I'll Be Log Gone

Washed up sailboats on Sunset Beach - photo by Tracey Welsford

Unlike the rest of Canada we enjoyed an unusually mild winter here in Vancouver, without even our usual quota of stormy northwesters. For the most part all the boats at anchor in English Bay had a relatively easy go of things until last week when some nasty winds came up and sent a few of them crashing into the beach at Sunset.  A log boom also got broken up somewhere further out with a good portion of it getting washed up on the beach in English Bay near the Inukshuk.

Logs on English Bay beach - photo by Junie Quiroga

Once upon a time logs like these were prized by beachcombers who would cruise along the shoreline salvaging them for resale to the forest companies that had lost them. But poor pricing from the forest companies and better booming practices to reduce lost logs nearly put an end to the business until some of the operators got together and formed their own log salvage co-operative. It's been a tough go with a seemingly endless litany of problems ranging from the softwood lumber dispute, the huge volume of pine beetle logs and the depressed U.S. housing market, but business continues to grow and last year they processed more than 25,000 cubic metres of wood which is equal to 600 logging truckloads.

Going for my morning swim I had to keep out of the way of Night Stalker as it took advantage of the high tide to float the logs off the beach and tie them together into a boom of sorts. It took a lot of manoeuvring once the "dogs" had been pounded into each log with a rope fastened to the end before they could all be joined together. After a few hours the mission was accomplished and the logs were all off the beach.

As the log salvager motored away I was happy knowing the wood was going to be used for something productive and wouldn't be out in the ocean floating around waiting to be hit by a boat. Every year thousands of dollars of damage to pleasure boats is caused by these unseen logs and without an incentive to pick them up they would just continue to be a hazard to navigation.  I've hit a few myself over the years and had to suffer the cost of repairing a damaged shaft, prop and rudder so I'm glad to see they are log gone.

Log salvaging photos by Junie Quiroga

A Hard Day's Night

Beavers in lost lagoon - photo by Junie Quiroga

Beavers aren't, strictly speaking, ocean dwelling mammals, but the ones living in Lost Lagoon, which straddles Coal Harbour and 2nd Beach, have an honorary membership in the club even if they are extremely elusive. While it may be hard to spot a beaver it certainly isn't hard to notice when they've been around and, in the case of Lost Lagoon, these industrious little Canadian icons have left a very clear trail of destruction around the perimeter. No tree, large or small is safe with these guys.

Beaver felled trees around Lost Lagoon - photo by Junie Quiroga

In the absence of a decent sized pond the beavers will build a dam to create one but, in the case of Lost Lagoon, they have one ready to go so the bigger trees are used for building their party lodge where all sorts of wild and sordid goings on take place away from the nosey eyes of other West End residents.  Access is only by going under water which further limits the door crashers. When beavers aren't partying they are out cutting down trees and they do all their work at night.

Beaver lodge in Beaver Lake - photo by Junie Quiroga

Beaver teeth never stop growing and, because they are also herbivores, it makes sense they like to chew wood.  While the big stuff is for building, the smaller trees serve as food, with willow being one of the preferred tree species but alder, cottonwood, maple and cherry will also do nicely.  With those always growing teeth and the constant knawing on willow trees I wonder if it wasn't by observing beavers we discovered the connection of the natural pain killer aspirin which is found in willow.

Beaver felled willow tree - photo by Junie Quiroga

In spite of all this beaver activity being perfectly natural and not something the stewards of Stanley Park or the self-appointed environmental purists would want to disrupt, the line does get crossed on occasion in the interest of preserving other living things.  For the sake of this mature willow tree and the shade it provides, some wire mesh had to be put around it to try and deter the beavers. Quite a few of these trees have had to get protection and it's amazing this one was saved because it only takes one good night for a beaver to take down a tree of this size.

Beaver damaged willow tree - photo by Junie Quiroga

Meanwhile in another corner of the park another group of trees are being covered up to provide a completely different type of protection.  In the upper branches of these trees are the nests of the Stanley Park heronry, one of the largest urban heron colonies in North America. There are more than 100 nests of these unique non-migrating birds in and around the tennis courts but one of the main predators are the equally numerous raccoons that also live in the area.

