiriri at her winter mooring.

It is here that I carve the figurehead for Shiriri and place Chickpea in the girls arms. What a lot of pleasure they will create in anchorages around the Pacific when canoes approach our anchored vessel and we hear excited voices in a variety of different languages saying, " Look! There is a girl on the front of that boat! ...... And,... and,... there`s a Chicken in her arms!!

Shiriri Saga # 13 The Hermit Dog of Beck Island.

Every day when the Tide drops to expose the big sandbar beside our mooring, a black dog comes out to run busily around, splash in the puddles in search of fish, and bark. Ruff! Ruff! The tidal flat is connected to a little forested island and he must live there when the tide is high, but he is always alone and quite self sufficient. We name him " The Hermit Dog of Beck Island"and concoct a story of shipwreck and high adventure. Perhaps we are feeling a little marooned ourselves as we wait near the little town of Tofino for word of Heathers heart angioplasty back in Victoria.

Tofino is connected by road to the east coast of Vancouver Island so the plan is for Anne to drive her up so she can join us on the boat and yet still be near the Tofino hospital in case of post op. trouble. We wander the streets of this tourist town and the long sandy beaches of Long Beach while we wait, and sample the beauty that we have so recently sailed past on our way north from Barkley Sound. The waters around here combine rocky islands with big sandy shallows making navigation even more educational than usual!

It is time for Elaine to travel back home to Nanaimo, so Gwyn and I decide that while we continue to wait we can make a small circumnavigational voyage of discovery around the high forested mountains of Meares Island. We will be sailing in protected waters and this time we plan to actually SAIL as much as possible rather than use our engine. We have had to motor up `til now as we rush north in the calm mornings to reach the next sheltered bay before the strong headwinds start to blow in the afternoons.
We pick our way carefully through narrow Browning Passage under power until we reach open deeper water and then hoist all our sails and beat back and forth in the fresh afternoon breeze. Shiriri is reminding us that she is after all a sailboat and handles in a much more lively fashion when heeled rail down and roaring along. Without the engine noise we hear the wind whistling among the sails and rigging and the splash of our wake. Like Shiriri, we feel very much alive. Its easy to forget how recently sailors have had an engine to assist them and how much skill they once needed to navigate these waters under sail alone.

By evening we have slipped into the sheltered entrance of the Kennedy River, rowed Edith as far up river as we can get and eaten supper in the silent thunder of a red sunset. The next morning is all sailing as we run wing on wing before the wind and into Mosquito Harbour. How elementally satisfying it is to sail Shiriri into a narrow gap in a rocky shoreline and as we pass through into the hidden bay behind to smell the air change from crisp salty to the summer smells of warm rocks and coniferous trees. The wind eases as we enter the bay and we round up and anchor under sail without benefit of motor assist. We have made a sailor`s landfall and feel positively salty!. We wait here through the afternoon for the all important tide to turn and carry us through a narrow passage and around the end of the island. Its getting late but if we don`t go now it will be even later tomorrow before we can try again. It`s mid summer and the days are long so out we go and find the wind is now against us . After tacking frantically back and forth in the channel we admit defeat, lower sails and plod along to the very narrow entrance to Quait Bay, threading the needle in the dusk until the bay opens to a generous size. We have followed a small motor boat piled high with hay and wonder how many horse power he must have to feed, but find a big floating fishing lodge instead. Something is fishy alright!

We arrive back at our mooring near Tofino the next evening to hear that Heather`s operation has gone well and that she will arrive the following day. We feel a load slide off our backs that we have been carrying for so long that it`s only when it is lifted that we feel it`s absence. She arrives with Anne and all would be joy except that she brings word that my mother has had a worse stroke and is struggling. We decide that we have had enough of being at the end of a phone line while events are unfolding at home and sail quickly back down the coast propelled by those north westerly winds that had made travelling so difficult on the way north .We sailors move ashore to care for my mother so she can have a chance to recover at home.

Our summer sailing was cur- tailed like the dog of Beck Island but at least we had the experience of West Coast survival, Heather`s survival and now the opportunity to assist in my mother`s survival.

Lone Cone. Meares Island.

Shiriri Saga # 12 Survival Training.

Edith visits islet on outer edge of Barkley Sound.

