July 17

We're here in Maple Bay, at the Maple Bay Yacht Club, on their reciprocal dock. It's a beautiful day in sunny British Columbia, although the wind outside the bay is brisk....

We left Lund with the intention of going about 3 hours to Sturt Bay, on Texada Island....well, it was sunny, warm, pretty calm and we just didn't want to anchor yet. Sooooo, we went on down to Jervis Inlet, where we dropped an anchor around 2:00pm. Well, it was rocky, and Bob wasn't feeling comfortable with how the anchor was holding, so we made the decision to pull it up and go to Pender Harbour - another 2 hours away. So, there went my desire for a short day's run! We went to Fisherman's Resort in Pender Harbour and had a relatively quiet night. After 8 weeks of being alone or almost alone in every anchorage, being in a marina packed full of partying people was culture shock. The next morning at 7 we left Pender and were going to Bowen Island in Howe Sound, just north of Vancouver. About an hour into the trip, the weather channel reported strong wind warnings in Howe Sound.....we were currently into the Straits of Georgia, and the water was pretty calm, so we just said "Heck with it" and turned the boat towards the west.....and crossed the straits, went into Gabriola Pass 10 minutes before slack, went through the pass and ended up in Clam Bay on Thetis Island at 3:30pm. So another long day......we spent 2 nights in Clam Bay, and this morning we came down the east side of Vancouver Island and here we are, in Maple Bay. We will cross back into US waters tomorrow and plan to come home the day after.....or maybe Sunday.

...And now that I have this terrific, quick WiFi at the Maple Bay clubhouse, I will show you the pictures.....

Here's a shot of the stern tie in Laura Bay:

and Laura Bay itself:

Here's that seafood dinner that Bob brought back:

and Bob's first ling cod:

Remember my sweater??? Here it is, with my homemade needles made of bbq skewers:

and the infamous (but not so scary today) Chatham Pt:

July 13

Still no pictures....I've taken them, but either they are too large for the servers, or I'm taking too much bandwidth.....so, if you want to see any pictures, let me know and I'll email them to you. :)


A few days ago (july 8th) we were in Laura Bay (one of our very favorite places in the Broughtons), catching fish and crab and just hanging out. (With Cap'n Charlie, the singer, as it turned out.) We left there on the 10th and went down to Minstrel Island. Minstrel used to be a Happenin' place - a resort with restaurant, shop, etc........but it fell to the economy about 20 years ago and went out of business. The place is shut up - buildings still there, but nobody's home.............but the docks are still just fine (they built them well). So we tied up to the dock and spent the night there. Listened to the cougars roaring during the night. (I will never doubt the existence of BC cougars again.) Friday morning we went through Chatham Narrows (has to be done at slack) and went to Port Harvey, which is the stepping-off place for going through Johnstone Straits.

Yesterday, the 12th, we cruised through Johnstone Straits, through the infamous Chatham Point, and went straight through to the Octopus Islands! A trip that usually takes 3 days, when not going down Johnstone Straits. And here's a shot of Chatham Point, when it's nice and calm (probably 3 days a year): (Okay, again, no picture but maybe some day)

And every year we learn something. Today we learned that when the cruising book says that Surge Narrows should be taken at slack tide, it means SLACK TIDE, not 20 minutes early!!! I managed to keep  Nellie in the middle, but not without some yelling (I AM staying in the middle, Bob!) and a little swearing (not really very much, I promise). It made for some excitement in my otherwise dull (ha) day.

We are now in Lund, the end of highway 101. (I think I talked about this 4 years ago in the blog)....it's really had a facelift, and has gone from a kind of funky, old, nasty place to an actual marina with a fabulous restaurant (I'm told), fantastic showers, a terrific bakery, and it's CHEAP!!! Power is costing us $6.25 a day - as compared to $20.00 a day in the Broughtons.

Anyway, we're on our way home, and we have made the decision to shorten our daily cruises (as I am getting crabby). So, to friends in Oak Harbor, see you in about 10 days!

The forgotten/lost post

Here’s the post that I never published, from before we went to Port McNeill…..No pictures because the connection is too slow here....(we're in Port Harvey)

July 2, 2014

We are still in Jennis Bay Marina – we enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed another night! What a fun, funky place…..the owners, Kim and Kent, are terrific. Kim s really funny – she meets everyone on the dock and chats them up. Just an all-round friendly place. And really a beautiful spot.(Here’s what it looks like – that’s Kim, waving)

Bob caught his first ling cod today. A 34” fish, about 13 pounds. Ye gods, they are ugly fish! Biggest mouth on a fish I’ve ever seen.

So, here’s a picture of today’s seafood “take” – looks like prawn cocktails, followed by Dungeness crab cakes and baked cod. Yum.

We’ll take off for Port McNeill tomorrow. We’ve got a good weather window, so we’ll go over and fill up our water tanks and do laundry. We were going to stay here in Drury Inlet another day or two, but the water shortage is currently preventing showering! Not a good thing. J

July 8, 2014

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming…..we left Port McNeill at 5:15 yesterday morning, in fairly calm seas and a light fog, which turned into lumpy seas and a thicker fog within a couple of hours….but, on the bright side, we are no longer sitting in Queen Charlotte Straits, waiting for calm winds (which hardly ever happens, btw).

