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Up. Up. Cause the tide’s going out!

I got up and joined about half the crew on deck. A few minutes of chatting and some coffee and then we cast off. The wharfinger made it down for his pound of flesh five minutes before we were ready so we had to pay $40 or so for the privilege of tying up to their dock for 8 hours or so.

After that it was motor, motor, motor. A few hours later the sun started to break through and a bunch of people hit the fore deck to bask for a while. Tim fired up the BBQ and made ready to steam the poor oysters we had been hauling around in a bucket.

To date I have not been a fan of the cooked oyster although I like them fine raw. But BBQ with a bit of lemon is pretty darn good. Leslie and I both had a couple and made appropriate lip smacking noises.

Slowly but surely the winds built and eventually we were sailing on a broad reach, gybing back and forth across the Strait.

A little later in the day a sail appeared. Then another. And another. And another. It seems the Swiftsure Race was on and we had the best seats in the house. There must have been a hundred boats spread out over miles. And through the middle of all that the HMCS Saskatoon came thundering into the waves heading back out on some mission or another.

Eventually the boats faded into the distance and the winds died so we motor sailed for a bit, through Race Passage and past one of the oldest lighthouses in Canada. After we turned towards Victoria the winds rose again so we unfurled the jib, killed the motor and Leslie sailed the rest of the way in.

Her entry into the Harbour was complicated by a cruise ship coming in and the other cruise ship leaving dock. And there was a third cruise ship hanging off to come in next. Exciting stuff. Eventually L swung back into the wind and we dropped our sails. Then it was a slow motor into the Victoria Inner Harbour.

The Causeway (right in front of the Empress) was completely empty but no one was answering the radio or the phone. As we approached the empty docks however we were waved over to Ships Point and informed the empty docks were reserved for racers. So we circled around and slowly made our way to Wharf Street. It was jammed but many boats had their fenders out so we surmised that rafting was de rigeur.

Leslie slowly wound her way through the complex maze of really expensive boats without a bead of sweat so much as threatening to pop out, then started a turn at the dead end. That’s when we decided to just pick a boat and raft. So Leslie slowly reversed the boat and gently brought us alongside another boat that looked like it was here for the duration. And we tied up.

Wharf Street is our second choice for a winter berth so it was nice to have a look. The washrooms and showers are a short walk away and are housed with a couple of washing machines and dryers. We grabbed a long-awaited shower and hung out.

Dinner was chicken and veggies and red wine. Then it was time for bed.

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I no longer have sunglasses. The string on the sunglasses had conflicted one too many times with the string on my hat so I had taken them from around my neck and installed them on my hat. Then moments later I had glanced overboard at some passing kelp and “ploop” — there they went. Since they were not of the floating variety they were gone before I could even contemplate attempting a rescue. I had lost my touque in a similar situation a couple of days previously but a successful retrieval had been performed.

We all slept in. Except for those who didn’t. But I did and I wasn’t the last one up, so that’s all that counts. Coffee was ready by the time I hit the deck and I sipped the hot deliciousness in the misty morning.

Intermittent internet has been a feature of this trip. Sitting there at anchorage in the middle of nowhere we get a cell signal but not enough for data. But at the hot springs we were at 4 or 5 bars. Tofino was almost dead but offshore we were downloading like crazy. There seems to be no rhyme or reason although I suppose there must be.

Wind predictions continue to tease us but the immediate schedule calls for 6-8 foot swells and a light SW wind. And that’s what we got. We pulled out of Pipestem Inlet and motored into the Broken Group. I really wish we hadn’t lost a couple of days so we could stay a while. But we are still playing catch-up and Port Renfrew at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is today’s destination.

The swells started up as we approached Cape Beale and hung a left to follow the coast. The wind came up to 10 knots or so, so we raised the sails and started to beat to windward. On paper heading into the wind never seems so bad, but the 1nm progress we were making for 3nm of sailing sure is frustrating. We sailed along for a few hours with Bob and Leslie at the helm, but when I took over the winds dropped to less than 5 knots. So we furled the jib and motor-sailed just off the wind the rest of the way.

