We decided to make a quick stopover at Butedale, an abandoned town on Frasier Reach. Butedale used to be the site of a fish cannery. After the cannery closed, most the population abandoned the town, leaving it to ruin.
Apparently some hippies moved in around the 1990s, but being hippies, they didn’t do much to keep the town in repair. About 9 years ago, Lou, the current caretaker, moved in and kicked all the hippies out. Since then, he’s lived there with just his dog and cat for company. Pretty interesting guy. Takes a certain kind of person to live along for 9 years.
This is Lou
The town itself is a photographer’s dream. I could have easily spent a week taking pictures, but sadly I only had around 30 minutes.
Remnants of the old cannery.
Apparently someone 'stole' the warehouse...as in took the entire building away.
This is possibly the coolest looking dog ever.
Luo has fixed up the old hydro power station. He produces just enough to charge some batteries and run the essentials. Pretty awesome system.
I thought the irony of this boat’s name in this town was just perfect.
So after a brief visit, we continued heading north up the Princess Royal Channel.
"Isolated showers" indeed
Later that day, we were visited by 4 dolphins, which was pretty much beyond awesome. They came out of nowhere and spent around 4 minutes playing around the bow of the boat. Very difficult to photograph because: 1. they move really freakin’ fast and 2. I had my long lens on my D90. So I ended up settling for a few point/shoot shots and a bunch of video. I’ll post the video when I can.
So awesome.
Later I did laundry.
The wind picked up (a headwind...of course) as we entered Grenville Channel, so the going was quite slow.
Eventually we made it into Lowe Inlet, which is a Provincial Marine Park area. Pretty neat little sheltered cove with a waterfall at the head. There were a bunch of other boats anchored when we arrived, including the Maple Leaf, a beautiful schooner that runs charters up and down the BC coast. Very impressive boat.
After a few attempts at anchoring, we ending up having to settle with a spot in around 100ft of water.
Now for those that don’t know how anchoring works, you have to put out quite a bit more length of chain than just the depth of the water. 2 to 1 is pretty much minimum, 3 to 1 or more is preferable. It’s also preferable to anchor at low tide (remember this one for later...). So in 100 ft of water, that means a lot of chain. We put out around 220 ft and hoped for the best. The rest of the night, we got to listen to the groaning and creaking as the chain strained away.
Thankfully though, it held.
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