We’re sitting in Laura Bay, which is one of our favorite places in the Broughtons. We come here every time we’re up here. Because this is a smallish little bay with a very L A R G E rock in the middle, we have to stern tie, which simply means that once the boat is anchored you run a line to shore and around a tree and then take it back to the boat. (Operative word: “simply”) This prevents the boat from swinging around with the currents/tides. There is absolutely nothing simple about the process. It entails setting the anchor (in this case, in rocks), which we do all the time, so no biggie…..then, Bob takes the dinghy to shore, towing a polypropylene line, takes it around a tree and comes back. This is accomplished while the wind is blowing us towards another boat, Bob is yelling to me to “back the boat up” (ummm, we’re hooked to an anchor, Bob, it won’t go back, that’s the point, remember?) and then coming back to the boat e v e r so slowly – because it was only a couple hundred feet, he rowed over…….all of this time, I am running back and forth from the helm inside, where I’m attempting to keep the boat from hitting the other guy’s boat, to the aft deck, where I am attempting to unravel the stern line (since the reel broke when Bob first pulled on it) and muttering to myself about “if you’d just come back to the boat a little faster, Bob, this would be a lot better…for God’s sake, row FASTER.” I was happy that we provided dinner theatre (or lunch theatre, since it was only 11:00am) for the other boaters.  Once we got the line back to the boat and pulled it all tight, everything was fine………and this is what it looks like:

The guy in the boat next to us (we’re closer than we would like to have been, but nobody cares) is a super nice guy. He’s the commodore of the Tacoma Yacht Club, so he and Bob have been trading yacht club stories and sharing laughs. Yesterday he came over and gave us a couple of rock fish that he’d caught (and didn’t want, because he just wants the heads for crab bait), and we gave him some big prawns….this morning he brought us a couple of crab because you can’t keep them up here and he caught too many. So, thanks to him, we had fish last night and it’ll be crab tonight.

As y’all know, I brought several knitting projects with me, since I don’t like to fish, and crabbing and prawning take, oh, 15 minutes a day to pick up the pots and clean the critters………while I have upwards of 25 books (hey, I like to read), one can read only so many hours at a time. Thus, 4 knitting projects. That said, I have finished the socks – going around Cape Caution, remember? – I’m a little tired of the beading project (I’m teaching myself to bead while knitting – it’s a little tiresome), a shawl that I started in Maine, and a sweater for Bob. The sweater is the key thing, here, in this story…..

See those sticks? Ahhh, yes You see, I didn’t bring the right needles with me to finish….the sweater requires 2 sets of double pointed needles, sizes 2.5 and 3. I didn’t remember the size 3 doubles. Now, this sweater is fun to knit, because it’s just hard enough to be interesting, but not so hard it’s frustrating. One of the things that makes it interesting is that there are no seams at all – so when it came to the sleeves, that’s where I needed the double pointed needles. Now, I could have just put it down and done something else for the rest of the trip, but I’m into this project now so I don’t want to stop. (My knitting buddies, and you know who you are, will totally understand this. The rest of you will just remind yourselves that I tend to be a little freaky at times, okay?) So, Bob make me a set of knitting needles! Yes, he did! The bamboo skewers I bought for cooking prawns on the bbq are the same circumference as a size 3 needle. So, a little sanding paper, et voila! I have knitting needles………they were a little rough at first, but after a few inches they got smooth. Maybe I’ll start a cottage industry, making knitting needles out of kitchen utensils and make my fortune.

July 6

We're still in Port McNeill, waiting for the winds to die down enough for us to go out into Queen Charlotte Straits and get back into the Broughtons. Our radio hasn't been working properly, and we discovered that LED lights are causing some static....on the other hand, the macerator is working fine and we have 200 gallons of clean water.

I'm blogging from a coffee shop in town, so no pictures until I can use the PC.....

If the weather cooperates, we will leave tomorrow morning and make a run across the straits before the afternoon winds come back. We'll head for Laura Bay, where we will probably stay a couple of days, then go over to Echo Bay for a night. After these 4 days, we're tired of being in a Marina, so we will be anchoring out most of the time until we're home.....probably in  about 3 weeks. ( unless Bob catches more fish, in which case he isn't going to want to leave)

Happy birthday, USA!

July 4tg, of course, is not a holiday up here, so I can get all the routine stuff done here in Port McNeill. Six enormous loads of laundry done...now I'm $35 poorer but I have no smelly, fishy clothes on Nellie. Yay!

We ate the first ofBobs ling cod last night - really, really good. Tonight we may have to enjoy some of the 24 prawns we got yesterday morning. Mmmmm, coconut or scampi? Decisions, decisipns.

The plan was not originally to return  here, but we needed water and we realized that our macerator wasn't working....so we came to the only pump out we know of. We think we've gotten it working, but Bob will be spending a few hours making sure....if it isn't, we'll just head for home from here. We'll have to find pump outs every 3 or 4 days. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm not ready to leave the Broughtons yet.....I enjoy the quiet so much, and there are all those PEOPLE in Desolation Sound ( which begs the question: why the heck is it called that when it is anything but desolate?)....that said, I'm kind of enjoying being in an actual town today....there's a car show ( they've got 3 cars and a pickup, eh) and I'm writing this in Mugz coffee shop....good coffee if you like dark roast (which I certainly do) , and then I'm going to the drug store for Afterbite, since I forgot it and I'm being eaten alive by deer flies and Mosquitos. Maybe a quick trip to the IGA for real eggs....

Other than a suspicious sewage system, Nellie is running just fine. We continue to look at all the big boats up here....at 40 feet, we don't usually feel like the " little boat" on the dock, but at Jennis Bay after Steppe & Mary left, the other boats were all over 58 feet.....the guy behind us on the dock was 64' and he had brought it up from New Zealand. (!)

No pictures today....maybe I'll go over to the car show.....

July 1

         

Happy Canada Day! We are sitting on the dock at Jennis Bay Marina. This is the first time we’ve ever come up Drury Inlet, even though we’ve been up here before. I always thought it was just a short, narrow inlet with a rapids in the middle that we didn’t much want to negotiate….au contraire, ma frere……it’s huge. The rapids must be run at slack tide, but that’s okay, the tide is based on one that is close to this area and easy to find…..we went through a little early (about 20 minutes) and we probably won’t do it again. We came through fine, but Nellie just doesn’t go fast enough to make that comfortable.

