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Travelogues Bamfield Sounds
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Day1
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Travelogues • Seattle I Know • Arabian Nights & Dates • European Diary • South by Virginia • Indonesia • Land of Rising Sun • Holiday in Bhutan • Peek at Peaks • Norway
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Anne was  kind enough to introduce me to the social hierarchy of the station. She said that the undergrads are considered lowly, the grads are decent, the docs are next to godliness. And the post docs... well, I forget exactly how special they are but I believe that they probably emit a frequency of light that a mere high school graduate (if even!) like myself is blind to. I think she noticed my nervous smile and said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine... just tell them you're a post doc from India". I laughed... I wish!
The sky is so glorious right now... blazing and fiery. The sun is glowing behind the trees across the inlet and there's loud music resonating from the other side. I hope I remember this moment... the sounds, the scent... Colour like never before...Ocean and sky... ocean and sky. Day 2 All the undergrads are in their last 2 weeks here. One block has exams on Friday and the other on Saturday. They all look serious and mournful... I long to tell them that I'm done with exams for a couple of months at least. I've occupied the tiny table just past the salad array in the cafeteria and I eat by myself. I'm intimidated by them, I suppose it's normal for the lowest occupant of the social totem pole. The sun is setting and I know there's something I'm missing because I am who I am. Hildegard's music was made for this... perhaps we make music to compensate for what we cannot hear... Another glorious sunset...I feel like such a little earthling standing with my camera... it feels like I'm being taken on a tour on ...oh Tralfamadore with Billy Pilgrim! And me pulling on a green arm asking, "Can you make the sun set slower please? I want to catch this with my little camera so that they'll believe me when I'm back on earth." Day... oh I dunno... Today! Zostera marina is quite an amazing little plant... well everything of the ocean is but I'm falling in love with it now, perhaps due to the high per capita of obsessed biologists. Saturday... Sunday
OK! I spoke to Kelley and was about to fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness when she said "Oh... ok... don't worry they're probably in the water table somewhere. I've had them crawl out and not make it to the water so the poor dears dry out." Phew... she's done it too! Monday (week2) I wish I didn't see the similarities in my dreams 2 years ago. Will I always look back and never be satisfied with who I was? Tuesday I feel sorry for them and all of this seems to scorn science and the clean arithmetic definitions. All their beach seines have not found salmon, their traps have got nothing- they think it's the bait. It's funny to see them so calm and cheerful... I'm being disillusioned about the certainty of science... perhaps certainty in general. It rained today... the grass had sparkling pearls of water suspended on them... spider webs look beautiful while weighed down by crystal. The air is thick with moisture and suspended calmness. I walked on the main road to Megan's place today by myself. I enjoyed the walk... "There are volumes in the forest no one reads aloud." (Conor Oberst) The forest is alive with a life that I feel blind to... I wish I were something other than human. Friday Back to the fog- it vanished by 10 and the sun began beating down... I like the way the fog rolls off the roof of the whale lab. After a week of groggy weather I needed to warm my bones. We decided to go out to Wizard. "See that patch of grey..." Liz said while on the boat, "head for it." The patch turned out to be a group of harbour seals basking. We shut off our motor and Liz rowed us into the tiny channel so that we wouldn't disturb them. And just after we said, "What good seals! No one got into the water" they all dived in as if to spite us...  The place looked so tropical, it made me want to dive in but I had no spare clothes and the water was around 10C. The scene is so deceptive to my eyes. We stepped onto Wizard and anchored the boat. The oyster catchers were going wild and though they look nothing like it, they remind me of plastic rubber ducks that can be squeezed to squeak. Gosh... I have one week left. It can't be... maybe I can beg Anne again and tell her that I'll scrub floors with my own toothbrush. Everyone reminisced over the times when they had all met only a few weeks ago but felt as though they'd lived with each other all their lives. Some places do it to you. Another sunset I cannot believe... I'm getting better at watching this. I remember to remind myself to breathe after the first few coughs. Sunday This dark cold ocean is teeming with emerald life. The shores have fountains when the tide is out- clam squirts. I find them comical. Megan loves kingfishers, she thinks they sound like spoiled brats. I agree. Monday (week3) We explored a new site this evening by the broken group and just around Flemming. The 7mil wetsuit wasn't needed; the water was warm... oh well. There was beautiful eelgrass. It wasn't a good low tide so the grass was standing tall- at least 2m. The epiphyte growth was minimal and it made us happy. It's odd, the way I used to think that studying a plant would be boring. It isn't. Anything, anything can be loved and everything is beautiful if you look at it close enough and make it a part of you. Perhaps that's what we should aim for... There was macrocystis growing around the edges of the bed... I've never seen giant kelp in the water- it's hard to believe that they're just macroalgae. They looked like creatures from an Enid Blyton fairy tale... like medicine