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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

📚💙As Fat Bear Week winds up, a couple of pix of Geographic Harbour (AK), one of the best places anywhere to see Chonks. Especially when you're in a boat, and not on the beach...Chapter 9 of Under Wide and Starry Skies. #Sailing

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This item is about 🇬🇧 aid cuts; it could just as well apply to 🇨🇦 & other developed countries. "I understand the pressures on public finances: governments must make difficult choices. But we should be honest about what those choices mean." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

I have seen with pride how British overseas aid saves children’s lives. That is why I say cuts should be reversed | David Harewood

I understand the pressure on the public purse, but I have also seen the effect of our spending on the ground, says actor and Unicef UK ambassador David Harewood

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Quite the tour d'horizon: Iran, Yemen, the Arctic, Haiti, DRC, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Gaza etc etc. All laudable, important. But not a word about the world's largest humanitarian crisis & the metastasizing conflict in #Sudan. 🇨🇦 withdrawal from the scene is absolute. www.canada.ca/en/global-af...

canada.ca

Minister Anand concludes participation in the 81st United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week

The Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today concluded her participation in the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) High-Level Week in New York City.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"🇨🇦 heads for the hills as humanitarian need peaks Our cut-and-run approach to foreign aid goes beyond slashing funding to the lowest level since 1969, includes closing missions in key regions & withdrawing peacekeeping ops.." DM me if unable to access www.hilltimes.com/2026/09/17/c...

hilltimes.com

Canada heads for the hills as humanitarian need peaks - The Hill Times

Our cut-and-run approach to foreign aid goes beyond slashing funding to the lowest level since 1969, and includes closing missions in key regions, and withdrawing peacekeeping operations, argues forme...

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The sun is about to rise over Canada's Pacific coast.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

At the Fall BBQ of our local sailing club, I was asked why we don't race any more. Nostalgia for our unique steel, 1940s-era Khartoum One Design, that we used to race thrice-weekly on the Blue Nile, and - more to the point - dent at will. It seems now like a distant dream.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

📚💙Fifty #sailing destinations to dream of..See how many you can identify (without peeking 🧐) www.bosunbird.com/under-wide-a...

bosunbird.com

Under Wide and Starry Skies Gallery – Bosun Bird

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The sun rises over Lasqueti Island and the BC mainland as we near home waters. Unfortunately, it's lingering smoke from a summer of wildfires that makes the spectacle.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Sailing the Salish Sea 40yrs ago we would never see humpbacks; now we have encounters almost every day - a remarkable recovery story. But the Southern Resident Orcas aren't doing so well (choosy over their diet- exclusively Chinook salmon, whose stocks are diminishing).

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Early morning and the wind picks up to 20 kts as we pass the bell-buoy south of Marina Island. Spanish navigators named Cortes Island after the conquistador, in the 1790's, along with Marina (his mistress/wife, aka La Malinche) and nearby Hernando (his first name)

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

We're inside The Gorge, a narrow pass into a fine harbour on Cortes island. From the high cliffs, the Klahoose nation would in times of war roll heavy boulders down on the attacking canoes of their rivals, the Kwakwaka'wakw. It's a bit quieter these days.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Still a lot of questions to be answered here, but long-standing allegations that the SAF has/had a chemical weapons programme in #Sudan suddenly acquire new life, just as the US is pushing for a blanket arms embargo. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/w...

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's going to be a hot day: morning at Waiatt Bay, Quadra Island. Note for history buffs: when war with 🇪🇸threatened, 🇬🇧 offered to call the big island they were squabbling over "Vancouver & Quadra's Island". It didn't stick; Vancouver ended up with the big one, Quadra this one.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In the constricted waters behind Vancouver Island, you soon learn that you can't just plan on going from A to B on a given day. Several sets of rapids run up to 16 kts, with standing waves of 2-3m, navigable only at slack. Here we're doing a recce of Okisollo Rapids (max 11kts).

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

We're at Owen Bay, Sonora Island. Once a thriving village, but always off-grid in every sense. (L): local resident Mrs Schnarr with her pet cougar Cleo in the 1920s. (R) A typical homestead today. Population is about 50.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Bucolic Owen Bay (Sonora Island) has a spooky history. A sailboat was once found here at anchor, hatches pen, a tabby cat purring on the bunk, a book open, the remains of breakfast in the galley - but the crew were gone, never found.☹️

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The light at Chatham Point, where N-trending Discovery Passage turns W into Johnstone Strait. We love to see these characteristic red/white staffed lighthouses, but the truth is they're a costly anachronism. The lights are now automated, keepers have no rescue/communication role.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

We hear a distant thrashing; it becomes louder. Then over the next half hour we witness an amazing spectacle: a pod of fifty Pacific white-sided dolphins hunting in a pack, circling ever more tightly to encircle Chinook salmon in a corner of the harbour. They come as close as 5m.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Low tide at Cameleon Harbour, Sonora Island. As so often, this place is named after a Royal Navy ship, stationed at Esquimalt in the 1860s; the spelling is archaic, but was maintained on successive ships into the 20th century.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

In the warm, enclosed waters of Cameleon Harbour there are giant jellyfish everywhere, and a few stranded on the beach. It's sub-optimal if one of these gets close to your cooling water intake when the engine is running 😬

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

At the entrance to Cameleon (sic) Harbour there's a dangerous rock mid-channel that submerges as the tide rises. Fortunately, there's no missing it today.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

In Nodales Channel. Most of the locales here are named after British or Spanish navigators who explored these waters in the 18th and 19th C. In this case, Spanish sailors Galiano and Valdes recalled the Nodal brothers, who had inspired them by earlier exploration in Patagonia.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

We make an early-morning start as the fog that set in overnight begins slowly to lift. To our surprise - we thought we were alone - there's a fishing boat anchored a hundred or so meters away.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

#Sudan. "If only there had been a public reckoning—a real, lived awareness of what the slow death of a constitution leads to...perhaps the collapse of an entire nation could have been prevented." hrp.law.harvard.edu/a-dead-const...

hrp.law.harvard.edu

A Dead Constitution: How Sudan's Legal Guardrails Were Dismantled and Why War Was the Natural Trajectory - Harvard Law School | Human Rights Program

Rubbing my face with all my might, raising my head just to breathe, I am running as fast as I...