We left funky, fun Sullivan’s Bay on Sunday morning, after pulling in 16 nice prawns. We got in touch with Saratoga Sue (Mary & Steppe’s boat) and met them around noon in Claydon Bay, a nice anchorage about 5 miles from Sullivan’s. We each dropped a crab pot and had a great time visiting. A shared pot luck dinner of chicken, prawns and salad, and life was good. The next morning we pulled up the crab pots and took off for Napier Bay – another place we’ve never gone. (We have read in the Waggoner’s Cruise Guide that Napier Bay is not a good anchorage, so we have avoided it.) Mary & Steppe anchor in here a lot, so we followed them in – what a terrific spot. 

A shot of the entrance to Wells Passage on our way to Napier Bay:  What I thought was fog was actually a cloud lying on the water.

Quiet, peaceful cove…….around 5 pm, we were having happy hour on board Nellie when Mary pointed and said “Bear!” Sure enough, on the shore was a black bear, foraging for his dinner. We watched him until he left, and then accused Steppe and Mary of bribing the bear to show up, just so I could see him. I’m convinced it’s the same bear everyone else sees….then, this morning around 7:00, Mary called over and said to look off our bow – there was the bear, swimming from one side of the island to the other. Did you know bears swim? Why, yes they do! Quite well, in fact. I would have guessed it was a seal except for the extra hump behind the head……….he got to the other side, clambered out over the rocks, accompanied by a fair amount of grunting and chuffing, and then walked along the rocks for a while. It seemed like a smallish bear to me, until a gentleman on another boat got off his boat (he was tied up to the ranger’s dock, so I’m guessing he was the ranger) and he looked really small (I have no sense of distance at all, so it was clearly a lot farther away than I had thought) – well, the bear looked at least as big as the man, so it was more likely a LARGE bear, not a little one. As we were leaving the cove, Steppe radioed to us that there were 2 bears on the shore – I have decided that they really paid extra to have that bear swim in front of our boat then get out, climb into some SUV or something and then go hang around on the shore waiting for us to leave. Must’ve cost Steppe a fortune!

So, we’re back to today – and we’re at Jennis Bay. Mary & Steppe are taking off from here and going eastward a little, then homewards, and we are going to hang around here in this part of the Broughtons, hoping to catch some cod and/or halibut…..but it cannot be a gigantic fish, because there is only so much room in the freezer (which is working just fine, thanks). 

Across the dock from us is the Deer Leap, an 85-foot wooden boat built in 1929 and lovingly restored. What a boat and what an undertaking! The inside has huge built-in buffets, filled with crystal and silver pieces, crystal chandeliers, and everything that just screams 1929. There are lace curtains on the windows, and an aft deck that you could have a dance for 20 on. She's kept in Port Orchard, WA, all winter and cruises up here all summer....and here's her picture:

on her roof there are 3 kayaks, motorcycles, an aluminum boat and the original canoe that came with the boat...........

June 28

June 24/25

"Knee deep in the water somewhere, blue sky breeze blowin’ wind in my hair…..and I think I might’a found me my own kind of Paradise. "  

 Zach Brown Band

We left Shearwater around 0900 in gray overcast skies, with the water even looking gray – everything was kind of gray……….we came 15 miles inland, and, PRESTO, sunlight! I can’t believe the difference this sunshine has made on my outlook! We came down Lama Passage (aka Llama, Llama Passage – we can’t help it, our grandkids love the Llama Llama books – “Llama Llama New Pajamas”) to Codville Lagoon, which is a Marine Provincial Park. Lovely. And we hope it’s full of prawns…………..On our way down here (about 3 hours) we talked about why this was better than the Broughtons, our previously favorite spot in Canada. We have decided that we were right – the farther north you go, the better it is. The Broughtons are much nicer than Desolation Sound – fewer boats, prettier scenery, etc…………and going past Cape Caution is much the same – this is MUCH more beautiful than the Broughtons…. We went down Lama Passage for 2 hours today, and we saw 3 boats, total…..’way fewer people up here.

We are anchored tonight in Codville Lagoon, a Provincial Marine Park. It’s lovely…we’re in about 40 feet, surrounded by old cedar forests. (If we were here in December, they’d have airlifted me to a Vancouver ICU by now – there is NOTHING but cedar here) It’s gorgeous.

Okay, I’ve just gotta say it…………we’ve been bombarded by “This is Bear Country” signs. Signs telling us to take noisy things with us, reminding us not to leave food, etc., lying around.” Okay, so if this is bear country, where are all the freakin’ bears??? I have not seen anything remotely resembling a bear. I don’t know who is responsible for perpetuating this nonsense (probably the BC Tourist Office), but, trust me, there are no bears to be seen….if you have seen a bear, it’s probably the same bear that everybody else has seen. There is ONE bear in northern BC , and he’s running around like a crazy monster, getting everybody excited. RELAX….I’m telling you, there are no bears. (If a grizzly comes around tonight looking for hermit crabs, then, y’know, I’m just a tourist, eh?)

Tomorrow we’re heading for the Hakai Institute, over on Pruth Bay, on the Pacific side…..

June 25

We left Codville Lagoon around 8:30, after pulling  our prawn pots – 45 lovely prawns! Yum, scampi tomorrow! (Or coconut prawns, but that was what we had with the Ocean Falls prawns….)

Pruth Bay is about a 38-mile run, so, for us, that’s a 6-hour ride…….but it’s yet another beautiful day in Paradise, so that’s okay with me. I could even make Sun Tea, it’s so nice. (Was that me, whining about the weather 3 days ago???)

