Eucott Bay to Shearwater

Thursday, July 27, 2007

Headed out Dean Channel in fog and clouds, soon to be followed by – you guessed it – RAIN.

Along the way we reached the Alexander Mackenzie Monument (52° 22.799’ N / 127° 28.533’ W), where we took pictures and saluted Mackenzie for his valiant effort to be the first to cross North America by land in 1793, about 10 years prior to Lewis and Clarks’s epic crossing of the western United States by land. The mountains are high and forests are dense… it is hard to imagine what these hardy men endured on this venture to expand the fur trade.

By the time we reached Fisher Channel it was raining and continued raining for the next
few days.

We stopped at Troup Narrows (52° 17.023’ N / 127° 59.629’ W) and anchored for the night in a beautiful, secluded cove.

The next morning we went into Shearwater 52° 08.843’ N / 128° 05.278’ W). When we tried to contact the marina we discovered our VHF radio had died.

After getting tied down we were able to rent a 10-amp battery charger from the yard and start the lengthy process of getting 200 amps back into the batteries.

We were able to get some sun on the solar panel Sunday to help out the situation, until some time during the afternoon when George discovered the solar panel charge regulator we had replaced in Bellingham just two months ago had also died. He rewired to bypass the regulator and rig the solar panel directly to the batteries with a disconnect so we can regulate the charging time ourselves, an effective smart regulator. We were able to buy a new VHF radio, the same model as we had, so that was an easy fix.

Monday, July 30, 2007

After numerous phone calls both north and south we worked a warrantee replacement of our battery charger with West Marine at Nanaimo. It will be mailed express post to us general delivery Prince Rupert after they receive our old charger that we packaged up and mailed today.

Later we had a wonderful visit with Don and Trudy on the Hunter 336 "Emma Marie" docked in front of Teal. They are heading to Roscoe Inlet also, so we may cross tracks yet again.

Oh, and by the way, it rained today… in case you had not figured that one out yet. We have promises of sunshine tomorrow.

More to come

George & JoAnne

Ocean Falls to Eucott Bay

July 26, 2007

Before we headed to Eucott Bay we collected our crab trap and 8 crabs, 4 big keepers, and our nearly empty prawn trap. We had some funny looking spider crabs in there – the likes of which we have not seen before. Definitely not keepers for eatin’.

Nearly 20 miles up Dean Chanel on our way to Eucott Bay and the hot springs, we came across a helicopter logging operation. A helicopter was actively hauling logs out of the forest and dropping them into the sea, and a tug was towing them to a booming area.

They had quite an elaborate floating camp fixed in a quiet bay.

Eucott Bay (52° 27.198’ N / 127° 19.049’W) is a beautiful site.

Once inside the obscure entrance and anchored in the shallow bay, it is like being in a high Sierra lake surrounded by high mountain peaks. The only down side was the horde of biting black flies; these things were so big our fly zapper struggled to kill them. It was like they had skins of armor. But we are off rowing over to the hot springs anyway.

Well the no-see-ems really got the first mate. The night was warm and muggy, so she slept uncovered and was free fodder for those nasty skeeters. Bites in the hair and on the arms and legs. They are itchy and nerve racking and there are many. Where’s the Benadryl when you need it?

More to come,

George & JoAnne

Fury Cove to Ocean Falls

July 23, 2007

The weather cleared and we headed for Namu and Rock Inlet,

where we planned to anchor for the night. (51° 52.340’ N / 127° 51.104’ W) There were a couple of Power Boats and one sailboat in the cove when we set the anchor.

Later the Cal 46 “Dream Catcher” came in and anchored. We had met Chuck and Margie at Lagoon Cove last year. Margie motored over for a visit in their new ridged dingy. We had a nice chat in the cockpit of Teal, comparing our adventures and good crab and prawn spots. Soon a shower came up and sent Margie back to Dream Catcher.

That turned out to be one of the last showers of that series of storms. Can’t wait to get to a port where we can dry the boat out again.

July 24, 2007

Before we could leave Rock Inlet we had to winch the anchor off the bottom. It was fouled with an old discarded, and heavy, fish net.

On our way out we stopped at Namu for about an hour or so and visited with Teresa, resident artist, beach comber, and all around harbor hand. Rene the caretaker was away celebrating her mom’s 100^th birthday. George chatted briefly with Tom her husband, we checked out their gift shop, and bade farewell to Namu.

We headed to Ocean Falls to take on a load of fresh clear spring water, large crabs, charge our needy batteries, do our chores and dry out the boat.

We set the prawn trap on the way into Ocean Falls and the crab trap across from the harbor. The spillway of the dam was gushing. The slogan here is: "Ocean Falls The best damn site on the B.C. coast", and it is magnificent.

We found just enough room at the docks for Teal (52° 21.186’ N / 127° 41.792’ W).

When we plugged into the shore power we discovered the battery charger we replaced at Bellingham May 29, had failed.

