All set to go! Thursday, July 05, 2007

So we've finally arrived in the capital of Haida Gwaii Queen Charlotte City and the butterflies have come to life big time in my stomach. We are about to have an 'orientation' where we are told how to behave responsibly in the National Park and informed about any places we can't visit due to nesting birds and territorial bears, then we have a few last minute things to sort out before heading off later this afternoon. Queen Charlotte City has a lot of character - the fishing shop has it's opening hours 'Monkfishday - 9lbs to 6lbs, and Public Halibuts - clammed', while the grocery store has hundreds of fishing buoys outside it. It's been raining most of the time as we've travelled up here and we've heard the weather this year has been very unsettled and stormy but today it's fairly calm and it's not raining yet! It will probably be mid afternoon by the time we get away so we'll head north up Graham Island for as long as we can muster. Once we allow for all the travelling time, we only have four and a half weeks to paddle around the islands so we don't want to hang around too long to start with. The first 100km or so of our journey is along a fairly flat beach - 70km up the East coast, then 30km on the north coast to the town of Masset where 1,000 peopel live. In between the tow we round the infamous Rose Spit - a 3km long sand bar where the currents collide, also known as shipwreck point. This is one of the best places for birds in the island and also where the Haida legend says that man was born from the raven. Should be good!! We've already seen loads of eagles soaring around town and other people saw whales from the ferry yesterday so I'm looking forward to seeing the wildlife!