...and here's the west beach, a short walk from Pruth Bay: 

We’ve been admiring all the great sailboats up here – a 36’ Pearson Pilothouse caught our eye the other day, but we’ve decided that 36’ is just too small – no room for a watermaker or a freezer. Saw one yesterday in Llama Llama that was making a good 8 knots (using his engine, not under sail). We’ve never seen a sailboat leave that kind of wake! We couldn’t see the name of the boat (it was about ½ mile away from us), so we don’t know the make of the boat, but we’re definitely going to start looking up here in BC for Nellie 2.

June  27

"Mother, Mother Ocean, I have heard your call…”

                                                            Jimmy Buffet

We left Pruth Bay at 0445, at first light. The water in Fitzhugh Sound was flat calm, and the only boats we saw were a tug pulling a couple of overloaded barges, off in the distance. After about 2 hours, we realized that even the ocean swells were low and calm. Our original plan was to go to Takush Harbour, on the south side of Smith Sound, and wait there for a quiet day to go around Cape Caution. After listening (or trying to listen – we get a tremendous amount of static on the radio when our engine is running – something else for Bob to fix) to Environment Canada’s marine weather, we realized that this is going to be the last calm day until at least Monday……which meant a long time sitting at anchor in Takush. Now, normally, I don’t have a lot of issues with sitting at anchor – it’s peaceful and often very restful (not much else to do but knit, read and nap). However, with the sword of Cape Caution hanging over our heads, sitting at anchor for 3 or 4 days would probably be anything BUT peaceful. So we made the decision to just keep going. This is against all advice, by the way. Everyone – simply EVERYONE – has told us (even the books) to make the crossing at first light, when the wind is calmest and the seas better. However, by the time we actually got out of Smith Sound, it was 10:00am. We hit Cape Caution around 12:30 – and saw quite a few boats making the crossing the other way. (Nobody was going south except for us and a cruise ship.) Certainly, the swells grew to about 1 – 1.5 metres, but that only lasted for about an hour or so. The swells weren’t coming fast, so it was really more like being passed by a 30’ Bayliner. Not bad at all. I was able to knit with size 1 needles when I wasn’t at the helm, so that tells you how calm it was. J When we got south of the cape, and into Queen Charlotte Straits, the wind picked up, but the water was calm again, since we were in the protection of so many islands. We are now anchored in Blunden Harbour (the US one – there’s another one north of Cape Caution, which makes for lots of confusion, at least on my part….Bob claims I am frequently confused about things, anyway, though). Steppe and Mary Williford are somewhere nearby, but with all the hills and rocks around us we cannot get through by radio.

Blunden Harbour is where the cougar got the dog in 2010 (for those of you who remember that story)….a couple was walking their dog, a Great Pyrenees – that’s not spelled right, I’m sure – when a cougar came out of the woods and attacked the dog. Bye, bye, puppy. The couple left Blunden and went back to Port McNeill, where we heard the story 2 weeks later. Bob was up later than I last night, and said that there were lots of animal noises last night – but he didn’t see anything. It was probably the bear…..and maybe the cougar. Canadian wildlife is overreported. (Except for eagles – they’re everywhere.) We’ve seen lots of dolphins, tons of eagles and a couple gray whales, but that’s it, as far as critters go.

Back in Shearwater (sung to the tune of "Oh, Lord, I'm Back in Lodi Again")

June 22

We’re still in St Johns Harbour….we got here on June 17^th, which was the last sunny day we’ve seen. L We have spent 6 days at anchor, more than we’ve ever spent at anchor (problems listed later). We met up here with Mel and Bernice, friends from Oak Harbor who spend their summers here yearly, and a whole group of folks from Campbell River, Bella Coola, Camano Island and Seattle. This is a great bunch of people – we’ve had a lot of fun. One of the main purposes of this cruise for us was fishing. (I hate to fish, BTW, it’s Bob’s thing). We got here – after spending a lovely day in sunny Shearwater (the last sun we’ve seen) on 6/16 – on the 17^th. We cruised into a tiny little bay with boats at the end – looking for all the world like a trailer park in South St. Louis County. (seriously) A guy (we later learned it was Ed, from Bella Coola) came out of his boat and directed us to a spot where we could anchor – two coves away…..this is not water for the timid. We threaded through some skinny spots and came upon a great big bay with a wide, flat mud bottom – perfect for holding. We anchored in about 37 feet of water (at low tide) with about 125’ of chain. Nice.   We dinghied over to chat with the folks in the “trailer park , finding our friends Mel and Bernice. (Mel is the designated King Of Fish in these parts.) So, the next day, in a downpour, Bob went fishing with Mel – at 5:00am, which is when, according to Mel, the fish bite). When he came back to the boat at 8:00am, Bob had a lovely 14# King salmon. Yum. And here is a picture of the quiet cove we're sitting in:

After that, it has rained continuously for the past 5 days. The first day of summer was yesterday – it was 50 degrees and raining. (I am grateful daily for the silk long johns I stuck in my drawer “just in case.”) Bob and Mel have fished daily – and we have been gifted with 4 chinook salmon (the limit) and one coho…..a total of about 67 pounds of fish. When you consider that wild, line-caught Pacific salmon sells (at my grocery store) for $10.00 a pound, that’s a great return on the $103 fishing license Bob bought. Here are the first and the last salmon Bob caught. I think they may be related, they look remarkably alike. 