Edith plunges into a deep trough and shoots up and through a breaking wave crest. We are exploring along the outer edges of the West Coast`s Barkley Sound where the Broken Group of Islands meet the open Pacific and its big swells. This is exciting! Dangerous too!

At anchor. Effingham Island.

Our little dory has been extensively modified since we found her abandoned on the hard beneath the equally abandoned wooden schooner that would become our own Shiriri. She now has foam flotation under the seats, a mast and sail, and a notch in her transom that will fit a small outboard engine, lead out anchor warps and provide a space for an oar to steer by. Most obvious are the canvas covered closed cell foam sponsons along the gunwales: scorned by a fellow boater as "training wheels,"they don`t add to her looks but are providing the extra buoyancy that lifts us up and through the breaking waves.

Edith. Modified for adventure.

We feel vulnerable in this beautiful but lonely wild place: we are pushing our limits. Shiriri is safe though, in a sheltered bay at Effingham Island, deeper in among the bigger islands and we have prepared ourselves carefully for these day expeditions in Edith. We are using the four HP outboard engine to give us speed and extended range, there is a waterproof bag lashed beside the bailer that contains everything we need if we have to camp overnight on an island. We carry all life saving gear, a waterproof chart, compass, VHF radio and we will keep adding to all this daily as we gain experience.

Barkley Sound. The Broken Group.

We keep a weather eye out for fog banks, stay upwind of Shiriri in case an engine failure ( we have spare parts for the engine as well) forces us to have to sail back to the boat. We handle Edith carefully wave by wave using all our boat handling skills. We are pushing our skill level with caution, teaching ourselves as we advance. This is just the training we need for sailing safely along this outer coast and eventually out into the Pacific.

When its time to move Shiriri to a new anchorage so we can explore the more protected islands deeper in the Sound, we proceed with equal caution, threading our way through a maze of reefs and islands. The girls and I develop a piloting technique that teaches us all and keeps us safe. Although I`m the one with the piloting courses, we find that if we disagree on our course, we stop until all agree and only then proceed. Not only am I fallible, but it is important that everyone on board has these skills.

As we thread our way into the next safe haven at Turtle Island we can`t help but notice that this intricate work close to shore is something we do well; all that practice in the tight rocky bays of our own Gulf Islands is paying off. What we can`t know yet is that the mental attitudes we are developing now will serve us so well in the future.

Taking a stern line to shore.

Ducks Bellorum Est.

I keep running into ducks these days. When I step behind the studio for an armload of firewood they rise into the air from Big Pond with a wild flapping of wings. I call to them,"Sorry, I did n`t mean to be sneaking up on you!" At any time of day I can catch a glimpse of wings in the sky among the tree tops and turn just in time to watch them twist around a high projecting branch and drop almost vertically to a tiny pond on the forest floor. What amazing grace displayed so casually in the every day life of ducks.

The ripples in Lower Pond are caused by that same mating pair and this particular leads me to contemplate the larger more general picture. What is happening on my few acres must be spreading a thousand fold across our island. The ripples of multiple ducks expand wider up the coast and across the rugged landscape to the Rocky mountains. My mind has long since lost any ability to perceive such a magnitude and that`s only DUCKS! All that busy life in a billion variations going about its business outside of our human world.

The other night we saw some pictures of a town on the north shore of Lake Superior called Jackfish that had been abandoned in the 1950`s. Fifty years later this quite sizable town had been taken back by nature. Trees covered everything and, I like to think, its full of ducks. Ducks are such graceful creations, they would make a good replacement for us don`t you think?

Shiriri Saga #11 In the Eye of the Storm.

At Port Renfrew

We are feeling a little nervous as we point Shiriri`s bow away from the sheltered inland waters of the Strait of Georgia and out towards the open waters of the Pacific. We are motoring as fast as we can go up the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the misty light of a summers morning because the forecast is for thirty knot winds in our face if we cannot get past the rugged outer coast, around Cape Beale and into the harbour of Bamfield by noon. Shiriri plows along through the big swells and tide rips and if we look away from checking off the lighthouses that mark our progress, we can see the curved horizon of the open Pacific. We cling far too close to the reef strewn coast as if it would protect us from the unfamiliar world out there.