Raccoon deterrent covers for Blue Heron nesting trees - photo by Junie Quiroga

Keeping the raccoons from climbing up the trees and stealing the eggs is only half the battle as the nearby bald eagle residents are also constantly trying to get at the baby birds in the nests. Meanwhile the heavy concentration of these large birds and their nests is also damaging the trees.  It's a never ending struggle with the beavers trying to cut down the trees at night to build a home, the herons building nests by day, and the trees helpless to do anything about either of them.  All in all it's a hard day's night for the trees.

Blue Heron nests in Stanley Park - photo by Junie Quiroga

Time Of The Season

Venus, Mars, & Moon in alignment - photo by Junie Quiroga

There was a rare coincidence in the sky the other night with the planets Venus, goddess of Love, and her boyfriend Mars, conveniently appearing on Valentine's Day and aligning with the first crescent moon of the new lunar year.  A nice way to start the new year with symbols of love and romance but not very practical in terms of celestial timekeeping. More than anything it highlights the irreconcilable nature of the solar and lunar calendars that still persists in the world and, for a variety of reasons, we can't seem to choose between.

Relationship between Moon, Earth & Sun

The trouble of course is that in a solar year it takes planet earth nearly 365 1/4 days to go around the sun while at the same time the moon is taking a little less than 28 days to orbit the earth. (27 days,7 hours, 43 minutes, 11.6 seconds to be precise) No matter how you divide these numbers you will never get anything other than approximately 13 lunar months in an average solar year which makes for a very inaccurate calendar that will keep changing every year as the lunar months keeps moving into different parts of the solar year.

The main reason we started keeping track of time was so we knew when each season would begin and end and we could plant and harvest our crops accordingly. Now of course it's for planning holidays. As the earth moves around the sun it ends up in precisely the same place each year moving thorough the seasons from spring equinox to summer solstice, fall equinox, winter solstice, and back again to spring. For this reason a solar calendar is much more practical than a lunar one yet the lunar one still exists.  Why?

The answer of course is religion. While the solar calendar is a practical one, religious people still use the lunar calendar for their important festivals and have what is called a lunisolar calendar.  Jewish and Islamic people have a calendar that is 354 days but Jews have made adjustments that allow certain festivals like Passover, a spring festival, to occur after the spring equinox but the Muslim calendar makes no adjustment for Ramadan which must occur in the 9th lunar month and, as a result, is 11 days earlier every year. For Christians, Easter is determined to be the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21st, the spring equinox.  

Chinese Zodiac

It was Pope Gregory XIII who reformed the calendar in 1582 to make up for the difference in accumulated time between the Egyptian solar calendar which, at 365 1/2 days, was actually 11 minutes and 14 seconds too long, and determined January 1st to be the start of the New Year,  Still, it took more than 500 years for the rest of the world to agree to this common calendar. Zoroastrians, and many people in the Balkans, Iran, and Central Asia still celebrate New Year's day on March 21st, the spring equinox, and many East Asian countries of course use the Chinese calendar which is also lunisolar and has been adjusted to allow the New Year to fall on the second new moon after the winter solstice, a date somewhere between January 21 and February 20th.

Astrological Zodiac

While the Chinese zodiac has its 12 year cycle of various animals there's also the astrological zodiac with its 12 monthly signs representing the path of the sun across the celestial sphere over the course of a year.  Though also solar in terms of marking time, by dividing up the sun's path into 12 equal parts of 30 degrees of longitude, early astrologers also thought the position of the planets and their associated constellations could influence a person's life and people to this day continue to check their horoscopes to see what's been predicted for them.

It takes 24 hours for earth to complete a rotation on its axis and on clear days we see the sun and on clear nights the moon.  Regardless of the calendar people choose to follow, the sun rises and sets every day, as do the ocean tides which are controlled by the gravitational pull of the moon. It's all part of an incredible celestial clockworks that never ceases to amaze and, when the planets line up like they did this week, it's another way of marking the time of the season.

