Island Part 3
Florencia Abila
Like most circumnavigators we were going counterclockwise in order to have the wind, waves, and current behind us on the outside. Accordingly, we wandered our way up the east coast of Vancouver Island to Bull Harbour near the north end of the island; the traditional jumping off place for the west coast. It had taken us 15 days to travel the 370 miles from Seattle, the last of which were spent waiting for a suitable west coast weather forecast. It was predictably enjoyable to visit cruising stops as we made our way north, some new and others familiar. With almost six weeks of our trip remaining, however, we had now positioned ourselves for the main event.
Going over the top of the island, we left Bull Harbour at first light, skirting Cape Sutil closely to avoid Nahwitti Bar, and arrived at Cape Scott at slack. The wind was light from behind us and the swell was about three feet on our starboard quarter as we pushed down the coast.
Karen and I were awed by the immensity of the scene. Vancouver Island was nearby to our left and, to our right, nothing but sea and sky. We put Mischief on autopilot and searched for the best place aboard to enjoy the ride south.
Sea Otter Cove was a perfect introduction to the west coast. We tied up to one of the huge commercial mooring buoys and took in our first west coast landfall. Behind us was a small island protecting us from waves coming in the entrance. Ahead was a large shallow bay and 100 yards to our left was a pack of three wolves arguing with a black bear over who had rights to a seal carcass on the beach. The bear seemed to get tired of the nipping at his heels and left, to return later after the wolves had eaten their fill. Once the local wildlife had wandered off, we took the dinghy to shore for a hike to Lowrie Beach on the outside. We truly felt we had arrived.
Winter Harbour seemed like it might be civilization so we tied to the public dock and checked out the town. There are a few houses near the water, a nice boardwalk along the waterfront, a post office, and a small museum, but the community seems to be centered around the fish processing plant. It was very quiet; the fog and rain might have had something to do with it. Of course, there was also a small store, well stocked with canned and packaged goods, and a surprisingly good supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. This was probably because Winter Harbour does have a road going to it, likely a holdover from long past logging operations. The store also had a freezer so we treated ourselves to ice cream.
After topping off our water tanks, we met some of our fellow travelers, also circumnavigating as we were. They were a mix of sail and power with some, like us, out for the adventure of it all and others on their shakedown, getting a taste of the ocean before heading south for Mexico and beyond. Since we were all traveling at about the same speed and all going from sound to sound, we would meet many of them again on our trip. We moved farther into Quatsino Sound to tiny Pamphlet Cove on Drake Island, where we anchored all alone and watched the small boats heading to the fishing resort across from the entrance.
The Brooks Peninsula is an almost-rectangular landmass that extends 9 miles straight out from the west coast of Vancouver Island. It forms such a major barrier that the Environment Canada weather forecast for that side of the island is broken into two parts: south of Brooks and north of Brooks. It can be a significant passage for a cruising boat, requiring careful planning for the wind, waves, and weather.
The ocean was still a bit rough from the recent gales, but the forecast was for improving weather and diminishing seas, so we decided the time was right and headed for Klaskish Basin at the north corner of Brooks Peninsula. We immediately headed out to 120-foot depths on the chart to avoid all near shore hazards. Klaskish is a small, narrow inlet that has an entrance protected by a number of rocks and islands. When we got there, the islands had waves breaking on them and we threaded our way through in calm water. It was a spectacular entrance, a quarter mile long and 100 feet wide with high rock walls on both sides that opened into a lovely basin with plenty of room to anchor and waterfalls to serenade us. We dropped the hook in 19 feet and while some wind from outside seemed to enter the basin, the water was calm. We listened to the latest weather forecast which still called for good conditions the next day. Splendid!
The next day we left Klaskish Basin early in calm seas and light winds and made for Solander Island, a large, barren rocky island on the west side of the Brooks. By-the-wind-sailors covered the water and dense low clouds obscured the forests from the top of the peninsula almost to the waterline. As we rounded Solander, the sun came out and we sighted a pair of Northern Fulmars, our first true sea birds. We were finally ocean travelers as well.
As we approached the coast along the south side of the Brooks, the wind dropped, the seas calmed and the sun returned. We anchored in Columbia Cove under sunny skies with dense clouds still covering the top of the peninsula a short distance away. We definitely breathed a sigh of relief; we had successfully passed our second major west coast challenge.