There are other reasons for our unease besides the great uncertainty that the ocean represents: Elaine, Gwyn and I have left Heather with Anne in Victoria to have the heart procedure done when her name finally comes to the head of the wait line and my elderly mother has just had a slight stroke. We seem to be travelling in the ominously quiet center of a dangerous storm that circles just over the horizon. We know that we need the experience of the open ocean that a voyage along the west coast of Vancouver Island will give us and we also know that the constant delay of our ocean sailing plans is sapping our resolve. We need to have this adventure to maintain momentum but are realizing that there are many different kinds of storms that must be weathered if we hope to even just keep our heads above water.

For the present however, we live in the needs of the moment and struggle around the final Cape into calmer waters and eventually to a mooring at Bamfield. A few minutes later the first fierce gust of wind whistles in our rigging to tell us that it is twelve noon on the dot.

The Sun is a Luminous Shield.

The sun is a luminous shield that is carried across the sky each day by a god. Sounds improbable? Wait, there is something to think about here that tugs at our perception of reality. This way of thinking of the sun is more humanly accessible than the way physics describes it and variations of this version of truth exist in most cultural traditions around the world. The difference is that the traditional versions place the physical world into harmony with the imaginative world of people -makes it an active agent in their lives, while the scientific version does not. Which view is more functional? Carl Jung was once asked if he believe in God, Heaven, Angels an Afterlife and so on. His answer was cast in a similar manner - To believe or not to believe, which works best for you in your life? If believing in some form of higher power helps to integrate your life and gives it meaning then why would n`t you? The image of a greater power that places even the life giving sun in harmony with the world grasps an all inclusive truth and expresses it in an imagery that can be integrated into peoples lives.

The difficulty in accepting a more than scientific view of reality is made more obvious when we are presented with a myth that is outside our own particular culture story: it is a challenge, a stretch, to step into the culture story of another. Yet we are all from one root and the genesis of this story comes from that early time. I found the Navaho story of the sun`s journey in Joseph Campbell`s book Transformations of Myth Through Time and again in Wisdom of the Elders by David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson and decided to carve it in a special piece of red cedar for my daughter Elaine`s wedding present. It would be a companion to Moon Woman on the walls of their new house. I was pleased she wanted another one of my carvings!

My first little thumbnail drawings were crude and barely formed but useful as attempts to draw an idea out into consciousness. At this point I dared not be critical or the Gate of Beginnings would slam shut, so I kept absently doodling until eventually I combined a couple of ideas and added the hands called dusk and dawn that cradled the sun. I liked the way the final drawing showed the nose of the god slightly overhanging the disk of the sun to give a sense of depth. The image was still very rough but I did n`t want anything more refined. The carving needed lots of elbow room to create itself along the way.
A complication with this carving was that the piece of wood had a wildly convoluted grain: cut from the buttressed base of one of my cedars, the wood could not be carved with normal chisels. I used a router to cut the various heights and shapes and a belt sander to grind out the rounded forms. Only at the end did I use a very sharp knife to slice the final edges and details. This was such an industrial approach to carving that I was gratified to see the image taking charge and swimming to the surface in its usual mysterious way: the original seed still there, but now developed into a powerful presence. Glass beads gave life to the hands of dawn and dusk and the eyes came to life with their burning orange light!

I cringe now to think that at this point I considered using paint on this lovely piece of wood. That is part of the process though: to find a correct solution I must entertain every idea without prejudice and take what seems to my everyday self like wild chances. This is creation after all and I am in co-operation with mystery. After a lot of hand sanding, I soaked the carving in Swedish oil and in a flash of vision waxed the sun`s disc and buffed it to a bright luster. The depths of the convoluted grain now shone like the swirl of gasses deep in the wood and the surface reflected like a mirror.

When I visit my daughter now I catch a glimpse of my carving at the end of a shadowy hallway. The sun god gazes searchingly at me , the beads on his wrists glow from dark to light and light to dark, and, in a single shaft of light, the sun is a luminous shield.

* I took the title from a splendid musical composition of the same name by Imant
Raminsh.

Shiriri Saga#10. Winter Interlude.

Shiriri turned with the tide on a mooring in a narrow bay at the head of Long Harbour. It was snowing gently, it was New Years Eve and she was all alone. We had just moved back into our cabin in the woods for three months so we could stay warm and catch up with family visits. December had been stormy, like November only more so, and we had decided that while practicing handling our big boat was a good thing, wrecking it in a monster winter storm would be a stupid thing to do.