Okay, every boating story has a bad part…………on every single “long” trip we’ve taken, something has gone wrong – we’ve lost the windlass, we’ve lost the computer, etc., etc……….and yesterday was ours. After catching a 22-pound Chinook and filleting it and putting it in our freezer, we spent the afternoon reading, knitting (me, not Bob) and otherwise killing time………around dinner time, after the martinis J, Bob went up on the flybridge to check the salmon in the freezer – HORRORS. The freezer was not working. My mind’s eye immediately envisioned 67 pounds of slimy, gray, nasty salmon……………consigned to the briny. Okay, it wasn’t that bad. No salmon was ruined – it was still cold, but had not begun to freeze, AND the freezer was pretty much saying ‘All done, no more worky.” All we could do was turn on the generator (which got it going again) for a couple of hours. However, we do need to sleep and the generator cannot go all night……so we turned it off. This morning, the salmon was still cold, but no freezing had occurred. So, Engineer Bob got to work! Our freezer has been moved to the forward stateroom (no more company – sorry, kids) and is now closer to the battery bank, thus working fine. 

Every cruise has its issues.

This is the longest we have ever been at anchor without moving the boat to another anchorage. I’ve got to say, it’s not my favorite thing. While we have had a good time fishing – especially Bob (and me – I’ve finished a pair of socks) – it has its down side. We started out with 200 gallons of water. We are fine in that department, however, no power pretty much means no water heater. Ice cold water. While really refreshing to brush one’s teeth in, not terribly exciting when washing one’s face. Showers? Fuggedaboudit. We are going au naturel. Bob took a “rain shower” the other morning – he couldn’t take it any longer. I heated water on the store to wash my hair, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that for a complete shower. Sigh.

We are planning on leaving tomorrow to go back to Shearwater (which is where I’ll post this) – the closest thing to civilization up here. They have SHOWERS.

June 23 - we're back in Shearwater, enjoying the hot showers and dinner out!

This is what Millbanke Sound (wave to Tokyo, everyone) looked like at 9:30 this morning........it was gorgeous!

The Ritz Carlton of the North.........

Okay, probably not quite as fancy as the Ritz, but certainly a fair cut above any of the other marinas up here....we are at Shearwater Resort and Marina, in, (wait for it)......Shearwater, BC. We're about 2 miles from Bella Bella, also known as Waglisla (it's First Nation name). Here's a shot of the dock at Shearwater:

As you can see, it's a beautiful sunny day here in Northern paradise....











Last 2 nights we spent at anchor in Kakushdish Harbour, where the spirit bears supposedly hang out. We didn't see one. We didn't see any wildlife at all, except a couple of really huge, loud herons. It rained most of the time both days, so we were happy to have our anchor down in good holding mud.

To get from Ocean Falls to Kakushdish, we went through Gunboat Passage, which is kind of scary-looking when we looked at it on the charts - it's very narrow, and FULL of big rocks and nasty currents. However, everything we read says that it can be taken, and is the shortest passage to Shearwater and Bella Bella. So, since it was early and there was no wind (because it was foggy and rainy), we decided to go on through. We took it really slowly and had no problems. It was, however, scary.....the rocks are huge and completely line both banks of the passage, with lots of shoals along the way. But, we did it successfully:

And now, tomorrow morning, we're off to meet up with Mel and Bernice aboard Reel Dream out on an island in the big, bad ocean..............and we'll hope for lots and lots of halibut and ling cod!

Still in Ocean Falls, part 2

(Don't miss reading the post I just published .... I forgot something)

We're hoping that Steppe and Mary find Bruce. We're wondering if Canada has AMBER alerts for missing torpedoes.

For those of you who do not read Saratoga Sue's blog, yesterday the Canadian Navy issued an alert for boaters to be on the lookout for a runaway torpedo. Seems that Whiskey Golf (remember that?) was active, and a Canadian torpedo evidently is missing. The torpedo is not armed (so they say), but people are told not to actually fiddle with it - bad things could happen. Steppe and Mary have named the torpedo "Bruce" and think his silver picture should be on a milk carton.

Gosh, I love Canada! :)

Still in Ocean Falls

We woke up this morning to light-to-NO winds and flat calm water here in the harbor. We felt like idiots, knowing that we'd expected a storm, so decided to stay here today. Shoot. Already paid for the moorage, so doesn't make sense to leave. Oh, well, we like it here. It's fine. So Bob went out to pick up the prawn trap and the crab trap....a few more BIG prawns (shrimp on the Barbie, for sure) and some HUGE crab. We kept 3 and threw the rest back.....when you get all 8-inchers, why keep the little old 7-inch crabs???

It just turned 11:00am and THERE'S the wind! We're sitting right behind the log breakwater, watching the white caps inside the harbor - it's nuts out there. Now, we're feeling very smart and smug. Especially when we know it's crab cakes for lunch. :)

We're hoping it blows itself out tonight, so we can leave for Shearwater tomorrow. It'll be about a 5-hour run, and the first 2 hours will be in Fitzhugh Sound, so we'll need to expect some nasty wave action after all this wind today......

Stay tuned........(In the meantime, it was crab melts yesterday, crab omelets for breakfast today and crab cakes coming up for lunch. All crab, all the time.)

June 12

We're in Ocean Fall, BC, about 50 or so miles north of Rivers Inlet. We anchored in Fougner Bay on Burke Channel night before last. A really great anchorage!

Yesterday we came up here to Ocean Falls.......we're really liking it here and will stay 2 or 3 days, while a storm blows through tomorrow. Ocean Falls makes Seattle look like a desert - Seattle's annual rainfall is 37.18 - Ocean Falls' annual rainfall is 169.32! That's a lot of rain!! But it's a gorgeous sunny day today, so we're enjoying it. We pulled some big prawns out of the water this morning, and our crab pot was so full we had to throw some back. Gotta like that.

 

Here's a shot of Ocean Falls

Hard to see, but all those buildings are empty. Curtains still in the windows, and blinds, but no people. This place had a population of about 5000 until 1980, when Crown Zellerbach closed its doors - no mill, no jobs. This is an honest-to-goodness ghost town. Current population is about 25. (That may include the dog.) It's eerie to walk through the town, with all these buildings, just standing there, empty. There's a restaurant in the hotel - I wonder if they ever get guests - but you have to make reservations the day before, because they don't cook unless there's someone to cook for (which makes sense).

