Category Archives: Travel

D’arcy Island, Haunted Jewel of the Southern Gulf Islands

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When it was time to leave Clayoquot Sound and turn towards home, Mike and I were both a bit sad that the trip was coming to an end. We had found a good groove aboard Galapagos. Life was simple on the boat.  We were not quite ready to get back into the fast life of suburbia and jobs. So we decided to do an overnight passage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and hightail it to the Gulf Islands of the Salish Sea to spend a couple of days soaking in the vibe of that area before the long trek home. I’m so glad we did.

With Vancouver Island in the background.

We chose to anchor at D’arcy Island, well poised to cross the strait back to Washington. We love D’arcy Island and always wonder why it is never crowded like, say, Portland Island (which we also love). Perhaps it has something to do with one of the popular cruising guides saying there are not “good anchorages” there. The implication is that you can do a brief stopover in good weather, but don’t expect to stay long.  We beg to differ, at least in the summer when we’re likely to be traveling.  We have anchored at D’arcy Island every year for many years now and we never grow tired of it. I suppose if your definition of “good anchorage” is that it is surrounded by land on all but one side, you will not like anchoring there. But we anchor between D’arcy Island and Sidney Island in about 20 feet of water, in good holding, and we’ve always been happy. If the wind is out of the northeast, it may get a little choppy but it would have to be a good blow for there to be a problem. You can anchor well away from the shore and still be in less than 30 feet of water. We’re happy with that.

So what is our definition of a ‘good anchorage’? We like it to not be crowded with other boats. We like an area to go ashore and explore. We like to watch wildlife and we love beautiful scenery. I don’t think we are different from most other cruisers in that respect. This island has all that and interesting history as well. Maybe it is this history that keeps other boaters away. Fine by me.

Caretaker’s cottage ruin.

In 1891 the city of Victoria established D’arcy Island as where they would send their Chinese lepers to live in isolation from the rest of the world. The fact that the lepers happened to be Chinese may have made that decision easier for the general public to tolerate, as is evidenced by the fact that there was another facilty for ‘white’ lepers in another part of Canada. In that facility there was medical care and the patients were cared for by nuns. Only Chinese lepers were sent to D’arcy Island. The people forced to leave family and community lived without outside contact except for a supply ship that came every three months. The conditions are described as deplorable until 1906, when the government passed the Leprosy Act. This heralded the beginning of this being a medical treatment facility, which must have been some kind of improvement. (Here’s another interesting article about the island’s history.)

With this kind of tragic history, is it any wonder that some people have experienced this island to be haunted? People have reported being overwhelmed with feelings of isolation, fear, and loneliness. So naturally I wanted to see if I could feel those things; if I could somehow be in contact with the spirits of the island’s lepers. I’m just crazy that way. I might be afraid of docking the boat, but I’m not afraid of ghosts pretty much. Having been to D’arcy Island many times, I had never felt those things and I’m known to be ‘sensitive’ to the feelings of places. I needed to go for a walk by myself to see if I could commune with these tortured souls. I set out in the dinghy and rowed to shore.

Looking at San Juan Island. See the otter?

D’arcy Island has a trail that allegedly goes all the way around the island, but it is only half-heartedly marked with plastic tape attached to small trees and branches. Considering there are many deer trails as well, be aware that you are likely to get off the trail easily. If you are not okay with making your own way through the woods and dense patches of tall salal, don’t bother to walk too far. I took off at a brisk pace, enjoying the stretch of a nice stride for once. Leaves rustled, birds called to each other. I felt peaceful and good.

Coming around the corner at the southwest edge I startled three large otters hunting in the swells. We observed each other momentarily as we both got our bearings and recovered from the little surprise. I watched them for awhile then continued on, feeling lucky to have seen them so close up. Otters are shy of people and do not like to have their photo taken. I continued on around the south edge, climbing on the lovely warm rocks, feeling the familiar crunch of dried moss and lichens under my feet, wondering what it would be like to live in such a rich place, looking out at the strait hoping for whales, as always.

