Graham Island summary Monday, July 16, 2007

Wow, what a beautiful place Haida Gwaii is! The most striking thing for me is how relatively little man has impacted on the land. There are exceptions of course - there are logging operations in places and a big fishing camp on Langara island, but there is so much wilderness. We've seen whales about every other day, and had 5 sealions check us out for 15 minutes, swimming under the boats and practically sniffing the toggles. We've seen at least a dozen bald eagles every day and loads of other birds like puffins, marbled murelets, scoters, rhinocerous auklets & guillemots. The West coast was really impressive with steep mountains hundreds of metres high towering over us, and one day of 3 metre swells that kept us on our toes. There was one reef break with a perfect 'green room' that crashed down with the loudest 'boom'. We all started at it in awe for a few minutes before taking a wide berth around it.

I've really enjoyed the time on land in the afternoons and evenings - every campsite has been different, from a 3 mile long sweep of golden sandy beach at Peril Bay, to a steep gravelly cove opposite Hippa Island where we had to fit the tents inbetween huge driftwood logs. It's been great to hang out, go for short walks, and just breathe in the fresh air. We've eaten like princes with a great variety of food and plenty of it! We haven't seen any bears yet which was a bit of a surprise, but we shouldn't complain!

I will probably add more later but we're just going food shopping. We plan to leave again tomorrow and we have 20 days to paddle around Moresby island. it's actually a bit smaller than Graham island which we paddled around in 11 days so we have more time to explore ( or be weatherbound by storms)!