I swore not to make this blog a to-do list, but it's tempting. We have a number of outfitting items to accomplish before our "advanced offshore" training trip (June 13-18), but I'm trying to take a clue from the crew and stay chill about everything. For months, my eye has been on the prize of the jeweled Caribbean waters, but poking around pictures of Vancouver Island has whetted my appetite for the dramatic Pacific. We're prepared for a lot of hard, rough sailing in the Straight of Juan de Fuca and overnight watches in traffic lanes (praying for no fog), but hopefully we'll see one of the many grey whales sleeping in the phosphorescence.
Our destination, the Broken Group Islands of Barkley Sound, are part of Canadian waters and the Pacific Rim National Park, and the area is only accessible by boat. No problem. The sound was first explored and named by Captain Charles William Barkley in 1797, accompanied by his 17-year-old bride Frances, the first white woman to see British Columbia. Barkely Sound is within the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, who have lived a semi-nomadic existence there for thousands of years. Apparently a handful of Native archeological sites (with stonewall fish traps, shell middens, and terraced villages) remain as evidence of their existence in the area long before the Europeans' arrival.
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