Triangle Island - Part 1

An e-mail message, from a friend who had navigated with me (Roger) on the Victoria-Maui 2400 mile ocean race in 1992, asked whether I would like to help her on a 2 week charter to Triangle Island. Given the location and nature of the charter she felt that she needed one crew member. Pamela Bendall is one gutsy lady, always willing to accept and indeed looking for challenges. She had sailed from Victoria to the Hawaiian Islands, then on to the South Pacific, New Zealand, Australia and islands in between, eventually ending up in Japan where she sold the boat. And this was with her then husband and two, then quite young sons (chronicled in her book Kids for Sail Victoria:Orca, 1990). She had also circumnavigated Vancouver Island in her current 46 foot steel sailboat Precious Metal and has been single-handedly running charters out of Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island. Given her extensive experience, I was definitely intrigued when she said that she thought she needed some help on this particular charter. A Google search brought up this aerial view of part of the island. It looked really desolate.

Google also found this excerpt from a Victoria newspaper.

Sandra McCulloch, Times Colonist
Wednesday, June 09, 2004

They built a lighthouse at Triangle Island, 45 kilometres off northern Vancouver Island, in 1910 but soon realized it was practically useless.

Ferocious, unrelenting winds blew away a lightkeeper's dog and made the spot torturous for human habitation. The light, 210 metres above sea level, was out of sight for many mariners, especially in bad weather.

The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1918 and dismantled in 1920.

………."It was always shrouded in fog, in low cloud -- nobody could see the light. And they always used to have hurricane winds.”

This was beginning to sound more and more like a place to avoid, not somewhere to take a charter. So why would anyone want to go to such a desolate place?

It turns out that Triangle is also the site of a multi-year study by Simon Fraser University – as the SFU site says:

“Situated near the northern limits of the California Current oceanographic zone, and within the territorial boundaries of the Kwakiutl District Council, the Anne Vallée Ecological Reserve at Triangle Island supports the largest and most diverse seabird colony in British Columbia.

Triangle is the outermost of the Scott Islands Group, lying some 45 km off the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island, and 10 km west of its nearest neighbour, Sartine Island. This island complex consists of a roughly triangular-shaped main island, plus a smaller island (Puffin Rock) joined to it only at low tide; there are also several small, associated offshore rocks. Triangle is part of the Scott Islands Provincial Park, and has been designated an Important Bird Area. In addition, it lies within the Scott Islands Marine Wildlife Area, designated under the Canada Wildlife Act primarily to protect critical habitat for the millions of seabirds that depend on these waters throughout the year.”

It was pretty clear that while it might be rolly and uncomfortable we should be able to anchor in South Bay with winds up to 25-30 knots from the North, Northwest and Northeast. But at this time of year we could expect winds from the South ,Southeast and Southwest at 25-30 knots. In those winds South Bay would be totally exposed and a very dangerous, probably untenable anchorage. If we had to anchor in the bay on the opposite side of the island (directly North of the cabin - let's call it North Bay) the winds would have to be very light and not over 15 knots.

As the Important Bird Area web site says:

“The Scott Islands are the most important breeding colonies for seabirds throughout British Columbia, supporting over two million breeding birds. The Scott Islands region is recognized as an Important Bird Area of global significance, a status afforded by the Canadian Nature Federation and Bird Studies Canada, the Canadian co-partners of BirdLife International. The diversity of marine wildlife in the Scott Islands region includes:

• Twelve different bird species that occur on these islands in nationally significant numbers
• 55% of the world’s population of Cassin’s auklets
• 7% of the world’s population of rhinoceros auklets
• 2% of the world’s population of tufted puffin (at right)
• Several breeding pairs of peregrine falcons, a Species of Special Concern
• One of the world’s largest and most productive Stellar sea lion rookeries, a species designated of Special Concern by COSEWIC in Nov. 2003

The marine waters surrounding the Scott Islands provide essential foraging habitat for a variety of seabirds, some of which travel the oceans more than 100 kilometers from the islands to forage for the needed crustaceans and fish to feed themselves and their chicks.” (For more information on the seabird refuge aspects of Triangle go to: http://www.sfu.ca/biology/wildberg/bertram/triangle/Seabirdinfo.html )

Now that all sounded very interesting, even intriguing. But if there is such a strong likelihood of hurricane force winds, and a certain guarantee of gale and storm force winds, why would anyone want to go an a charter to an island that the public cannot even land on and where anchoring would be a challenge at best and likely untenable most of the time? Leave it to British Broadcasting (BBC) to find a reason. They are in the process of filming for a new series Earth’s Great Events, ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2007/03_march/wanda_spain.shtml ) and the sea life biodiversity of the area dependent on a chain linked to plankton made Triangle of major interest to them as “one of the world’s largest and most productive Stellar sea lion rookeries”. These are fascinating mammals and you can see some video clips of them at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/stellercam/gallery/index.html. You can also check out http://www.marinemammal.org/ ; click on “Video Galleries”. For 5 informative video clips on stellars and research at the Vancouver Aquarium go to http://www.marinemammal.org/2007/hazy_problem.php .

Of course once the BBC series is finished you will be able to see them in the birthing, battling and mating sequences that occur each year at Triangle Island.

To make a long story short, Pamela had this charter, it would take place in the last 2 weeks of June, we would anchor there whenever we could for as long as was safe, we would resupply the BBC crew of two who would have already camped on the island adjacent to the researcher's cabin for the first 2 weeks of June and we would place them by dinghy on various outlying rocks and on the beach at North Bay where the bulk of the Stellar sea lion rookery is located.

We'll see in part 2 how "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men [and sailors] gang aft a-gley." (Robbie Burns' famous poem "To A Mouse")