...and here are the Falls of Ocean Falls:

Pretty place!

Next stop, Shearwater and Bella Bella - maybe on Saturday.

 

Port McNeill, BC

I was going to put the date up in the header, then I realized I don't really know what today's date is....I do know it's Saturday. That's something.

We're in Port McNeill, where it's about 8:00am, and I'm doing laundry....$3 to wash and for $1 you get 9 minutes on the dryer....and the machines only take $1 coins.  Oops, that'd be loonies, not dollars. Anyway, laundry is a lot cheaper down here than it will be farther north, so I'm taking advantage of the extra day in port. We had a little company on our way down Johnstone Strait:

However, on a side note, Canada isn't an inexpensive place to visit....I watched a man pay $40 Cdn for a case of Budweiser. BUD, not Microbrewery beer. Good thing we're not big beer drinkers, eh? (I'm practicing my Canadian.)



Oops! Bob just told me that we're leaving right away, to catch an outgoing tide with no winds........

Sunday, June 8

Lord, watch over us. The ocean is so big and my boat is so small.

We left Deer Harbor and the USA two weeks ago today. This morning we made it around Cape Caution. We are so used to boating in Puget Sound – compared to the Midwest, where we both grew up, Puget Sound is “big water.” (Well, actually, compared to most places in the US, Puget Sound is BIG water.) After spending 3 hours in the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound isn’t going to feel quite so big any more. We spent the night anchored in the Walker Group, a small group of rocky islands (or, actually, just really big rocks) in the Queen Charlotte Straits. At 4:00am we listened to the weather forecast from Environment Canada – specifically, the ocean buoy reports. The one we really wanted to hear was the report from the West Sea Otter Buoy, which is off Cape Caution in Queen Charlotte Sound. Unfortunately, there was no report from that buoy (so maybe someone needs to go take a look at that, guys), so we depended upon the reports from the 2 lighthouses near CC – Egg Island and Pine Island. Both of them claimed the seas were “rippled” but that’s pretty much the only thing they reported. Well, “rippled” is good enough for us, we decided, so we started out at 5:00am.(That's when I took the picture.)  After an hour into the voyage, we realized that what was missing was the state-of-the-ocean report. There were swells of about 1 meter. (oh, wait, I’m in Canada – that’s “metre”) Okay, so that’s only 39 inches, right? Yeah, well those 39 inches feels more like 39 feet when your boat is all by its little lonesome out on the briny. We saw 2 other boats while we were out there – a cruise ship bound for Alaska and some guy going south. That’s all. It was lonely out there….the fog set in, and we were just surrounded by grey – grey water, grey sky and nothing else. (Too far out to see any land, but if we could, it would’ve been grey, too. I’d have taken a picture as we went around the cape, but it’d just be a blank grey square.)  We got to Smith Sound (just north of Cape Caution) about 8:30 – and although we were in “protected” waters, it didn’t feel much different from the ocean waters. We were 5 miles from the cove where we are currently anchored, but we couldn’t see the far shore from the entrance. It’s another “big water.”

It’s raining and we’re sitting here in a little protected spot called Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound with 3 other boats. We listen to the weather reports and we’re glad we’re in here. It’s getting kind of nasty out there. On the bright side, however, this is only the first day of real rain we’ve had, which must be some kind of record for early June. As all of us Northwesterners know, summer doesn’t start before July 9, so any day that we have sun before then is a bonus.

June 9
Left Millbrook Cove this morning around 0645.....

 

The ocean swells were low, but really annoying....I'm not sure how folks handle this when they go around Cape Caution and all the way past Smith Sound and Rivers Inlet on the same day.....that's a whole lot of swells to go through in one day! We were tired of the additional 2 hours of them that we got today on our way into Rivers Inlet.

 

In about 6 weeks, this place will be FULL of sports fishermen! Rivers Inlet is where people pay big bucks to fly in and fish for Chinook. The waters are big and the fish are huge. But today, we saw only 2 people fishing (one a commercial fishing boat) and the water was calm - after we got quite a ways inside the Inlet, and away from the swells!

 

Tomorrow we'll take off from here - we're at Dawson's Landing - and head on out. Depending upon the weather (it's rainy today), we'll head up Fitzhugh Sound towards Shearwater. It should take us about 3 days to get to Shearwater and Bella Bella (they are just across from one another). We plan to stay 2 days in Shearwater. It's a fairly large settlement (about 5,000 population) with laundry, stores, etc. Actually, the store is at Bella Bella, but there is a water taxi to get there.....Bella Bella is now known as Waglisla, its First Nation name. I have no idea where "bella bella" came from, but I'll try and find out! That will be our next opportunity for Internet.

 

...and why I can't get this thing to left side justify is beyond me!



 

 

 

May 29 - June 6

May  29

We took off this morning from Comox, where we had dinner last night at my favorite place up here - the Blackfin Pub. We eat here every time we come up this far ...heck, I'd come up this far just to eat here...I had the best meat loaf I've ever tasted. Enough for lunch, too. Bob had cod that was breaded with ground up banana chIps, coconut and panko, and served with a mango curry sauce. It was fantastic....definitely on my "to try when I get home" list.

We left at 8:00 this morning, in a light fog and rain. But the water was flat calm. Crossing the Straits of Georgia this morning was downright boring. We decided against going to Campbell River, and instead came over a bit into Desolation Sound. We remembered a place called Gorge Harbour from 7 years ago....so we went in and then we remembered why we've never been back....there's no place to anchor. So we left and came over to Rebecca Spit, which is on Quadra Island. We're tired of going 5 hours every day, so we're staying here a couple of days. We're anchored in 50' of water, just off the beach.....and here's a picture of the beach.....

