01 Jun 14
Once again I am the only one up at the moment. (Maybe not, I just heard someone cough.)
But I was the first one awake so I crept up to the perch and began to work on the month end paperwork. I have to take the day off from duty, unless there is an official call out, as I am working a double shift and the BC Labor Law states that an individual cannot work more than so many days in a row without a break and if he does then all the hours worked during that pay period are to be paid as time and a half.
Its my own damn fault anyways. I needed the time off in June for the BFRO expeditions on the Island. There are two this year and they are running back to back. In order to attend one and then stay out in the bush until the completion of the second I needed to free up some time without taking any holidays. By simply swapping shifts with my partner, THANK YOU VERY MUCH JAMES, I will be able to depart on the 06 June and I won't be seeing civilization until the 15th. Of course I will have to be ready to go on shift on the 16th. It will be a bag drive for sure but it will be worth it.
A fellow BFRO investigator from Texas came up with this term. Trust me when I say the term is applicable to most hard core enthusiasts.
But, do I care what others think about my hobby, my passion? No, I don't. I do have to temper my cravings for al things 'squatchy with a hefty dose of family reality. Otherwise I would probably be gone into the bush on a far more regular basis. Hey, some people like to go to the bar, drink beer and throw darts while I like to camp out in the forest and let some 600+ pound primate try to scare the crap out of me.
I had mentioned earlier that I would give you a teaser from my book, Wood Knocks and Tossed Rocks. So here is an excerpt from the 2005 BFRO Expedition on the Sunshine Coast.
Over the next hour or so Matt positioned the vehicles where he wanted
them and this simple activity was getting the attendees pretty hyped up.
Everyone was now stretched out along the roadway and even the “Guys from New
York” had appeared for the gathering.
Now, almost every good story that I ever heard almost always started
with the catch phrase: “So, there we were…”
All lined up…
On the road…
Everyone’s vehicles were parked so each group was just out of sight from
the next group. It was postulated that in this manner each group of
expeditionaries would appear to be alone but they would be secure in the
knowledge that help, if it were needed, was just around the corner. Of course
the whole intention of this scheme was to make us appear to be just a group of
campers hanging out in the woods.
Imagine for a minute that you are a sasquatch just walking
through the woods, minding your own business and then off in the distance you
hear a wood knock or a vocalization. What was that? You wonder who is in your
territory so you reply back. A little while later and maybe from a different
location you hear another response. Well, being the inquisitive sort, you just
have to check this guy out and see what the hell he
is up to. And so, off you go.
Quietly.
Cautiously.
As you approach the area from which the sounds had emanated, you see a
small group of those hairless ‘squatches. No big deal. There are only two or
three of them, standing about or sitting near their metal rolling boxes. You
can see them but they can’t see you because you know that, shrouded by the
forest in the blackness of the night, you are safe from their primitive spying
eyes.
And what’s this? There’s another knot of these creatures just around the
corner. Well then, you think to yourself, I might as well just stay a while,
and just in case one of those beams of light stabs through the darkness in my
direction, I will watch them from behind this screen of trees.
So we sat through the night discussing the prevailing theories of cars,
politics, our jobs and of course bigfoot, occasionally taking note of the
sudden sound of a branch being broken in our immediate area. Fred and I had
parked our trucks tailgate to tailgate. I was facing downhill with Fred facing
the other way. The trucks were separated by about ten or twenty feet and this
gave us enough room to sit off of the road in relative security. John, Philip and Mike had set up their camp
about a hundred yards or so down the road from us. Going a hundred yards in the other direction
and around the corner were Aaron and Roger. Beyond them were the “Guys from New
York” holding down the fort at the uppermost end of the line.
On a lower road, directly below John’s group, were a young couple from
Washington State in one tent and a solo expeditionary in his own. Due to the
terrain their camping spot was extremely tight and as a result the tents ended
up being only a few feet apart. This group had arrived late, after a long road
trip that had taken them through the heavy
bustling traffic of BC’s lower mainland, and
then up along the coast to Sechelt. The sun had not dropped over the horizon
for long when the couple radioed to the rest of the group that they were going
to crash for the night. I believe the solo member must have felt that there was
no reason for him to sit up by himself because he soon crawled into his own
sleeping bag too.
All was quiet. Too quiet!
Even the damn crickets had stopped their occasional chirping.
“Is anyone listening?” It was Sarah from Washington State.
“Go ahead Sarah.”
John had an ear bud microphone on his radio and with it he could hear
someone calling and reply in a much softer voice than the rest of us. After
seeing John use it over the weekend I knew that I would be looking to pick up
something similar for my radios.
“We have a visitor!”
Everybody was suddenly all ears.
“Whereabouts?”
“Oh, about ten feet directly behind our tent!”
Does this sound interesting? Does it sound exciting?
I am sure that you have probably heard of the TV show "Finding Bigfoot".
Well, that's what we do. Only we don't host town hall meetings and we do not have cameras strapped all over our bodies. Too awkward and to cumbersome.
We do have some really cool toys though. The R2D2 is a $30k thermal unit that magnetically mounts on a vehicle. It can pan, tilt and rotate almost 360 degrees. We have handheld L3 Thermal Eye viewers and Gen3 infrared night vision. Some members have bought their own devices as well. Audio recorders, Bionic ear listening devices and some night optics as well.
It will be a fun time for all.
Yesterday #2 Son attended a dance for bee awareness, or something like that. He was invited by a girl from his class. It was held at the Comox Little Red Church. We dressed him up in a funky Bee costume. He was dropped off home by her parents, who were also dressed as Bee's.
It was pretty funny.
#1 Son was supposed to stay overnight at Ivan's place but for some reason he decided that he wanted to come home.
Well there is lots of work to do around the ranch today so I hope they're ready for it.
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