Radar Love

English Bay with the fog rolling in - photo by Junie Quiroga

Contrary to popular belief it doesn't rain all winter long in Vancouver but, on those clear sunny days a different form of condensation can occur and, that is something called fog. Sunny days mean starry nights and starry nights are much cooler than cloudy ones so when the sun goes down and the land and ocean starts to cool off the rising warm air meets the cool air above and forms fog. Normally this only lasts for the night but, being hemmed in with mountains, the cold air can remain stationary for days acting as a lid over the waterways and keeping the fog in place until the next round of rain appears to clear the air.

View of Vancouver fog from the local mountains

While the view from the local mountains can be spectacular, it makes visibility difficult for city dwellers and non-existent for anyone on the ocean.  There really isn't anything more terrifying than unexpectedly encountering fog and having to cruise blindfolded, particularly if a freighter suddenly appears in front of you. If you were trying to fly an airplane through fog or cloud you would need to have a license with an instrument rating but for boaters there aren't any legal requirements.

Typical GPS device for recreational boaters

It was only recently the government brought in licensing requirements to operate a recreational boat but there are no rules around required instrumentation or how to use any of these devices. Until not so long ago most recreational boaters got along with just a compass and paper charts but, more recently, there have been a large number of marine GPS chartplotter navigation devices for boaters to choose from that integrate ocean charts and satellite tracking (something every new car owner is now getting to experience along with anyone in possession of a smartphone). While a GPS is great for knowing where you are and helping you plot a course to where you want to go, it doesn't help you see anything if you are in fog, and for that you need radar.

Radar is the acronym for "radio detection and ranging" and, while the various components of a marine radar system are quite complicated in their design, the concept and process is actually as simple as understanding how a flashlight operates. Walking in the dark and using a flashlight you're actually sending out light waves that reflect off any object in front of you and bounce back to your eyes with your brain telling you what you're seeing and how far away it is. In the case of radar, radio waves are used instead of light waves to do the same thing.

A piece of equipment called a magnetron produces the radio waves, and an antenna, working as both a transmitter and a receiver, sends them into the air in front and then listens to the reflection to see if anything was picked up. Anything picked up is then processed by another piece of equipment and displayed on a screen that lets the operator know where any nearby ships are and how fast they are travelling. It all happens very quickly with radio waves travelling outward and bouncing back at the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second or 7 times around the world in one second.

Ship radar display

While the safest way to navigate is in clear daylight, a mariner in the Pacific Northwest can easily get caught out and having radar can be a life saver.  It's mandatory of course for commercial vessels but more and more recreational boaters are having it installed as well.  When you're trying to get home to loved ones it isn't the message you send them that's important but rather the message your radar sends to you.

Freighter appearing out of the fog - photo by Junie Quiroga

I Want You To Want Me

Sea Otter

There are few mammals more cuddly and instantly loveable than a sea otter. Not to be confused with the river otter, another member of the same family who are equally at home on land or in the water, the sea otter spends its entire life in the ocean. Unlike other sea mammals which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm, sea otters have to depend on their thick fur coat for their insulation and, at a million hairs per square inch, it's the densest in the animal kingdom.

Raft of sea otters

Of course this luxurious fur immediately caught the eye of European traders and explorers cruising the Pacific northwest coastline in the late 18th century and, within 150 years, they had hunted them to near extinction with a world population of 200,000 or more dropping to less than 2,000 individuals until an international ban on hunting them was implemented in 1911. Sadly in B.C. there were no survivors but 89 Alaskan sea otters were relocated to the west coast of Vancouver Island between 1969-1972 and there is now an estimated population of over 3,000 between Cape Scott and Barkley Sound with another colony of 300 living in the central coast. This should all be good news except when we look a little more closely into the story of Wally, the rescued sea otter now living in the Vancouver Aquarium, who first appeared on the scene in October 2013.

Wally recovering

Wally washed up on shore near Tofino with his body full of shotgun pellets that had left him blinded, broken his teeth and damaged one of his hind flippers so badly it had to be partially amputated. Working around the clock Vancouver Aquarium staff were able to care for him, ease his pain & discomfort and eventually perform the necessary surgeries that have since allowed him to function somewhat normally. He will never be able to look after himself in the wild but he now has some companionship with other rescued sea otters and is in a safe place for the rest of his life.

