Riding a wooden wave

 These dolphins overlook the shore at Rock Bay.

Synchronized leaping; three dolphins here.

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Estos tres delfines saltan de un poste en la playa de Rock Bay.

Sometimes I wonder

 A cliff, a coil of rope, and a chain. The rope and chain are inaccessible except from a boat at high tide. I wonder why. It doesn't look like a safe place to tie a boat.

Seen from the dock at Rock Bay

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Peña, cuerda enrollada, y cadena. No se puede alcanzar la cuerda y la cadena a menos de que la marea esté alta. Me pregunto porque será. No parece lugar bueno y seguro como para amarrar un bote.

Rock Bay rockweed

The last time I visited Rock Bay, there was nobody there, not even a caretaker. This time, though, it was crowded with mobile homes, a new office, and signs ("Under New Management" said one) with lists of prices, even for parking. I walked quickly to the end of the dock, checked the beach, and hurried back to the road, not wanting to pay to stay. (Or be towed to Campbell River, at my expense, as one sign warned. Not so friendly.)

The tide was low. On the beach, I found patches of rockweed, two different species, and not those I see on our local beaches.

A wide-bladed rockweed.

Rockweed can be extremely variable, depending on its habitat, but this specimen, and those around it had much wider blades than any I've seen.

And then, sharing the same habitat, there were these:

Skinny rockweed, Pelvetiopsis limitata, I think. It lacks the distinctive midrib of the other rockweeds.

These were growing there on the shore, attached to solid rocks, not tossed in by waves.

Just visible underneath are the long antennae of shrimp, and one head. I don't know if they were alive or dead; I saw many dead ones under the dock.

And then I went back to the forest, where the parking is free.

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La última vez que fui a Rock Bay, no había nadie allí, ni siquiera un guardián. Pero esta vez el sitio estaba repleto de casas rodantes y remolques, una oficina nueva, y letreros oficiales (Bajo Nueva Administración — decía uno) con sus listas de precios, hasta para estacionarse (O el grúa llevará su coche a Campbell River, a su cuenta — amenazaba uno. No muy amistoso.) Bajé rapidamente al muelle, luego a la playita, y me apuré a regresar al camino.

La marea estaba baja. En la playa, descubrí dos distintas especies de sargaso vejigoso; no eran las que encuentro en las playas locales.

Primera foto; un sargaso (Fucus sp.) de vesículas anchas.

El sargaso puede tomar formas muy variables, según su habitat, pero este tiene vesículas mucho más anchas que los que he visto en otros sitios.

Y allí entremezclados con este, en la misma playita, crecían los de la segunda foto. Estos tienen las vesículas muy angostas, y le falta el nervio central. Creo que son de la especie Pelvetiopsis limitata.

Todos estos crecían allí en la playa, fijados a piedras, no habían sido arrancados de sus sitios de origen por la olas.

Apenas visible bajo el segundo ejemplar, se pueden ver las antenas y una cabeza de camarón. No sé si vivos o muertos; bajo el muelle había muchos muertos.

Y lueguito me regresé al bosque, donde se puede estacionar a gusto.

Round the rugged rocks ...

On the northern half of Vancouver Island, we humans are anomalies, oddities. We don't fit in; the land belongs to the trees and the rocks, the bears and deer. We struggle to make spaces to suit our most minimal needs, but they are isolated specks and threads on the terrain, nibbles on the edges, mostly. And the edges are rugged and forbidding; they don't willingly make room for us.

I stopped at three isolated settlements last Monday and looked at those edges.

The first was Brown's Bay, just a few kilometres north of Campbell River, relatively easy to access at the end of a mere 5 km. of slippery, potholed gravel. There's a small fish packing operation and an RV park with 50 slots, empty now in the winter. And there's even a strip of gravelly beach.

I saw five people, two of them visitors like me, but I had passed another half dozen trucks on the road. There's work to be done, getting ready for summer RVers.

Brown's Bay, from the RV Park. There are two houses or cabins on the cliff ahead.

The harbour, protected by a breakwater constructed of old, rusty tanks and stacks of tires.

A few steps beyond the RV park, the coast reverts to normal.

Even in the open, not an easy scramble.

On an outcropping of rock, mosses, lichens, tiny pink and green stonecrop, and a hopeful weed.

I returned to the highway and headed north again, past Lake Roberts and on to the turnoff to Rock Bay. This was a difficult road, gravel rutted and torn by logging trucks. It was only 17 kilometers from the highway to Little Bear Bay, but towards the end I was despairing of ever getting there; some of the holes would have disabled my car if I hadn't been barely crawling along.

At the bottom of a steep hill, I came to a parking spot and a couple of picnic tables at the mouth of the Little Bear river. A few people were gathered around one of the tables. There was nothing else; nobody lives there. Beyond the next hill, on Google later, I found a cleared spot with a couple of buildings, a dock, and rows of tanks. A fueling station for logging trucks or boats, maybe?

Little Bear River mouth.

Back to the car, up the hill again, down the next to come out at Rock Bay. There's an RV park here, too, but nothing else. The park itself was under wraps; tarps tied around log piles, bits of equipment. There were no people. The water was lying quiet; the only sound was the eternal whisper of evergreens, and sometimes my own footsteps.

Here, the dock and breakwater is made up of odds and ends, leftovers. Old metal grids laid across barrels and plastic crates, fenced in spots with rickety rails tied together by ropes.  The dock is wooden planks cushioned with tires and old canvas. There were no boats.

(UPDATE) On Google maps, I drew a line down this pier, to the white peaks on the mainland. There are too many to decide which ones these are, but there's a mountain over there named "Interesting Mountain." Interesting.

At the end of the clearing, the trees close in again, clothing the land down to the high tide level.

While I was taking photographs of lichen, I heard the rumble of motors. A minute later, a group of men on muddy quads rolled in and parked. They told me they had come from Campbell River, too, and were planning to ride on, another 20 kilometres or so, to Chatham Point. Was that where I was headed?

No. Not today, thanks. I wasn't brave enough to handle any more. But at home, I Googled it, and was sorry I'd turned back. The road ends at Rock Bay Marine Provincial Park. On Google, I saw 6 red roofs and a small dock. And ...

Wildlife viewing ... This park protects marine ecosystems. (BCParks)

So I must go back. At low tide.

(I tagged this post, "New coastline project". Because, years ago, Laurie and I attempted to walk all around the coastline of Surrey and Delta; our "Coastline Project". We made it, except for a few spots. I won't be able to walk this coastline, at least to the north, but at least I can visit the access points.)