The fog broke a bit and visibility was 3 or 4 nm but it was pretty monotonous. We bisected a family of sea lions at one point as the swam across our bow and I spotted one dolphin. At one point the Coast Guard Cutter Gordon Reid Came up behind us about 3 miles off, but at 12 knots they passed us and we could barely make out their outline in the distance. Later when we turned into Port San Juan there they were, anchored in the mouth of the small bay, lights ablaze.

We ate dinner on the go and I gnawed on my pork chop while watching Otto (the autopilot) steer. The wind had completely disappeared by that point but the swells meant you still needed one hand to stand.

Eventually 3 or 4 hours later we arrived at the bay (Port San Juan) in the dark and slowly made our way to the head of the bay. It’s pretty unnerving heading into a strange bay and strange marina at night. There’s not much of a town so there weren’t that many lights and you are relying on your weak night vision and the chart plotter.

On the first pass we mistook the lights of the town for the marina and I narrowly missed (we had 2 feet under the keel) running us aground. The marina turned out to be the two dim lights off the starboard so I swung around and frantically divided my attention between the depth sounder (which never rose above 3 feet) and trying to make out a dock. Terry was on the bow with a flashlight but it was almost more distracting than helpful.

I missed the first attempt because of my worry about the depth (we had hit 2 ft again) but I swung hard and decided to back in. The Northern Passage has a wide beam but her stern is narrow compared to most modern boats so while I concentrated on the stern I threatened to drag a large unprotected section of the hull along the dock. But I avoided that much to Tim’s relief and soon we were stationary alongside the dock.

The swell is still pretty present so we tied a few spring lines and then tidied up for the night. Then it was down below for some delicious apple crisp and ice cream. Some few minutes after the last bite we all started to crash hard and scattered to our various berths with gusto.

The final depth under the keel was only 1.5 feet but it was low tide so we would be ok for the night. But tomorrow morning’s low tide was another 5 feet lower so we would have to be gone by 7:30 to avoid digging the keel into the mud.

And then we slept. Or tried to as the wind came up momentarily and started the halyards howling like slightly drunken banshees. But Tim was on the job and silence returned a few moments later.

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Last night was a special dinner of pork loin followed by birthday cake. The cake was smarty-covered brownies and was decadently delicious.

I was up at 6:30 and heading for the shower. The tide was dropping and we had to be gone by 8 or we would be sitting on bottom. It was a lovely hot 3-loonie shower. Back on board we fired up the engine and cast off heading for the fuel dock.

What followed was about 5 hours of motoring in the fog with less than a 1/4 mile visibility and 8-10 foot swells. It wasn’t unpleasant but it wasn’t all that interesting either. About a 5 on the Anxious Scale. As we passed Long Beach we moved closer to shore but all we could see was the occasional breaker.

Eventually we turned in to negotiate the rock pile that is the entrance to Ucuelet. It was the epitome of nerve-racking for poor Bob. The lighthouse foghorn was droning on a 20 second cycle and the red lateral buoy was honking away and a faster rate as the swells lifted then dropped it. Waves were crashing on rocks all around us and visibility had only improved marginally. But as we rounded the point, the fog miraculously lifted and everyone smiled up at the sunshine.

We cruised the waterfront of Ucuelet for a while. After a few tight spins in and amongst the boats docked in the public marina for practice, we headed back out into the fog and Barclay Sound.

We cruised the Broken Group of islands for a couple of hours as we indirectly made our way (in the finally-appearing sunshine) to Pipestem Inlet to drop anchor behind a few islets adjacent to Bazett Island. It’s high tide, but supposedly there are oyster beds all around us that will appear as the tide drops.

While the weather has been ‘fine’ a certain amount of sail despair has begun to hang over the crew. The forecast has called for 15-20 knots the last couple of days and it has again and again failed to materialize. No talk of mutiny so far but there have been evil-sounding grumblings.

Tim, Terry and Bob headed out to go exploring in the dinghy while the rest of us basked in the sun on the deck. Later I rowed around a bit myself. Tim tried a few casts and hooked a little gaffer but threw him back. I even tried a few casts myself with enough success to prove muscle memory is a real thing. I think I was 12 or 13 the last time I cast an open-face reel.

