There are two generalized ways to get to Vancouver Island. One can take a boat, or one can fly. I usually take the ferry, and I enjoy the boat ride. It’s generally the logical option because there is too much gear to carry and it’s just easier to ferry.
But then there are trips for meetings, trips that don’t involve a lot to carry, aren’t overnight, or all of the aforementioned….oh…and there is no fog in the forecast that might ground the flights.
And it was also kind of fun to introduce someone who had never taken a float plane to the mode of transportation for the first time.
The first time I took a float plane was when I was working at Malaspina University College and I had a meeting to come across for. Someone in the faculty said I should fly over and when I said I’d never been in a float plane before, she bought me a ticket and said “Have fun!”
And I did.
I was on a Beaver, with five other passengers, and I felt like a four-year old, glued to the window and astonished at the other passengers on their Blackberries, reading their newspapers, or some other document.
And it’s never become old to me. I enjoy every flight.
I love the view from above, I love seeing my city, the North Shore, the ocean conditions below, the boats, the ferries, Lion’s Gate Bridge, the interesting colourations in the water from the various water sources flowing into the ocean, the algae blooms….and sometimes some humpback whales even make an appearance….and so on.
Today the waters had a lot of interest to offer. Within the inner harbour the waters are a deep muddy red, a sign that there is a red algae bloom taking place. Late last week one of the hatchery managers stuck his head in my office and said “Heterosigma…?“
The blooms are unpredictable, they need the right equation of temperature, salinity, nutrients, sunlight…etc. Plankton labs can routinely monitor for Heterosigma cells, but blooms can appear very quickly with little warning. Not all blooms are toxic, but it is impossible to monitor for toxicity so when a bloom shows up, the best course is to assume that it is a toxic bloom and let the fish go.
There is a pen of fish that spend a few weeks in a net pen off the West Vancouver waterfront and someone at the lab had identified a Heterosigma bloom that was extending to about 1.5m depth. The net pen has a depth of about 3m….and the weather was going to stay sunny for the immediate future. The algae produces some toxins that can be harmful to fish and, although the fish can stay below it so long as it doesn’t get thicker….it means that it’s not safe to feed the fish because it would encourage them to come up into it. So, after a brief conversation the advice was, let the fish go…
But it was interesting to view things from above.
Outside of the inlet, the water changed and the effect of the Fraser River was clear….or rather….muddy. The Fraser is in full freshet and it is thick with silt being dragged from eh interior to the ocean. The silt takes a long time to settle out, and I love the strong tide line between waters of two different compositions. It reminds me of where the two rivers meet at Manaus, in Brazil.
Flying back was equally scenic, and my colleague was glued to the window taking videos to send to his family.
I love seeing the world through the eyes of people seeing something for the first time, it reminds me to always appreciate the world around me.
2 comments
Thanks for sharing.
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