On Saturday, we'll go through Surge Narrows and into the Octopus Islands. I bought some steaks and salad stuff while in Comox, so we will grill them for my birthday dinner.

Ahhh, peace and contentment.

May 30

It is a glorious morning here on Rebecca Spit..

 I imagine that this place is hopping later in the summer, but for now, it's just us and 3 sailboats enjoying the calm and quiet. Our solar panels are keeping the fridge and freezer going great, so there's no reason to go anywhere near a Marina. Yay! Today will be a hand
wash day since it looks like lots of sun to dry some clothes.....we'll see how well I do with jeans...on the bright side, the dryer won't shrink them. :)

Now that I've exclaimed over the beauty of the day, I'll just say "Bad rice! Bad rice!" There, don't want to jinx it.

...And the boat quilt that was 9 years in the making is finished. Looks good on Nellie.

May 31

Happy Birthday to me!

I did no wash yesterday, since we both have plenty of clean clothes. I'll wait until we get desperate.

We came through Hoskyn Channel into the  Octopus Islands. It's been on our "places to visit" list for a few years. It can only be reached by going through tidal rapids, which can be tricky. We are entering from the south, so well only go through one rapids - on our way out we'll go through at least 2.

Cheated Death one more time! We went through the rapids about 20 minutes before slack water, and we were okay....a little rough, especially when the tide rips caught our stern, but we're through, and sitting at anchor in lovely Waiatt Bay....just us and 3 other boats. Nice. As Daddy used to say when he felt that all was right in his world, "Wonder what the poor people are doing tonight." (That's probably really a bad thing to say, so I'll just apologize for my "uncouth-ness" now.)

June 2

Cheated Death again by going through Upper Rapids on Okisollo Channel at 0800 this morning. Gale winds are expected at Chatham Point today through Tuesday, so we've dropped the anchor in Owen Bay, just northeast of the Octopus Islands and will probably stay here until Wednesday. If it's still blowing hard we'll backtrack and go through Hole in the Wall to the Yuculta Rapids and go through the Broughtons to get to Port McNeill.

Later.....The winds blew us back into Waiatt Bay, where we feel much more secure....so, by going through Upper Rapids twice in one day, we've really cheated Death!

June 5
After 3 days in Waiatt Bay, yesterday we went through hole in the Wall and spent the night at anchor in Von Donop Bay, on Cortes Island. We passed "Karens Rock" on the way in....named by me after I hit it (just grazed it, honest) going in in 2010. There is a house-sized rock in the center of a narrow passage, and I was so careful not to hit it that I forgot about the shoaling rocks on the side. Oh, well, win some, lose some.

We left Von Donop this morning and came through the Yuculta Rapids, finishing up in Forward Harbour at 3:00pm. I realize now that 7 hours is beyond my tolerance for boredom. We are hoping for light winds in Johnstone Strait tomorrow so we can get to Port McNeill. I am ready to get off Nellie for a walk!

May 29...I've lost count of which day it is....

Yesterday we left Nanaimo after listening to the weather reports for the area. Okay, that was at 4:00am. We left at 6:00am - the wind was around 10 knots - not terrible - and the seas were a little choppy - about a foot. No big deal. Whiskey Golf was active, so we had to stick to the coastline. (Whiskey Golf, for those of you unfamiliar with our waters, is an area in the Straits of Georgia where Canadian and US naval forces test torpedoes and other ammunition....so when it's active they're out there shooting things around and terrorizing seals.) By about 7:30am,. it was clear that the weather had changed pretty dramatically - it was blowing about 15 knots, with about 3' seas. Enough to make it a lumpy bumpy ride. Around 11:30 things calmed down, the wind lifted and the seas flattened and it became a lovely ride. Since it was so nice, we came on up to Comox, which was about a 7 1/2 hour ride for us. A long day.

Along the way we noticed that none of the VHF radios on board were working properly. Yikes. We were going to investigate the problem and figure out how to fix it while we were in Comox.....when we got here, it magically disappeared and the radio worked fine. Nothing to fix. We'll just cross our fingers and hope they decide to work when we are ready to go around Cape Caution.

Heading up to Campbell River area today, in a light fog and what appears to be no wind...............another long day, but probably not as long as yesterday.

No pictures, as flat seas and no land nearby don't make for anything much to look at, unless you like blue.

May 27 - day 4 (I think)

It's really easy to forget how many days you've been on a boat when your world is pretty small.....our world is 40' long and about 13' wide right now. However, so far, we've gotten off the boat every day. There's something to be said for going to marinas. :)

This morning we were up and out of Ladysmith at 0700, only to realize that Dodd Narrows wasn't as far as we thought, so we had to go at a snail's pace (about 4 kts per hour) so that we weren't just hanging around the entrance for an hour. Oh well, gave us time for reading.

Going through Dodd Narrows is pretty fun, I think. I like making the VHF call that you have to make going though narrow spots - it makes me feel so official:  "Securite, securite, securite, this is Nellie, a 40-foot motor vessel, now entering Dodd Narrows heading northbound. Any concerned traffic respond on 16. Nellie out." I get to pretend I speak French with the whole "securite" thing. Terribly international, doncha know.

I have a better picture of the freighter that Bob cropped but I can't figure out how to upload it.....as I get better at the ipad/photo thing, the pictures MAY improve (again, I make no promises)

As we entered Nanaimo, we encountered 3 BC ferries, 3 freighters, 2 log booms with their attentive tugs, and several miscellaneous sailboats. None of them, however, were coming to the Nanaimo Yacht Club, so we are pretty much alone on the dock. Very nice.