men with flowing coats within which secrets deep and profound were held. When I swam through a tiny congregation, some of their secrets crawled out slowly lifting their yellow claws at me- kelp crabs. I must draw it sometime. The next cove around was taken over by sargassum... there are so many introduced species that are taking over. Primary grazers seem to be lacking in certain areas and urchin barrens are just depressing. Tuesday The weather was so wonderful and we took our lucky cope to Diana and past the Huu-ay-aht camp. We began running out of fuel and the sky was displeased with the petty humans on a tiny boat. The ocean, lover of the sky, seemed angered too for her waves rose and clapped against the rocks. I'm truly the "fool fears none" type of person... I volunteered to jump in the water and dislodge the anchor. After much thinking Megan agreed and in I hopped in a 2mil wetsuit (I learn slow, don't I?). Visibility was just a bit over 2 feet and my body was freezing. How deep is the anchor... oh about 3-4m. Can I duck dive? Erm... sure. Megan had to keep the motor running so that we wouldn't hit the rocks and so they let out all the line and moved as far from me as possible so that my head wouldn't get knocked off by the blades. She was afraid and her fear worried me more than my own. I'm not sure how but eventually I got the anchor undone and I scrambled onto the cope breathless and freezing. I thought we were heading straight back but we ended up doing a site check just off Brady's looking for eelgrass. I hugged myself as I turned into a human Popsicle in the water. Poor visibility; the water's not supposed to be this cold. Did I really volunteer to do this? It's surf grass not Zostera, why are we here?! 2mil wetsuit and 7C water, one minute longer and I swear my jaw will lock down and I will bite off these studs. Get distracted... sooner or later I won't feel this anymore. Go numb...what is heat? What is warmth? This is life. Go numb... look at the beauty. Look at the beauty... beauty... pushing in. No warmth... no cold... just now. Purple ribbons and green dancers in surf are billowing up; Pirch and pycnopodia; I have wanted to die like this... have my body go numb and my thoughts explode into the ocean of forever. How can I be worthy of such beauty? Thursday Friday The seals were there and they entered the water. Matt's amused by the seals... so am I. They looked so comfortably obese and "huggable" basking- living the life: eat, sleep, drink and make babies! There were a few that didn't enter the water, they stayed on, stretched their plump necks and looked around confused. Matt pretended to read their minds, he said, "Hey man what you gettin' in the water for? Stay cool! Stay cool! It's just them humans! They can't do nothin'! They're stupid! Chill man! Stay cool... you seen them before, comin' here in their boat. Stay cool! Stay cool!" I laughed uncontrollably and smiled the same way.
Megan and I got in while Matt walked around in his orange rainwear on shore. The water was murky and green but I didn't care, there were seals only a few meters away! And then slowly it happened: black bobbing heads formed an enclosing circle of curiosity slowly closing in. Matt got into the boat and I swam out to them, there were shoals of tiny silver but visibility was too poor to identify them. As it got deeper, the bottom fell away and the fish turned to silver flashes of light that I could carve by moving my hand toward them... I was a magician and this was the closest I'll ever be to telekinesis.
Big white body under me... in front of me. He's so huge! Oh my god! He's so huge...
Good bye Wizard We got back around 9:15 pm and the sun was setting on our way back. The mountains were purple and the water metallic euphoria through my delirious blind eyes. I remembered my last delirious evening on the beach at Turtle Bay near Mangalore... this is right up there. Saturday Must I leave? Bye Megan... Bye Liz... don't cry Vilaiwan... force a smile.
"Hi... it's me." Sunday West Coast Trail bus- Logging road again... bumpy again and my handwriting looks worse than usual. There's a Texan with a strong accent behind me, every time he moves my seat belt gets tighter. Country twang over the music system... damn, I'm out of batteries.
Who are all these people in this van heading for Victoria?
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Editor: Romola Butalia (c) India Travelogue. All rights reserved. |
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was coming in and after sloshing in goo and water I realised that the water level in my boots was higher than the water level I was standing in. Oh well...
I was a boat tender with James ("Mr. Safety" as he is fondly known) while Megan and Dan did a dive near a dredge site. Dan is comparing invertebrate colonisation of dredged sites to those that aren't. James is British and he speaks the English that I do. On the way back he let me drive the boat until we entered the inlet... I tried hiding my smile for a while but after abortive efforts, quit. It's now my aim to get a boater's license before a driver's license.
"Team Eelgrass" has not yet found salmon... they have one more day and then a presentation. They've been reduced to fishing off the docks with a line. All they get are rockfish. I tried it too... rockfish aren't very smart- I caught the same fish thrice without any bait.
It's so placid and haunting... even the West Side can't be seen across the inlet. One can't help staring at it wondering if someone will walk out of it magically... mysteriously... lady of the lake? Lady of the inlet? Hah... the water here looks like a big lake... the mountains fall straight into the water with a few bare pebble beaches and maybe one or two sand beaches... the shore line is so young. I like looking at the pine trees left dry when the tide is low- the lower boughs drooping from salt with ribbons of eelgrass flying in the breeze...