After that everyone pretty much crashed to enjoy a quiet evening. Only Tim had the energy to row off with his fancy new trolling reel and see what there was to catch. Donna’s not changing the menu though.

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Another misty, foggy morning but a nice cup of coffee and a bread/apple concoction in Donna’s famous copper pan was a great start. I walked up to the entrance to the park and took some pictures while everyone got their day started.

After breakfast we grabbed a towel and our trunks and started down the 2 km board walk to the hot springs. We were the only ones there and were anticipating a long leisurely soak. It is a convention to carve your boat name in the planks of the boardwalk and so many of the planks are beautifully decorated. Some were obviously done on a router before arriving — a bit of a cheat I think — but many were hand-carved in situ.

The forest is beautiful and although it had been cut at some point there are many huge cedars and even bigger stumps. At the end of the trail there is a change room and a natural rocky outfall filled with boiling hot stream of water that magically appears from the hillside.

As Leslie and I stepped out onto the covered deck that overlooks the springs, two grey whales surfaced several times right below us. I scrambled up the rocks to try and follow their path but they had disappeared into the mist. I did get a few quick pics of their backs. I went back to the deck to tell Leslie only to find two strangers. It seems that a tour boat had showed up right after we had left the dock. By the time we pulled out, 3 boats and 2 seaplanes had brought eager tourists to invade our ‘private’ paradise.

Meanwhile we soaked in the hot pools and heated up our bones and generally relaxed. There were maybe a dozen people there besides us and that was pretty much capacity. Pretty busy for a weekday in May so I don’t want to know what it’s like on an August long weekend.

Back at the boat we repaired a fraying foresail where the leech line was showing and then cast off around noon. I motored us out into the fog and then we headed back inside so we could duck around Flores Island. It was beautiful country and the fog soon disappeared so we could enjoy it.

We crossed through Hayden Passage on a rising tide then fought it the rest of the way back. Along the way we passed the HMCS Saskatoon cruising along at a liesurely 11 knots.

As we emerged the wind came up and we killed the motor and sailed on the jib. We were making better speed but on a worse heading. Then we sailed right back into the fog. After a few tacks the wind shifted slightly and we headed in a long tack out towards open water.

At this point I became confused although I didn’t know it. In my head we would head out a mile or so and tack straight up the channel we need to go down. Unfortunately for me, the twist in the wind meant we had already tacked and I was running in a direction I didn’t need to go. So when I called for a tack we actually ended up running downwind then gybing. Visibility was couple of hundred yards and when Tim asked me where I was going I found myself hopelessly twisted around in relation to the wind.

Tim was trying to get me back on the right tack but I knew that was the wrong direction. I lost most of my words and any ability to process what he was saying. Luckily for all the winds had dropped to a couple of knots and we weren’t going to run down wind in that anyway. So we furled up the jib and I started the engine. Which was in gear. That’s when I abandoned the helm and ran to hide my head.

Leslie took over and motored us out of the fog and down the twisty-turny, reef-filled inlets to Tofino. We called ahead for a slip when we got service and looked forward to some real showers.

As a side note I learned to my chagrin that Terry (who lived in Alberta for 33 years) was a big C conservative-minded fellow. The conversation went ok until he suggested that Klein had improved the social welfare system. I let him know I thought that was laughable but that perhaps we shouldn’t talk about it. He disagreed and wanted to see if perhaps I might be willing to hear his opinion on it. Since I wasn’t and really didn’t want to fight about it, we instead fought about whether or not I should allow the conversation to go on in spite of my opinion. And since I wasn’t willing to do that either, the conversation was childishly (on both our parts, I admit) heated for a few moments. As most of you know I can be a bit pig-headed. But it passed. It did not however, put me in the right frame of
mind to accept my later complete screw up with the proper equanimity. So now I am typing and ‘sulking’ the rest of the way in.

Today is Tim’s birthday so Donna is making a Pork Roast. At one point there was some talk of eating out in Tofino, but that passed and dinner is set for 8 tonight.

Eventually Leslie brought us up on the end of echo dock and we tied up for the night. Everyone scattered and tried to relax and take the chill out of their bones while Donna shopped for a few more ingredients. A few showers were had before dinner as the sun slowly faded.