Ahhh - I forgot - for the first time ever, we got boarded by Canadian Customs and Immigration in Bedwell Harbour. Must be the year for boardings, since Karen & Barrie Hutchinson, who went through a week ago, had the same experience. I just thought it was a really slow morning, and the guys were kind of bored.....a strange experience, having strangers poke through everything you have. Then, one comes out and takes Bob away, down the dock, to question him (!). Then he walked down to me and asked me the same questions - only he tried to trick me. He said, "Your husband says he has guns. What firearms are aboard?" GUNS??? WE HAVE GUNS??? I must have looked a little flustered, because I sputtered around and asked him finally if the flare gun counted. :)  Anyway, we escaped the inquisition just fine. After it was all over, he came over, said we were all fine, and "welcome to Canada"..... then we stood around and chatted for 15 minutes. Nice guys (but a little testy on the gun issue).

Tomorrow we're off north - we'll go along the east side of Vancouver Island, either as far as Comox or maybe just halfway. Then we're going to decide if we're going through Seymore Narrows to get to the Octopus Islands, or if we'll go around from the other side. Reading about Seymore Narrows does not fill me with confidence......I would rather not have a close encounter with a cruise ship unless I'm actually ON the cruise ship....and they transit the narrows on their way to Alaska. We'll see - and probably let the weather decide for us. Which is the smart way to do it, anyway.

Hopefully I'll have the whole picture thing figured out by next posting.........there's nothing to take pictures of down here, anyway. Just lots of water and trees and big boats.

Sunny Ladysmith, day 3

On the first day of any boat trip, at least once, the sun will hit the water just right, and the water turns to gold. At that moment I am reminded again how incredibly lucky we are to live in a paradise like the Pacific Northwest. This afternoon we got that feeling around 3:00pm....the sun glistened, the water was calm, it was warm, and no big Bayliners went by to rock our world.

We got to Deception Pass about 90 minutes early, so we had to idle for an hour before we could get through the pass. Finally, we decided to go through, about half an hour before slack water. It was running about 3 knots, which can make for an exciting journey....but the good news was that the tide was going with us, so we just pushed it up to 1800 rpm and went through. Yee haw! Hit 10 knots of speed, even though we were going 5knots through the water....speed over ground is what it's all about!


Crossing Rosario Straits, along with some very big boys on their way to Port of Bellingham.


...and our home for the night....lovely Hunter Bay, on the south end of Lopez Island.

Day 2
Deer Harbor Marina, on Orcas Island.

This will probably be our last stop in the US. Right now we have wine and 2 cans of beer aboard, so we may have to stay another night, since we can't take them into Canada, and I can't drink all that in one night... :) The good news is that we're with about 30 folks from our yacht club, and the food and conversation is terrific - a great way to spend our last day or 2 before the next 9 weeks of mostly solitude.

The wifi router here at the Marina doesn't seem to be working, so this may not get posted for a couple of days. Our next stop will be in Montegue Harbor, on Galliano Island...but we will be at anchor, so no wifi for us. After that the plan is to hop over to Ladysmith, on Vancouver Island, where I know there is wifi....and real stores.  A bakery that is out of this world good! I will attempt to exercise self-control, but I make no promises.

I have pictures, but I will have to switch to the laptop to publish them.....I am having PC vs iPad wars....

Tomorrow we go through Dodd Narrows and into Nanaimo, where we should have wifi and I'll figure out a way to add pictures.

Oh yes, I did NOT buy (or eat) anything at the bakery

Day one - or, more precisely, day one-half

Taking off this afternoon in a pretty nasty day......rain, cool, pretty much just a yucky day. On the other hand, there is no wind, so as long as the windshield wipers work, we're good to go. We've changed the plan and will go through Deception Pass this evening around 7:00pm (or 1900 hours on the 24-hour clock - which I must get used to again). We'll cross Rosario Straits and drop the anchor in Mud Bay on Lopez Island.

I wonder what I'm forgetting to do before I leave..............hmmmmmmmmmmmm

The Great Northern Expedition v. 2014

We've been chomping at the bit to get out on the water.........hmmm, a horsy entry doesn't really go too well with the whole boat thing, does it? Let's try this again:

The main's set, the jib is ready and the vessel's tugging at her lines..........that's better.

Either way, we're getting close to casting off for the 2014 version of "Heading North on Nellie." I have been buying food for 8-10 weeks, and Bob's challenge is to find places to store it all. We've decided that our boat refrigerator is simply too small for everything, so we're going to be taking a couple of ice chests. As the fridge empties, we'll move things there. Right now, juices, sauces (Worcdestershire, soy, mae ploy, teriyaki, etc) are in the cupboard, but as soon as they get opened, that's more room taken up in the fridge. When I checked out of the grocery store yesterday with two carts and a huge bill, the checker looked at me and asked me just how many kids and grandkids I had! (I THINK he was joking.)

We will head off Friday - probably in the late morning, since we are only going for about 3 hours. We will anchor in Cornet Bay and await the Deception Pass slack tide at 7:00 Saturday morning. The plan is to meet up with friends at the Deer Harbor Marina on Orcas Island for the weekend, then head through Canadian customs on Sunday or Monday. Our first anchorage will be Montegue Harbor, on Galiano Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands. From there, we may head over to Ladysmith for a day (just because we really like Ladysmith), and then it's through Dodd Narrows and into Nanaimo, where Bob buys his Canadian fishing license.

We will have Internet connections the first 10 days or so of the trip, but that will go away the farther north we go. Once we are past the northern tip of Vancouver Island, it'll be sketchy at best. I have promised Ross that I will post more pictures, since that's his favorite part of this blog. My plan is to keep a daily journal and post it whenever I have the opportunity.

Stay tuned..........