Wally & Tanu

Sea otters are voracious eaters, consuming 25% or more of their body weight every day to burn the calories necessary to counteract the loss of heat they have to deal with living in a cold water environment. Their diet consists of sea urchins, various bi-valves such as clams, mussels, oysters & abalone as well as crustaceans and other marine invertebrates. How they are able to collect and prepare a meal out of these creatures is what makes the sea otter a very unique mammal.

Sea otter eating a clam for breakfast

The sea otter is the only marine mammal that uses its hands rather than its teeth when foraging for food. It also has a pouch on its chest that it uses for bringing collected food up to the surface and carrying a stone to break open shellfish that it eats while floating on its back. One of the few mammals to use tools, it will go on short dives searching for prey, smashing abalone and oysters off rocks using a stone and catching fish and crabs with its hands.

Sea otter with a crab lunch

The only problem with getting the sea otter re-established in B.C. is that in their absence the shellfish aquaculture industry has been busy setting up shop. The sea otter habitat is perfectly suited for the commercialized farming of shellfish and this has now led to open conflict between the sea otters and the farmers as they compete for seafood. With the average sea otter weighing 60 lbs and eating 25% of its weight every day, that adds up to potentially 45,000 pounds of shellfish a day for the 3,000 sea otters on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Wally's tragic shooting simply illustrates what happens when the interests of these two groups collide.

Shellfish farms around Vancouver Island

However, as much as sea otters love shellfish there's another creature they find just as tasty and one that may hold the key to helping resolve this debate, and that's the sea urchin. Sea otters are often referred to as a keystone species, because of their critical importance to an ecosystem, in this case the kelp forests of the North Pacific. Kelp forests are vital to the survival of a wide variety of fish and other sea life, in addition to absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but they have a nasty predator, the sea urchin, that feed on their lower stems that anchor them to the sea floor, thus cutting them off and causing them to drift away and die.

Sea otter enjoying a sea urchin for dinner

This is where the sea otter comes to the rescue as one of the principal consumers of sea urchins, the other being the wolf eel. Without sea otters and wolf eels the kelp forests can quickly become devastated by sea urchins and the loss of habitat and nutrients provided by kelp forests can have a profound effect on the overall marine environment leaving vast areas completely barren. However, just as in Alaska, the re-introduction of sea otters to British Columbia has led to a dramatic improvement in the health of coastal ecosystems because wherever sea otters live they are able to control the sea urchin population. The more kelp forests we have the better off we all are and the key now is to nourish the development of kelp forests away from shellfish farms so the sea otters can resume their role as natural custodians of the kelp and leave the shellfish farms alone.

On Gabriola Island a group of volunteers under the direction of Michael Mehta, a professor of environmental studies at Thompson Rivers University, have started an innovative campaign to "help the kelp" by mapping and seeding new beds of kelp around the Island. In addition to helping the existing kelp beds improve their canopies, the goal is to develop cost effective and proven techniques that other communities can copy.  It's all part of a greater message that says if we want to be healthy we need our marine ecosystems to be healthy, and there's no better place to start than with kelp.

While obviously Wally was a victim of ignorance, perhaps he and the other rescued sea otters at the Vancouver Aquarium will now become the new ambassadors of marine education. Cuddly is nice but even better is the important role sea otters play in the marine ecosystem. Sea otters mean bigger kelp forests and bigger kelp forests mean even more fish. There's room for both shellfish farmers and sea otters and all Wally, Katmai, and Tanu are trying to say is "I want you to want me".

Katmai, Wally, Tanu

People Gotta Move

Unloading the University of Victoria Bluefin-12S AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle)

There were a couple of interesting underwater discoveries this year in Canada. The one that created the most press of course was the discovery of one of the lost ships from the Franklin expedition in the north but, in my view, the more significant one was the discovery of what is believed to be ancient fish weirs off the coast of Haida Gwaii,  The lost ships of the Franklin expedition were less than 200 years old and the Haida Gwaii discovery is almost 14,000 years old but they both had something in common. In the case of the Franklin expedition men were trying to discover a route to Asia through the waters of the frozen north and, in the case of the Haida Gwaii discovery, it's evidence that people came to America from Asia by way of the ocean.