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B Timothy Keith
–a la iphone!

We awoke to fog. The most rock-filled, bouy-markered, tortuous route into any harbour in the trip and that’s the one we wake up in with fog all around.

So we chatted up one of the locals and his super-cute 3-year-old, had cinnamon buns and generally waited for the fog to lift a bit. Then we fired up the engine and the radar and wove our way out. We took a different route out heading southwest. Once again there was little-to-no wind and we headed out to sea towards a red lateral buoy that was slowly honking off in the fog.

There were however, lots more otters and we passed quite close to a few before they dived beneath the waves.

Outside the rocky shore we motored along on some big swells coming in on the starboard quarter so the ride was pretty rolly. After a couple of hours we tried the sails but that only lasted about 15 minutes. The wind was just too light and variable. So far today Leslie and I have monopolized the helm and put on a lot of sea miles. The fog lingered at the edges of the horizon, never quite lifting.

9 and a half hours of sailing brought us to Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound. Friendly Cove isn’t so friendly with a $12 head tax to visit. But we were intending to move on to Bligh Island an hour further up anyway. But once we made the Cove at around 7:15 we took a vote and decided to head out again.

The prediction is for fog again tomorrow and we would rather be stuck in Hot Springs Cove than an inlet on Bligh Island. Hot Springs in only another 25 nm further and we could easily be there by midnight. So I hauled the wheel over and head back out of the sound. Pretty soon after, Terry and Bob suited up for the colder weather and took over the wheel while Les and I took a break.

Then it got dark. Sailing in the dark is at once both mysterious and eerie, but there is certainly something glorious about it. We sailed towards the horizon until a faint light appeared through the fog and dark. And then another. The two lights marking the entrance to the cove.

Bob took us in and more sudden than you could imagine, the dock appeared out of nowhere illuminated only by our big flashlight. We tied up around 11:30 and soon retired.

There’s cell service here so I will post three days worth. As always, forgive the typos until I can get back and fix them.

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6:30 am comes early. Right around 6:30 as far as I can tell. So ya, early.

Once up on deck we fired up the engine and headed out of our bay. Last night we had been joined by a fishing trawler but he was gone already: the early fisherdude troll the salmon or something like that… We motored for Cape Cook which is the last of the dangerous headlands but there was virtually no wind so it was another non event. In fact we were able to motor between the Cape and Solander Island which is apparently a very rare event. The sea lions complained loudly at our intrusion although that was just one overly raucous group so maybe they were the grumpy ones.

After we passed the Cape we turned upwind and raised the sails. The wind remained in the 4-6 knot range so we didn’t make much headway. But once we were far enough out we jibed and were able to start to run parallel to Brooks Peninsula.

The winds slowly increased until Tim decided that a downwind MOB drill was in order. We talked it over then rescued our man overboard pole a few times. I am happy to report that despite the hijinx and three-stooge-like antics that no poles were lost.

About midway through our drills we were hailed by Bella Serena. She is the Nanaimo Yacht Charter boat we were supposed to be traveling with. But they had decided to go around the island the other direction so we had been traveling alone. But Brooks Peninsula is the nominal half-way point and this was the logical place to meet them. Luckily for pride’s sake we had made it further south than they had north so I guess we win this leg.

They were about 10nm offshore so we pulled into a close haul and raced out to meet them. We circled each other, took some pictures and waved before resuming our previous headings.

We played around sailing wing on wing and even poled out the jib. It was a great sail downwind for a few hours. Eventually we decided that Kyuquot Sound was our destination. One of the water tanks was dry so we decided to hit the fishing village of Walters Cove. We motored in, dodging rocks and reefs and tied up at the public dock.

Meanwhile Tim was worried because the tach was lagging and the temp was spiking. After we stopped, it turned out that we’d broken a belt and the engine was overheating. The issue with that was he had recently replaced his alternator and all his spares were for the old one. We asked around but no one had an appropriate spare. After a few hours Tim mcgyvered an old spare belt onto the new alternator and we were up and running.

Donna, Leslie and I walked to the store and chatted with the recently-arrived prawn fisherman, then walked a small trail to a nearby beach. Then it was hanging out until the engine work was done. As soon as repairs were complete Donna hit the galley and supper was on its way. We had intended to anchor out but it looks like we will stay at the dock tonight.