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Our new friends at Bickley Bay. We're seeing bears almost every day now - it's that hungry time of the year before the salmon return, and low tide at the beach offers the best pickings.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

We're at anchor; from below we hear a repeated bumping against the hull. We emerge to find this proud female harbour seal (R) showing off her new-born. For an hour she circles, protecting the pup with one fin, batting the water with the other, as if to say "Look at my baby!"

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The anchor rattles down in Bickley Bay, the boat settles, the wildlife returns to the beach. A juvenile bald eagle and a red-throated loon have a face-off on the shoreline. The loon will be safe as long as he stays on the water (political message purely accidental 😜)

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Stretching our legs on an abandoned logging road, we're careful to make lots of noise (which can be exhausting). When we get back to the boat, there's a bear on the beach; with the salmon yet to return, berries long gone, the beach provides the best pickings.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

We're off Karlukwees, once the home of the Tlowitsis Nation of the Kwakwaka'wakw people, abandoned in the 1950s; the painting by Walter Philips is of the village in the winter of 1929. There's now only one semi-ruined structure left, almost engulfed by the forest.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Ghosting along in light winds in Tribune Channel. Underwater, the cliffs are often just as steep - and deep - as they are above the surface, which means there are not always as many anchorages as you might hope.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

We're entering steep-sided Simoom Sound. An odd name: a Simoom is a wind that blows across the Arabian peninsula🤔. Captain John Kingcome, exploring these waters in the 1860's, was running out of names by the time he got here; HMS Simoom was an earlier command of his.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

From our anchorage at Cypress Harbour, we have a fine view up Kingcome Inlet, the traditional territory of the Ḵwiḵwa̱sutʼinux̱w Ha̱xwaʼmis people. This was the setting of Margaret Craven's evocative, bestselling 1967 novel "I Heard the Owl Call My Name."

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Reading of the death of Yayoi Kusama, I'm reminded of our long summer cruising the myth-laden Inland Sea. A slightly hallucinatory highlight was a call at the island of Naoshima, which- after decades of depopulation -reinvented itself as a modern art mecca.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

We're rowing into the beach at Cypress Harbour for a walk when this fellow emerges from the trees. He spends the next hour grazing,occasionally looking up to check on us. No walk today.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Meandering our way through the Broughtons. This baffling network of channels and islands all but blocks the way "behind" Vancouver Island - it's salutary to think how Vancouver found his way through here in HMS Discovery in 1792; Broughton was his deputy, captain of HMS Chatham.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

From our anchorage at Turnbull Cove, in the Broughton archipelago, we make a 30-minute trek through the woods to idyllic Huaskin Lake. This old pontoon left by loggers makes a perfect swimming platform on a hot summer afternoon.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The golf course at Sullivan Bay...Only one hole; make a hole in one, you stay free 😬 tbh, the shop is a bit disappointing, after a month with no fresh food: one orange, six potatoes and a loaf of sliced bread from the freezer.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Sullivan Bay community (L) was established in 1945 as a refuelling depot for Queen Charlotte Airlines (later Pacific Western). R: a Supermarine Stranraer makes a call (1951). Nowadays float planes still stop by, but it's mainly cruising boats who want to fill up.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

We're coming in to the first place resembling a settlement that we've seen in month: Sullivan Bay (which is entirely afloat). Excited at the prospect of some fresh supplies at the shop!

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

At Blunden Harbour, on the N shore of Queen Charlotte Strait, are 3 other boats - more than we've seen in weeks. You have to admire the humour and modesty of an owner who'd call his boat "Tubby" - a bit more original than the "Interlude"s and "Dawn Treader"s we see everywhere 🙂

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Reaching southeast along the BC mainland coast, in Queen Charlotte Strait.

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

When choosing an anchorage in BC it's always a good idea to see how much driftwood there is onshore: if a lot, it's too exposed. A peculiar hazard every two weeks or so is high tides lifting trees/logs off the beach: this one drifted past us three times in one day

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Deep in the forest behind Smith Sound, we find this old cedar. Can you see how a long chunk of wood has been cut out? This will have been members of the Gwaʼsala-ʼNakwaxdaʼxwl nation testing to see if would make a good canoe/totem (evidently the decision was "no").

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Exploring in the forest, Fly Basin, off Smith Sound. The notches in stumps like this indicate the tree was logged in the 1930s at the latest, before the advent of chainsaws. "Springboards" would be inserted, allowing a pair of men to saw the tree by hand, standing on the boards

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

At low tide, the remains of an old steam donkey (an engine used to haul logs to the water's edge) emerges at the head of the bay we're anchored in. Pretty much everywhere here, however remote-seeming, has been logged at some point - this probably in the 1930s

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Nick Coghlan @nicholascoghlan.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

We're leaving Rivers Inlet, bound for adjacent Smith Sound. Fog is so prevalent on the coast in August that the month is sometimes known as Fogust; it usually burns off by noon.

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