I was considering hiking around the entire island because I had not yet felt the loneliness and isolation that would herald the presence of the spirits of the dead lepers. I was about at the halfway point, and knew that the trail on the other side of the island was dense and not very much fun. I was at the point where I had to make the decision: turn back now or keep going. I needed a sign.

Coming to the top of an outcropping of rock, I looked down into the next bay and saw a small motor boat tied up to the shore. There was one man stumbling along the beach there with a can in his hand. He looked like he may be drunk as he wasn’t exactly walking a straight line.  I would rather tangle with ghosts any day than come across a drunk man on a beach when I’m by myself. My finely tuned sense of female survival alerted me that this was a good enough sign to turn back. Suddenly, I felt very alone. Somehow the existence of this other person, far away on a beach down below, put my own presence here on these rocks in perspective.

Evidence of nice people who’ve walked the trail before.

I climbed back down the rocks and made good distance; not exactly hurrying, but not exactly taking my time, either, feeling the vulnerability of being alone in an isolated place with no way to communicate with Mike. (My cell phone was left safely on the boat, so as to not interfere with my experience.) Was this my own loneliness I was feeling? Or something else entirely? I needed to concentrate.

I stopped to listen more closely, closing my eyes, tuning in, as it were, to what was present in that moment.  And then I knew. Yes, the ghosts were there. I could hear/feel them. But I was not overcome with the feelings of abandonment and fear that other people have reported to feel.  I was surprised to find that the spirits were comforting me. Attracted to me by my own feelings of isolation and awareness of being very alone, their messages were clear: “We are here. We are with you in this place. This place is good. You are not alone. You are safe. We will stay with you.”

I stood gobsmacked, struck dumb and grateful in one part of my being; the familiar presence of my own internal skeptic and critic standing with hands on hips in the other part of my being. Was this real? Was I making this up?  Feelings of peace and contentment again washed through me, dispelling all fear, extinguishing all worries. My doubts vanished. A two point buck sprang in front of me and disappeared into the brush.  As I walked the trail I opened my heart to the spirits of these people and felt the peace they had come to in their version of the afterlife. There are many reasons why spirits of the dead may choose to hang close to a physical place. Not all of them are dark and scary. 

The presence of the lepers of D’arcy Island, 5 of them, by the way,  stayed with me until I reached a campsite where a couple had been camping for a few days. Suddenly, I felt them go. I’m not sure why. Maybe they thought I didn’t need them anymore. Maybe the presence of other human beings and a dog interfered with my ‘reception’ of them. But I would have welcomed their company for awhile longer. I will always love returning to peaceful, beautiful, and yes, haunted, D’arcy Island. I know there are helpful spirits waiting to walk the trail with me. We’ll say hello like old friends.

Mt. Baker from our anchorage on D’arcy Island.

The Home Stretch

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It is June 2015, a month that, on paper,  appears to be mild-mannered; a month during which we should be gradually moving into my most favorite of seasons: summer. But this appearance of casualness on the month of June’s part is a fat lie. Underneath its soothing, floriferous veneer, there is nothing at all sedate about this month of June. This June does not clutch an iced drink with languid fingers.  No, this year June is life in fast-forward. It is the roaring fiery furnace of an early summer. It has come out fighting with weather in the mid 80’s and a garden that is so confused it thinks August is on its way out. I guess that is nothing if not poetic.  Things are coming to a boil in the Little Cunning Plan house.

It’s like this: We have 12 months before lift off. Twelve. Months. Crap. That was fast.

Typical Scottish weather at Newark Castle

We are seriously freaking out just a little. A shit lot of things have to come together in the next year in order for us to gracefully leave the dock for this trip. Please recall that due to Suddenly-We-Feel-Old Syndrome, we’ve moved up our departure date by an entire year.  I would like to feel excited about that, but what I really feel is overwhelmed by all the things that need to be done to dismantle a life and create a new one. I’d make a list here, but why should you be overwhelmed, too? Things like writing Last Will and Testaments come to mind. Still, ready or not, it has begun.

Onward!