One day, Heather and I were moving firewood deep in the big woods when we noticed that Heather was taking lots of breaks while pushing the wheelbarrow full of wood. She was noticing a vague tightness in her chest. The doctor discovered eventually that she had a heart condition that would need to be tested and dealt with. Our first thought was " Oh no!" the second was " Thank goodness this did n`t happen somewhere in mid Pacific and far away from our national medicare system."

Our tendency to reach for the positive interpretation of a nasty situation had once again come to the rescue and allowed us to stay focused and plan our way forward through the months and months of tests, the angioplasty and long period of recovery time that followed. We would not be leaving Canada next summer that was for sure, but we never said we would not be leaving: we just needed to work patiently with the situation until it sorted itself out.

"Be brave, stay calm, and wait for the sign."

from The Dead Dog Cafe radio drama on CBC

A Winter hike on Portland Island.

Moon Woman.

I carved her many years ago, and our children grew up in her quiet presence. Now she hangs high on the wall of my daughter Elaine`s living room watching over her family. When asked what possessions she would grab if her lovely new home were to catch on fire she chose Moon Woman without a moments hesitation. Such a close relationship with a graven image!

In the beginning, she slipped under my poised carving knife and into the big cedar board just in time to slowly emerge and take form again after an absence of two thousand years during the Christian era . Moon Woman, a god of the Bronze Age peoples of Europe, once again had form, had eyes, was an agent again within our human lives. One can understand the Biblical stricture against the making of graven images, they take to life so quickly and could so easily divert people from the correct path.

Unlike an ink painting whose essence is lost if it is laboured over, a carving emerges slowly from the void of mystery, like a face shimmering slowly up to the surface of a dark pool. One would think that the carver would have time to think, to press his mind firmly into the wood at the cutting edge of the knife blade; to plan and execute that plan. I`m sure many do just that, but I suspect that for some of us anyway, the carving creates itself. We live in a society now, where rational mind is king and it disturbs people to have something from deep below our present world view float to the surface. In this modern era, we still automatically think "Beware of graven images." Even Christian imagery and what it represents is now often viewed with a skeptical eye.

And yet! And yet! She is so beautiful, so calm, she has looked over us so well through the years that I can`t help but question that stricture. What is so frightening here that we should close our eyes or look aside? By the way we choose to see the world we can build barricades of conventional wisdom around ourselves or we can stay open to the winds that blow and the rich imagery and enticing life that exists just beyond the castle gate.

Out here, Moon Woman looks kindly down on us from her home in the night sky. Out here, she can speak to us!

Shiriri Saga #9 A Safe Harbour.

Conover Cove

Shiriri`s cabin lights reflected warmly on the cold wet boards of the dock. The southeast gale reached down into the sheltered bay with stray gusts that stripped the last of the fall leaves from the maples, but only the constant crash of breakers at the bay`s entrance told us the whole story of a dirty night at sea. We were securely tied up in the one really safe bay on Wallace Island and enjoying the luxury of being in the heart of a storm and yet at the same time in a safe harbour.

We had been living on board and traveling around the islands for two months now and the VHF radio weather forecasts helped determine where and when we traveled and in which sheltering bay we chose to spend the night. We did not usually find such perfect shelter as this and had been caught a few times in narrow bays that were well sheltered from the south east gales but exposed when the front had passed and the wind came gusting strongly from the northwest straight into the bay. We had learned to anchor facing out of the bay with a long rope tied to a tree ashore to hold our stern in to the land. This was why we were out here after all: experience is the best teacher and time spent among the islands at this time of year was so much more instructive than in balmy summer conditions.

Panther Point

The gale blew all next day and we enjoyed using our new bright new yellow rain gear for walking the island trails of this deserted provincial park. Once it was the home of the Conovers and we had read his book Once upon an Island describing the building of their island home: something we could relate to as we were then building our own little island homestead not far away on Saltspring. Sometimes we walked south to Panther Point to feel the full force of the wind roaring up Trincomalli Channel and at other times we went north feeling the buffeting of the wind in the trees and undergrowth. After a long dry summer the land drank up the rain gratefully and the mossy rocks glowed emerald green.

