Tumbo and Prevost adventures

For this recent trip my boys and I headed north into BC and visited locations that were new to us. We had heard from a few people about Tumbo Island on the east side of Saturna, and it had long caught my interest due to the remarkable location. So we took off from Friday Harbor and had an easy motor in calm seas up to South Pender Island to clear Canadian Customs. As always, the Canadians were polite and familiar, pulling our name up on the system and not requiring passport numbers or anything lengthy. In literally a few minutes, we were on our way back into Boundary Pass to catch a strong flood east and around the corner to Tumbo.

Can it be more beautiful??

Happy Boys

The anchorage there is exposed to the north but the forecast was for consistent south winds. There are mooring buoys, but we chose to drop anchor. Right away, I could tell Tumbo was going to be a magical place to stay and it was. Cabbage Island is just to the east of the anchorage and it is famed for the white sand beach it contains.

Elliott rowing Owen around the anchorage

Beach on Cabbage Island

Looking north on Cabbage Island

We had no sooner anchored but Elliott and Owen went off for a little dinghy ride around the area. We dozed off easily and rose the next day for a full day of exploring the area. Cabbage Island is really special, both ecologically and recreationally. It has a prime location on the edge of Georgia Strait and so is especially scenic to walk around, and has a central marsh that makes it botanically interesting. There are even aspen trees on the island, and I can't recall seeing aspens anywhere else in the area, though they must exist. Gotta love the aspen scientific name of "tremuloides", to express the shaking of the leaves. Anyway, we walke around the small island and then settled into some blissful play on the beach. The boys dug holes and we all were enthralled with the soft feel of the sand under our toes. I went off a ways and just sat in silence for a good while. We ended our time there by playing some frisbee.

At the marsh

After lunch we went to Tumbo Island and walked the short trail over to the marsh and the old homestead. I was not expecting Tumbo to be as beautiful as it was, and it turned out I was thoroughly in love with the place. The marsh is quite large, and full of all the beauty and interest of large marshes. The homestead area is quite beautiful too, though I was struck by how lonely it felt in the absence of the residents. There are so many places around the Salish Sea that had once had pioneers and homesteaders but that are now empty of people. Many of these places are now parks of one sort of another and it allows one to imagine how at one time there were people spread more broadly over this area. Now, vast hordes of us are crowded into cities all around, but certain islands are for the most part altogether empty, or largely so. Examples include: Jones, Satellite, and Turn Island in the San Juans, and Tumbo, Portland, Prevost and many others in the Gulf Islands. It also made me think about the now distant relationship we have with the land, as these wonderful orchards and farmlands are now reverting to nature, and though there are more people, very few of us have any sort of intimate relationship with the islands such as that required by farming or harvesting.

Elliott on swing

There is a large oak tree on the edge of the shoreline on the north side of the marsh at Tumbo. Hanging from the tree is a rope swing that pendulums from a height not less than 30 to 40 feet. It was low tide when we were there, and the bay is so shallow that the water is hundreds of feet away. At first I was not clear on why the swing was there given the lack of water to jump into. Even at high tide, it would be hardly deep enough to land in. But then, Elliott jumped on and showed the true joy of the swing by simply arcing out into space and back. My gosh did the boys have fun.

What a view, and place, and tree

You have never seen a more beautiful sight than these two boys swinging out over the empty bay under a majestic huge Garry Oak and with gleeful giggles echoing off the marsh to my ears. It was a moment of pure bliss.

We later walked south to the other side of the marsh where there is another beach. This one is huge and utterly pristine and stunning. You are looking south down to Orcas and over to Patos Islands. A strange view for those more familiar with looking north to Saturna. We walked all the way out to the southern tip of Tumbo and felt far, far away. No signs of humans down there, and lots of wildlife in the water and above. We were kept company by a bald eagle that seemed to follow us along the shoreline.

Before getting back to the boat little Owen had an adventure. He saw an eagle feather in the marsh and thought he could reach it so he went down low and spread out his arms. Sure enough, he fell head over heels into the water and rose quickly with a look of total shock. The water on the edge was deeper than you would expect, though he could stand. Only the very top of his head was not wet, and don't ask me how he managed to keep that part dry.

That night, the sunset was among the most wondrous I've ever seen, and oddly enough, the sun set entirely into water. Now think about that a moment. We are inside the Staits of Georgia and watching the sun set over water. The way this is possible is that the sun arcs so very far north at this latitude and from Tumbo the nearest land up north is just far enough away that from the height of the cockpit the curvature of the earth allows you to see the sunset sneak down pixel by pixel into the sea. Utterly beautiful.

We sadly left Tumbo the next day and went over to the northern tip of Prevost Island where James Bay provides a lovely anchorage in south winds. Like Tumbo, the national park here protects an old homestead. The orchard is fading away and the area has succumbed to scotch broom and weeds. It was all I could do to not start reclaiming the place again. There is a walk here out to the northern tip called Peile Point and it is not much more than a sheep trail. At the point there is a lighthouse and the boys and I enjoyed watching a whole host of dragonflies swooping around on the eddies of the wind to find morsels to eat. It was quite a sight.

While at Prevost the wind came up stong so we jumped back aboard Aeolus and went out for a nice sail to Salt Spring. The wind must have been 20-25 and we just flew. Elliott took the wheel for a while and was pretty nervous, but settled down when he got the hang of things.

The next day greeted us with calm winds again and so we motored all the way back to Friday Harbor. Once again, at the American customs, we were treated like we had never been through before and had to provide every last bit of information and more. This time, the agent even wanted to come down to the boat to check things out. I think they board everyone when they can, or maybe he was concerned about my having the boys alone without Amy. I was just hoping he would ask for a letter authorizing me to take them across the border without her, because I had that with me, but alas, he didn't. Nice guy, who lectured my boys about all the bad guys in the world they have to look out for!!! My lord, how a job can determine your world view.