The only other thing of note was the sea otters. We saw a couple at sea then a few more in the entrances between the docks and one particularly cheeky fellow who didn’t move from our path until the last moment. They float around in their backs just like in the books with their huge hind feet flopping in the wind and their front paws crossed in their tummies. Super cute.

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We heard the anchor go up at midnight and an indeterminate amount of time later we felt the start of the ocean swells. The bar is a place where not only does the open ocean hit a narrowing channel of land, but the depths rise from hundreds of fathoms to just six in a fairly short distance. This causes fast violent water with the potential for huge waves.

So you cross the bar at slack (the time when the tide pauses as it changes direction) and preferably at the ebb slack so you ride the new current out. But that does nothing for the swells and the whole boat twists and bounces. We didn’t sleep much.

At 3:30am we dutifully layered up, donned harnesses and life jackets and grabbed our headlamps. The Northwest Passage is an ocean boat so we had red lighting in the cabin to dress in and not destroy our night vision—nifty.

We arrived on deck to find Tim and Bob. Bob hadn’t been able to sleep so had come up early. Terry had succumbed to the motion and retired early. The boat was just approaching Point Scott and with overcast and no moon the light on the point was the only thing visible.

Soon enough Tim retired to try and sleep and the three of us took quick 15 minute shifts to experience navigating in the darkness before it lightened up too much. After that we settled in to 1 hour shifts. The weather was benign but the 3 to 6 foot swells in the dark made it an adventure anyway. All in all it wasn’t too cold and my seasickness factor was mostly about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. I even closed my eyes and braced myself on the cockpit cushions for a while.

The sun came up, Tim returned and I sailed on. Eventually, one by one, we succumbed to the call of bed and crawled back in to warm up and try and rest.

The wind never rose above 5 or 6 knots so it was motoring all the way. We made it offshore about 17nm before we turned and headed back towards Quatsino Sound and Winter Harbour and on the way back the wildlife came out to greet us. We saw a sea otter about 10nm off and a small bird hitched a ride on the life lines.

After my nap I headed up just as we reached the shallows at the entrance to the sound that was populated by fishing boats both large and small. One of the fisherman held up his huge halibut with happy yell as we motored by.

As we past the lighthouse guarding the entrance there was cell service so I took the opportunity to upload a post and a few pictures. A few minutes later the signal disappeared but hopefully I can catch it again on the way out.

Once again I screwed up the track by not starting it when we cast off at midnight and compounding the error by forgetting my phone belowdecks. So I didn’t get a chance to start it until half way through our watch.

The swell died as we entered the sound so Leslie and Bob both awoke to smooth water. 45 minutes or so we tied up to Winter Harbour’s fuel dock. We filled up, visited the store and took a long walk down a boardwalk the meanders along the shoreline. We caught sight of our 3rd sea otter of the day floating on his back in one of the small bays. Really cool town.

Leslie says this is Sunday May 17: Day 6. I guess I’ll believe her.

Back at the boat we performed some emergency sump repairs and washed down some filters that were clogged. Then we cast off once again and headed out into the ocean. Well technically we didn’t quite leave Brooks Bay but we were definitely back in the swell.

About 2 hours later we slipped past Rugged Islands into Evergreen Bay and dropped anchor. It’s a small bay that is open to the south and still gets a bit of swell but we want to get past Cape Cook early in the morning and the other anchorage possibilities would mean maneuvering through a lot of rocks and shoals. Besides it is stunning.

Best of all we are here early enough that we could unship the dinghy and go explore. Everyone is pretty tired so only Tim, Leslie and I decided to go. We grounded on the beach and spent an hour beachcombing and climbing on the rocks. We found dozens of fish floats, most of which were from Japan, some even had kanji painted on them. It’s stuff like this that makes it all worth while. I collected some rocks for Donna and a piece of wood I will arm wrestle Carmen for.

Back on the boat we waited for dinner and Tim broke out the rod and reel and wandered off in the dinghy. No luck though. Dinner was pasta and then we hunkered down for a well deserved rest.

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