We have always known the First Nations people in North & South America were of Asian descent but we never really knew for sure how they got here.  Until now the popular consensus was that during the last ice age a land bridge connected Siberia and Alaska and, this area known as Beringia, supported a human population living in an ice free grassland steppe environment that allowed plants and animals to survive.  As the glaciers started to melt 16,000 or so years ago these people were able to move southward over the now exposed landscape and eventually settle throughout the Americas.

In the last ice age, which lasted 26,000 - 13,000 years ago, ice sheets extended to the 45th parallel, which is right around Lincoln City on the Oregon coast.  During this period water was taken from the oceans to form ice sheets up to 3-4 km thick at the higher northern latitudes and caused the global sea level to drop by 110 meters. This, in turn, exposed continental shelves and formed land bridges between various land-masses including Haida Gwaii, which would then have been connected to the present coastline. During deglaciation the melted ice-water is returned to the oceans causing the sea level to rise and, in the case of Haida Gwaii, turned it into an island separated from the mainland by Hecate Strait.

Images of Haida Gwaii 14,000, 12,000, and 10,000 years ago as the ice melted

First Nations oral history claims that people have lived in Haida Gwaii for thousands of years but until now there was little evidence to back this up.  Archeologist Quentin Mackie figured that if people had indeed lived there it would be likely they would have set up salmon fishing sites along the river beds of ancient river valleys that are now under water. Typically these would be stone and wood weirs used to re-direct or trap fish as they move upstream, one of the oldest fishing methods known to mankind.

Ancient river beds (now under water) leading to Juan Perez Sound 

In an area just off of Moresby Island two ancient river beds on either side of Huxley Island leading to Juan Perez Sound in Hecate Strait were identified as possible candidates where evidence might be found of human habitation before the glaciers melted. Using the University of Victoria's AUV (a sort of guided missile with the ability to take sonar pictures) Mackie probed the underwater river beds and discovered a line of rocks which he claims form a fishing weir and are at least 13,700 years old. Interestingly, it was the same person, Alison Proctor, a research engineer at UVIC, who programmed the AUV for both the 2012 Franklin expedition and the Haida Gwaii discovery.

Fish weir illustration

Sonar image of ancient fish weir in Haida Gwaii

Not only does this make it the oldest fishing weir ever discovered, it's also the earliest evidence of human habitation in Canada.  And, while it is extremely gratifying to the present day Haida people to have their ancestral claims finally recognized, it also opens up another debate about how the people got there in the first place. Haida Gwaii is not on the land route from Beringia and the only way people could have got there would have been by boat.

A more detailed examination of the Haida Gwaii site has only just begun and, as the ice continues to melt in the north, more discoveries will doubtless be made there as well. The speculation of course is fascinating as we search for more evidence there were perhaps two routes from Asia to America, and then try to imagine the bravery and determination these people must have had to make the journey, and the circumstances around why they did it, in the first place. Regardless of the route they chose it simply proves that when people gotta move they move.

2,000 Light Years From Home or 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

With approximately 1/2 of the world's population living near the ocean coastline (defined as being within 60 miles/100 kilometres of the shore) you would think we would be much more actively involved and interested in what goes on under water.  But we don't seem all that concerned and, in fact, we spend about 10 times as much doing research work in outer space as we do in trying to understand our planet's oceans. For some strange reason the stars and heavens seem more alluring and accessible to us than the seven seas.

Astronaut in full gear

Part of the problem of course is that it's easier to look up and see the stars than it is to look down into the ocean. But while the average person is never going to be an astronaut or even an aeroplane pilot the average person can certainly be a scuba diver, and that's all it takes to get a taste for what's under water and how equally exciting and challenging this parallel universe can be. Interestingly, scuba diving is also part of the training required for being able to function in outer space where dealing with weightlessness, cold, and a mechanical breathing system are all part of the deal.