First order of business was a hike, out to Shed #4 beach. There were acres of fine white sand, shining in the sun, but how different it was from Lowrie Beach. While the latter had been pristine, Shed #4 was covered with flotsam; plastic floats, large chunks of styrofoam and many unusual things. It was probably debris from the east Japan tsunami, carried to this coast by the northern Pacific currents and hurtled against the Brooks Peninsula by southwest winter storms.
It was relentlessly breezy in Columbia Cove. The wind came down from over the top of Brooks and blew 15 knots most of the time and, with gale warnings, we were reluctant to leave. But after three days we had investigated everything we could reach in our rowing dinghy and we were ready to go. We retrieved our anchor and ventured out into the ocean to test things out knowing that we could always come back if conditions were horrid. But instead the wind immediately died. It seems Brooks also creates its own weather.
In this three-part post, I am going to focus on Hog Island sheep and fleece. I first learned about this breed from Sarah on Fiber Trek and I first met this breed when I visited the Fingerlakes Woolen Mill this past spring. This once feral sheep is a critical, conservation breed and there are very few flocks in the US.
Nordeste offers little in terms of visible volcanic features and the coast scenery is the main attraction so I drove west again to the Povocao volcano. There is no clear evidence of a past caldera at Nordeste. Nordeste may never erupt again; it seems pretty extinct.
Driving towards Povoaos western rim the road climbs into the mountains. At the caldera wall of Povoao you enter another magnificent caldera volcano. Furnas is one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the entire island and it is also one of the most beautiful. It is home to lush forests, a magical lake, geothermal springs, geothermal baths, small towns and a botanical garden. For me it was one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever visited. Furnas caldera is little like a lost world, almost like Jurassic Park or something like that. It is an isolated sheltered world deep inside the caldera, its own little society inside this volcano that has an immense peaceful scenery and atmosphere.
Furnas unlike Povoao and Nordeste does have a real, alive-and-kicking magma system which remains active even if magma supply is slow. Geothermal activity is everywhere, hot water pools, mudpots and mineral-rich springs can be found. In the center of town, Furnas boasts close to 30 bubbling geothermal features some of which are boiling hot, their steam plumes dragging in the mists add to the mysterious otherworldly, slightly unsettling atmosphere that exists here. There are numerous geothermal baths too, all having warm brown iron oxide rich waters. All of these baths are artificially built but use warm volcanic waters from the magma system. Terra Nostra is the largest bath in Furnas: it can house hundreds of guests. I swam in it briefly. I liked the heat but the water quality seemed like a mudpool, even if it was in reality very clean stuff just with rust in it. Geothermal activity in Furnas can be found both in Furnas-village and on the lake shore where there is another set of hot mudpots with mud so fine it seems like paint. The locals boil some of their foods in these hot holes which are then served at fine dinners. The plentiful geothermal steam is a cruel reminder that 1439 persons live inside a timebomb. The last eruption in the year 1630 was as large as St Helens, 1980. 1 km3, and around 200 persons were killed. Previous eruptions here dwarfed the 1630 event. Eruptions in Furnas caldera are of a highly explosive evolved type. The eruptions are plinian, subplinian, vulcanian, phreatomagmatic; lava domes are often formed in the end. The volcano vents constantly produce CO2 gases that collect in deep lying areas. Many homes have gas alarms in case concentrations get too high. A description of Furnas chronology follows below.
Furnas, like Agua De Pau and Sete Cidades, is an excellent example of the evolution of a mature Azores volcano from a fluid mafic one to evolved caldera volcanism. Furnas began its life on the seafloor as a slowly active alkaline mafic shield in the Pleistocene, 800,000 years ago, later emerging above sea. Furnas is today a sillicic nested caldera structure. The oldest and largest outer caldera likely signaled the change to trachytic caldera volcanism. The Pleistocene was plagued with sillicic caldera forming events at Furnas. The largest each happened after 1000 s or even 10,000 s of years of dormancy. The older caldera was an enormous event (Tambora sized in collapse area but volume is unknown ) The second large inner caldera collapse, four km wide dates back to the Povoao Ignimbrite that happened 30,000 years ago, when the Furnas volcano had its most recent major caldera collapse. The eruption was enormous and massive pyroclastic flows engulfed everything laying down ignimbrites in valleys. The pyroclastic flows also flowed into Povoao caldera giving this Furnas eruption the name of the wrong volcano even. Around 11,000 years ago there was another enormous pyroclastic eruption that collapsed the inner caldera once again, but smaller than the earlier two.
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