Life in the fast lane started while I was away in Scotland playing tourist with my mom. (And please enjoy these photos from our trip because, why not?) Mike disconnected the land line for my fax machine (for my business) and our home phone.  He didn’t cancel the number, he just lived without that land line for awhile, trying it out for size because we’ve had the same home phone number for 25 years and he felt weird about canceling the line. Our son Andrew has never had a different home phone number in his life. Mike finally cancelled the account completely and we have, of course, not missed it. The small pain we felt was an emotional attachment to something that gave us a perceived feeling of permanence. Now we can multiply this process by 1000ish to get some idea of what is in store for us as we disconnect ourselves in the coming year from the life we have been living for decades. Ugh. I guess if it were easy everyone would do it? So they say.

Orchard House, on the estate where we lived for 2 glorious weeks.

Claire and Dan are coming home from Scotland for the summer so in getting their room ready, I was forced to reckon with clearing out a chest of drawers and the buffet. This produced several boxes of stuff for the estate sale. It was a dandy good feeling with only minor qualms as I included a big box of professional books that I used to keep in my office. Some of them are out of print now, that’s how long I’ve been around. Whatever. Out they go. However, when it came to the box of momentos from Claire’s birth 30 years ago, I was stuck. Didn’t even open it. I’ll have to do it, but not this particular minute. That box is seriously different than a lousy phone number. It remains in the middle of the floor, unmolested.

By January I am going to have to seriously consider retiring because I will need that time to focus on getting the house in order. Why didn’t anyone tell me how hard it was going to be to retire? I’ve been toying with the idea of retiring from my long career as a psychotherapist for the last 2 years. But when you’ve done something for 28 years, it’s not that easy to just walk away. Just when I think I’ve had enough, I decide to keep my hand in the game a little while longer because I’m still having a little fun with it. And also because we need the money.  Now I’m having to get serious about quitting. So July will see the end of accepting new insurance clients. Oy vey. It’s scary. I can hardly cotton it. I have worked since I was 16 years old. Please tell me I’ll be glad to be free of my private practice. And that we can make it without the money.

Scotland is like a postcard around every corner.

To avoid complete meltdown we do have a bit of a sketched out plan of attack. We’ll have our cruise in July, then in August we’ll begin clearing out the house and have a big estate sale. Or two. Our tentative plan is keep our house. Decision making about what to keep will be easier. We will also be able to store some stuff here, which will save us from having to rent storage space.  I am breathing a huge sigh of relief that we have decided to keep the house because this is a great property, a good investment, and offers us a bit of security in terms of a ready-made place to live on land if we decide we hate it out there. (Unlikely, but who knows?) I like to hedge my bets, not being much of a gambler by nature.

Rooftops as seen from the tower at Yorkminster, which is in York, England.

Our one fly in the ointment is our dog, Skippy. Skippy hates the boat and is 12 years old. He is not a spring chicken but he is still very healthy and has a lot of living yet to do. We were hoping Andrew could have him up in Bellingham, but no one wants to rent to someone with a dog. This is a shame because Andrew loves little Skippers and would like to have him. I am depending on Providence to offer a solution to this at the right time.

This is a wind meter found in Lindisfarne Castle. Could we please have one of these on Galapagos?

This is a wind meter found in Lindisfarne Castle. Could we please have one of these on Galapagos?

If all goes as planned and no big curve balls are thrown our way, we will take the summer next year to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. We are both really looking forward to what will amount to a leisurely shake down cruise. If all goes well during that cruise, we haven’t hit major snags in the plan, broken the boat, or killed each other in our sleep, then we will continue south in the fall of 2016.

I fell in love with this little Norman church outside of York.

You’ll notice how I’ve said ‘if all goes well’, and ‘if no big curve balls are thrown our way’? That because as all good sailors know, plans are written in sand and sometimes the water of life is a complete bitch. And we know it. Still, it’s happening now and I sit in my house on a beautiful summer day when the garden is in full force and think how lucky I’ve been in my life to be able to make these choices.

Restored and decorated in a medieval style in the mid 1800’s by the land owner. It takes your breath away when you go from the plain, almost unadorned exterior to the sumptuous beauty of the interior.