Winter landscape.

We read of course, tucked up on the seats in the saloon while the oil heater flickered cheerfully. Heather cooked delicious meals in our new galley. She baked bread in the oven of the propane cook stove. In her spare time she knitted warm wool slippers for our feet which were feeling the winter chill in the lower part of the boat. I researched in sail making books and updated my sketchbook with images of our life that day. Cooking and warm showers added moisture which condensed on the walls and overhead in the cool ends of the boat so it was not all joy, but on the whole we were well pleased with ourselves and so glad we had not tried to go to sea too soon.

After the storm finally passed on, we welcomed the chance to finally take the bulky bags of brand new sails out of the fore peak and start dressing our ship in her new suit. The jib and fore staysail were so much easier to hank to the stays on the long bowsprit when the bow was swung over the dock and the big gaff main and foresail required yards and yards of light line to fasten the sails securely to their varnished spars. We carefully sorted out the complex of halyards, established the correct order where each one belonged on its own particular belaying pin and laid out, measured and cut to length all the various sheets. There was certainly a sense of working from an antique instruction manual compared to that of a modern vessel.

Heather fishes off the dock.

We were well pleased with our choice of a newly built classic wooden design however. It had saved us so much expense along the way because I had been able to make most of what we needed. The new masts for example, had just cost me my labour (which I enjoyed) and a few cans of preservative and cetol varnish. Even more importantly, because we had designed and made everything ourselves, if things should break or wear out at sea or at isolated islands in the Pacific I knew that I could just dig in our odds and ends boxes, haul our my tools and make replacements. Our practical boat would continue to be inexpensive to maintain on the long voyages ahead. She was beautiful in her new wardrobe of white dacron sails.

The Force.

Cold rain,sleet, hail and snow. It must be Spring!

Officially it is Spring. The cool winds and occasional snow storms don`t know this yet but the landscape is n`t waiting: a green haze of tiny leaves cloaks the land.

The little pond at the bottom of the top field reflects the fading evening light in ripples: motion in an otherwise still scene. A pair of Mallard ducks are busy catching a last snack before dark. Where will they sleep safely tonight? Probably they will leap into the air and fly across the dark, rocky, tree covered hills to the still faintly reflecting surface of a lake. Soon though, they will be nesting somewhere in our woods and someday will once again lead a troop of ducklings across our lawns.

The salmonberry bushes are now in full blossom, sprinkling the stream side with vivid colour and our orchard looks just about to burst. We worry though, timing is everything and if this cold air mass stays with us there will be no insects for pollinating the apricots and peaches that blossom so early. We will have to fill the breach with a fluffy paint brush lashed to a long pole and, swinging among the blossoms, assist their pollination.

The same force that tucked all to bed for the winter is bringing everything back to life and I feel it too. I have found myself rushing the canoe project to completion and switching to garden work. My heart leaps up with the ducks.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age:
that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
Dylan Thomas.

Salmon run.

I was drawn to the song right away: "Salmon Hymn," by a BC band called As the Crow Flies .It is one of the many really excellent pieces of music written and sung by west coast musicians.

I got the liner notes and read the words:

"The winds have changed the sunburned trees;- vanilla hills grow brittle coats.
A last strong cry to face the winter rise up from their golden throats.
Their songs are leaves upon the water carried on the rivers back. The current draws them fiercely under,-the season of their beauty gone."

Sung a capella, I found it very moving, partly because it deals with end of life transitions that are increasingly within my own province, but also because it is making fresh language out of my much loved familiar landscape. It goes on to sing of the salmon that faithfully struggle up the river and, when all about is dying with the advance of the winter season, carry the promise of new life beyond death: new eggs placed in the river gravel giving the promise of the renewal of life in the spring. The song then offered the final blessing:

"So gather strength like songs in baskets, summer petals, autumn leaves. Join the fools against the current, journey on to glory land."

What appealed to me when I thought about it later was the reaching out to find in a salmon run ( which is common enough as to be ignored by most of our busy citizens) a new way of expressing an old truth usually understood in terms of well established religious imagery carried over here from Europe. Surely, I thought, that is the true function of the arts: to rebirth perennial life stories into local, accessible forms for new generations to participate in.

