Day 4

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The floathouse was much bigger than I expected. There was Crystal's family home, and several small chalets for paying guests. The one we stayed in had room to sleep 6 as well as a kitchen, living room and bathroom. The nearby fishing lodges are also floathouses,and when they are closed in the winter they are brought down to Dawson's Landing to be looked after by Crystal's family. The surrounding area is no longer logged. Until recently some patches were logged and the logs were flown out by helicopter.

The morning sunrise at Dawson's Landing was other wordly, as you can see from the photographs. I woke up proclaiming that I had been speaking american in my dreams, and didn't understand why my US colleagues found this funny. According to them I still sounded the same when I did my american accent. They know nothing.

For breakfast we had bacon and hash browns, and for those with no taste there was scrambled egg too. Trying to be helpful, I realised that whoever set the table for breakfast had forgotten to put out the knives, so I found enough knives for everyone and put them on the table. There is a point to all this; I had forgotten that my american friends cannot use a knife AND a fork at the same time, so only the europeans had need of a knife. In fact Cindy commented on a later occasion that it was 'kinda cute' but also 'quite useful' the way we 'pile things up on our forks.' Ah!

Outside, Kristi insisted that I take pictures of a blue heron on its nest. While we were waiting for the boat to be refuelled I also watched a lone seal, and an osprey soaring overhead. Then it was time to board the boat for another epic journey. Crystal was pleased to see her family, but also looked a little sad as we left her to her very isolated life.

We knew the journey back was going to be a long one. The first three hours passed quickly as we had fantastic views of humpback whales. There is no experience like seeing these fantastic creatures rising out of the water as they are feeding. You can hear them blowing, and can only imagine what is going through their minds. They have a brain the size of a small car; they must be thinking something!

The rest of the journey seemed interminable. The gentle rocking of the boat increased to tremendous proportions every time we stopped to look for mysids. Added to this, there was oil leaking from the now redundant steering wheel on the top deck. Unfortunately we had't realised and eventually all of us who were up top were skidding from one end of the boat to the other, trying desperately to hang on to something. The time I was sent right to the end of the boat, and was only saved from going overboard by the fact that Kent has very long legs and he caught me between them, I decided it was time to retreat below deck, and joined Liz in the comfort of the cabin.

It was a beautiful sunset, but we had no idea why our journey seemed to be taking forever. It transpired that a couple of rich american ' fishermen' were apparently lost in the area. Their wives had sent out an SOS, as they were due back and they did not know where they were. As the area is so vast, full of islands and coves, every available boat was expected to have a reccy in the area.

Next morning the news came through at around midday that the two fishermen were fine- they had just forgotten to tell their wives how long they would be gone. It wasn't clear if they had any idea how many people had been looking for them. They were probably more upset that their enormous weight had been transmitted to everybody who had a boat in the whole of British Columbia.

We arrived back at camp in pitch darkness, and after having eaten a pasta dish on board we went straight to our cabins. After brushing our teeth of course.

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