 

 

Life Goes On

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It’s been pretty hard to move on from our last post on this blog. Somehow, putting another post on the front page to replace that last one felt wrong for quite awhile, as though it meant we were moving on with our lives and the loss of little Kitty meant less because of it. Of course, that’s completely wrong. We will never forget her sweet wee face and the way she charmed us with her own special brand of magic. She has earned a permanent place in our hearts.  But life does progress even when we are grieving, so here we are.

Scottish coastline.

All kinds of things have been happening down at Galapagos. Mike has finished the fridge installation and now we are just trying to learn the ways of this little blue machine. The problem? It’s too cold. Yes, it has been hard to keep the fridge side of the space above freezing. We hope it’s just a matter of learning the ways of the machine, but really, how many cruisers do you know who have a fridge that works TOO well? Yeah, that’s what I thought. There will be a fridge post with all the gory details later when we’ve figured out exactly how to make this thing freeze on one side and just be cold on the other. Meanwhile, we still cannot say enough about the customer service at CoolBlue. We’re not worthy. Seriously.

Our focus now is to gear up for our trip this summer. We are both totally excited and ready to go NOW. Long time readers may recall that last year , in 2013 (Whatt??),  on our Cal 34 Moonrise, we planned to go to the outside of Vancouver Island and were schooled by mother nature, causing us to abandon that plan. Fast forward (I’m not kidding!) two years and we’re ready to give that another go on Galapagos, a faster, heavier boat with better systems for dealing with the west coast and its squirrely weather.

We had some great sailing on that trip. Race Rocks around Victoria area. Zoom!!

This year Mike has a full 4 weeks (after giving of 19 years of his life to the Boeing job) of vacation and I’m scheming ways we can parlay that into an extra few days. So we’re going to try again. He has dreams of making it north of Barkley Sound this year. I have dreams of just making it. Period.

So we are doing things to get her ready. I discovered the satisfaction of using a small power washer on the deck. Why did I never do that before? Sure, I looked like a homunculus for a couple of days after spending a few hours with the extended arm of the power washer, but it was dead worth it. Goodbye nasty winter scum! And no soap of any kind required. It’s totally coming with us when we go.

But the big event was the installing of the name on the hull. I ordered the vinyl lettering from Boat US for Christmas and it has been sitting in the V berth awaiting warm weather.  Galapagos has a hull painted with AwlGrip and you could still see the shadow of two rounds of lettering on her hull. I wasn’t sure what kind of product to use to get the oxidation off of the paint without compromising whatever finish is left on the old girl.

Left side: after polishing. Right side: before.

Left side: after polishing. Right side: before.

I found the answer on the Albin Owners group;  a product called Finesse It, by 3M. This product did not let me down. It took a goodly amount of elbow grease and two applications, but the result was completely worth it. Unfortunately it makes the rest of the hull look terrible by comparison; kind of like painting one wall in a room.

Ready, set, GO!

With that finished, and the fridge installed and cold, even if it is close to freezing all the foods, we have nothing to do but live all the life there is to live until our usual July departure date.

And there is plenty of life going on. This week I travel to Scotland again; this time taking my mum along. This is my second trip and last year Claire and I had a bit of a rumble with the Gods of Scotland when my desire to see the standing stones on the Isle of Lewis interfered with reason. Scotland in March means braving cold wind and driving rain. What better way to see the Isle of Skye? Whatever. I will not be thwarted in taking in the beauty of that country regardless of weather. This time it is May. But I probably will still not see those damn standing stones like I want to. Mike assures me that his time alone in the family home will not come amiss as he plans to sit around in his underwear drinking beer and watching bad TV. As long as he stays off the roof and doesn’t climb the mast, I’m fine with it. But I sure wish he was going with me.

 

As soon as I return, we gear up for Andrew’s college graduation, visits from family who live far away,  and all the celebrating. You’d think it would be a celebration only for Andrew, but in fact, Mike and I will be celebrating the fact that we’ve been able to see two kids through being college educated. We are seriously patting ourselves on the backs about that. We won’t know what to do with ourselves. Except that his graduation marks the time when our Little Cunning Plan goes into fast forward! We approach this next phase with excitement tinged with fear and loathing. It’s a lot of feelings to handle all at once. Stay tuned.

She loves her lettering with red outlining!