A few months later we were invited to an annual mid summer "Christmas party" during which a game would be played which involved the exchange of cheap, funny gifts. As I knew a commercial fisherman would be there, and that declining salmon stocks affected his livelihood, I thought of the song and the fertility of the imagery and decided to make a shrine to salmon which would feature a section of stream bed and salmon eggs in the gravel. A shrine for the increase of salmon; wishing them well. To make in more interesting, it would be in kit form: gravel and eggs to be placed by the new owner in such a way that he would be performing the act of the salmon spawning in symbolic form. I must admit though, that I was thinking a visual idea through, and this mock up would be a good way to test it out. Or so I hoped.

Of course in the end it was not really funny and the point was missed ( a pretty esoteric idea, after all) but at least it fitted fairly well among all the gifts that were being traded around. For me, that did not matter because before the party, in doing a trial run with all the ingredients, -placing the gravel, depositing the eggs (orange beads), covering them with more gravel, I had discovered that I was actually performing a powerful ritual. It was dead serious, not funny at all, except perhaps in that I had thought it could be merely a harmless diversion .

I had been reminded that the arts have their roots in that mysterious realm usually approached by religion. There is a lot of spirit here, the knowledge of which reaches back for humans to their earliest beginnings. Its part of our urge to create art, to feel the extacy and, whether we know it or not, to bring new meaning to our societies. We think aesthetics, but we touch elemental stuff.

Shiriri Saga #8 Winter navigation.

We anchored overnight in Burgoyne Bay. It was a quiet night, except for strange noises from Edith who was tied up alongside. We poked our heads outside into the cool still air and found she was rocking and bumping against Shiriri as she objected to a big otter lolling around in her bilges while eating his crab supper. The next morning we woke in the chilly after cabin, got the oil stove lit and as we drank our morning tea, we discussed our plan of action for the day. There was now a dense fog all around Shiriri and we had planned to spend all the short hours of winter daylight threading our way north to Nanaimo for a visit with our daughter Elaine. The radio said it would clear by noon but that would leave too little time for the complicated passage among the Islands. We decided to leave right away and use our new radar for the first time.

The first part was easy, the shores were precipitous and painted clearly on the radar screen. But what were those evenly spaced bright echoes spread straight across the channel? Just before panic stations set in we remembered the electrical transmission lines hidden high overhead in the fog with their big orange aircraft warning balls spaced along them. We motored north through the fog for several hours with our Isuzu diesel chugged cheerfully below in the after cabin. As it pushed us along it also charged our batteries and spewed out lots of glorious dry warmth to chase the condensation away.

Eventually the fog lifted and we found ourselves still on schedule for our passage through Dodds Narrows, a narrow and turbulent passage that would lead us eventually to a safe anchorage behind Newcastle Island in Nanaimo Harbour. The strong tidal currents meant that it was wise to time our passage for slack water when the tides paused briefly from their rushing back and forth. Here we were, leading this free life on our boat and being more focused and more careful about our time, speed and distance traveled than we ever would have been in our old land life that was already fading rapidly into the past. The Shiriris was now our name and navigation was our game.

We spent several days at Nanaimo with Elaine, and Gwyn came up for a visit as well. We used our second dinghy, Rosie the red inflatable to zoom back and forth between our anchorage and Nanaimo. The four HP outboard pushed a full load of passengers slowly across the harbour but with just one it could be coaxed to put Rosie up on plane and zoom along just like a more powerful inflatable.

Finally we motored south again through Dodds Narrows in a cold pelting rain. We took turns steering and warming up over the oil stove. There was so much flotsam in the form of drifting logs that keeping a sharp lookout was tiring. At dusk we anchored in a long narrow north facing cove on Wallace Island secure with a VHF weather forecast of no northerly wind. What a night! It was pitchy black and blowing like stink for most of the night, sometimes right into the bay and even more hair raisingly across the narrow headland. This blew Shiriri`s stern very close to the rocky shore. We found a new use for the radar: we could use it to tell if our anchor was dragging. The new spotlight illuminated the rocky shore just behind our stern.

We survived the night, and next morning moved just down the way to a more sheltered bay. There was a major South-easter forecast and being so tightly anchored in a narrow bay we had discovered could be hair raising.