Nelson in full scuba diving gear - photo by Junie Quiroga

The nearest space object to Earth is the Moon and that's 384,000 kilometres away whereas the deepest point in our ocean is less than 11 kilometres, but the design challenges for getting to either location are equally extreme and produce equally strange looking vehicles. James Cameron (of Titanic and Avatar fame) built his own research submersible that recently took him to a solo record breaking depth of 35,787 feet to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point on earth. This is equal to the average height a commercial aircraft flies, but with the complete opposite problem in terms of pressure. At 35,000 feet under water the pressure is 16,500 (psi) pounds per square inch.

Eagle lunar landing module

Deepsea Challenger submarine

Ever since Titanic James Cameron has been exploring the ocean for his films and documentaries and the next Avatar movie is rumoured to be set on a watery planet.  But he isn't the only one interested in deep sea adventures with Richard Branson also financing a submarine capable of matching the exploits of the Deepsea Challenger with his Virgin Oceanic Deepflight Challenger.  While it may appear the ocean depths are only for the super rich in their Jules Verne machines nothing could be further from the truth and, in fact, the best part of the ocean for exploring is no deeper than 100 feet, well within the range of recreational scuba diving.

Virgin Oceanic Deepflight Challenger

In order to start exploring the ocean the first step for anyone is to get their scuba diving certification with a local dive shop offering courses through PADI or a similarly recognized agency. In the Vancouver area there are quite a few established shops to choose from and they all use the local shore dive sites at Whytecliff Park or Porteau Cove to get you familiar with your gear and water conditions as well as give you a taste of the life you can expect to encounter in the "Emerald Sea" as this area is known.  But to really appreciate what the Northwest coast has to offer you have to get out on a boat charter with experienced guides who can show you the sites that are truly exceptional.

Sea Dragon hosts Kevin & Jan Breckman

For Howe Sound nothing beats the Sea Dragon folks who have been running charters in these waters for years. Conveniently based out of Horseshoe Bay they can take you to an astonishing variety of colourful dive sites featuring underwater pinnacles, walls, and reefs for your two dives and still have you back at the dock in time to have a nice lunch and share stories with other divers over a pint or two.  They also have a boat based out of Nanaimo that can take you to the key dive sites in that area with shipwrecks of course being the primary attraction.

http://seadragoncharters.com/

Nelson and a wall of white plumose - photo by Michael Mehta

Hornby Island Diving hosts Amanda & Rob Zielinski

For a different experience, only a short drive up from Nanaimo, you can check into the lodge at Hornby Island for a weekend of diving.  Here the fabulous diving is only rivalled by the great food and cozy accommodations that are provided. One of the original research stations for the elusive 6 gill sharks that started to appear there regularly each summer, they are perhaps even more famous now for their annual sea lion dives in winter.

http://hornbyislanddiving.com/

Nelson & sea lions off Hornby Island

But if you really want to take a walk on the wild side then you have to go over to the west coast of Vancouver Island where the folks from Rendezvous will meet you at the dock at Port Alberni and whisk you away to their secret hideaway in Barkley Sound. In addition to fantastic food and accomodations with a stunning view you will experience a weekend of exceptional diving where everything is super sized, super colourful, and super natural. It's also the go to place in summer for 6 gill shark encounters, the holy grail of Pacific NorthWest divers.

Rendezvous Dive Lodge - photo by Junie Quiroga

http://www.rendezvousdiving.com/index.htm

Rendezvous hosts Peter & Kathy Mieras

Nelson & 6 gill shark in Barkley Sound - photo by Peter Mieras

So much to see and experience, and so many great dive sites here in B.C. and around the world, and it's all so accessible and within a normal person's budget. How can anyone ever get tired of pretty fish, colourful invertebrates, and playful marine mammals? As fun as it is to look up at the stars and speculate how we might someday be living 2,000 light years away, for now I'm happy to go out in my little dinghy wherever I happen to be boating and explore the 20,000 leagues under the sea outside my own back door.

Nelson going dinghy diving - photo by Junie Quiroga