July 25, 2007

We walked to Martin Valley, the residential district for the area, in the company of some power boaters docked with us. We arrived at the quaint country store to get ice cream, and soon there was rumblings of a bear siting. The store owner said, "Oh that's one of the twins", and there he was at water's edge, posing for cameras, but not ours cause we didn't take it with us.... The conservation task force has been in the area trying to get some control on the bears in the community. It seems one of those cute little creatures tore the top off a van and tried to get into the store by ripping off the screens and windows.

Later in the afternoon we went out to tend our crab trap, to find 15 crabs; 12 males, not a underzied one in the bunch, and 3 females. We kept the 6 biggest males from 7 1/2" to 8 1/2". This gave us our first opportunity to use our new crab pot, put on board this year. It's a LARGE pot and yet we had to cook those guys in shifts.... what a feed!

We may abort out trip up Dean Channel to Eucott Hot Springs and head for Shearwater to try to get a replacement for our battery charger. We will try to post something from there.

George and JoAnne

Miles Inlet to Fury Cove

July 20,2007

Before departing Miles Inlet in a light fog and calm, we picked up the crab trap and three Dungeness crabs, returned one undersized and kept two good sized ones. We left Miles in time to arrive at Cape Caution at slack tide. It was another exceptionally smooth rounding of a potentially nasty headland.

We saw several Gray Whales on our way to Fury Cove at Rivers Inlet.

This calm cove is rimmed by a white shell beach, which shown bright even through the dreariness of fog and rain. When we went into Fury Cove (51° 29.196’ N / 127° 45.549’ W) there were only three boats at anchor, but during the three days we spent there waiting for yet another Southeaster to calm down, we had up to 10 or more boats at anchor, most heading south.

Don and Reanne Douglas of Baiarka arrived Sunday the 22^nd. They are the folks who write one of the cruising guides we use.

More to Come
George & JoAnne

Port Hardy to Miles Inlet

July18, 2007

After four days re-grouping at Port Hardy we cast off in a thick fog about midday. By the time we got half way out of Hardy Bay the skies cleared and we had brilliant sunshine for our crossing of Goletas channel, and good visibility in fog across Gordon Channel.

As we approached the Walker Group we were escorted by a pod of a dozen Dall Dolphins that played in Teals bow wave for 10 minutes or so. The visibility across Queen Charlotte Strait wasn’t all that good and the wind was building, so the captain chose to go into the anchorage between Kent and Staples islands (50° 53.918’ N / 127° 31.879’ W) in the Walker Group for the night.

There were two other boats anchored there, but we found room to anchor. Just before dark another boat, a sport fishing rig, squeezed in and anchored just as it started to rain. Little did we know those were the first drops of a 5-day rain session.

July 19, 2007

We awoke to rain and fog,. We waited until mid day to follow the other boats out of the cove. We retrieved our crab trap and found two good-sized Dungeness, our first of the season. The eating is superior to Rock Crab, sweeter and meatier. We experienced good visibility and easy seas across Queen Charloote Strait to the Southgate Group.

We worked our way through the Southgate group

and on to Miles Inlet (51° 04.034’ N / 127° 34.877’ W ). One of the boats in the Walker Group Anchorage was anchored at the tee in Miles Inlet. Later that afternoon he departed just before a large sailboat came in and anchored in the south tee. In the mean time we had a wonderful crab lunch.

George & JoAnne

Sea Otter Cove to Port Hardy

July 14, 2007

Day Break, we worked our way out of the tricky channel from Sea Otter Cove and the northwest entrance.

When we turned toward Cape Scott the air was warm and the seas were as calm as a millpond. A short distance from the cape we saw a couple of gray whales blow and breach.

We were enjoying fair currents and made our rounding of the cape at 8.5 knots. So much for the tide charts that showed we would be there at low slack tide.

The seas and conditions were ideal all the way to beautiful Cape Sutil, this passage was even more pleasant than our passage to Sea Otter. We were so ahead of schedule we didn’t go across Nahwitty Bar into Bull Harbor on Hope Island. We took the passage along the shore around Tatnall Reefs and directly to Port Hardy via glassy smooth Goletas Channel.

When we got to Duval Point at Hardy Bay we joined the fishing fleet and put out the trolling gear. In less than ten minuets we had a small coho on but lost him at the boat. Not five minutes later we hooked another, a larger one and farmed him out during a jumping fight behind the boat. We fished for another 30 minutes without success, hung it up and went into the Quarterdeck Marina at Port Hardy (50° 42.776’ N / 127° 29.357’ W).

We took on fuel and the same slip we have had the last two visits.
After taking our much needed showers, who should we run into in the laundry/shower area, but Anna of Eclipse. They had attempted to around Brooks Peninsula during heavy Southeast winds that made conditions so rough they gave up on their journey south around the outside of the island and headed the other way to Bull Harbor. They had arrived in Port Hardy shortly before we got in. We had dinner together at IV’s Pub and bid them farewell and headed to the sack. Having been awake since 4:30 am, and spending 9 hours on the water, we were definitely ready for sleep.

We decided to spend a few days here preparing for our journey north. We filled the food lockers, water and fuel tanks, charged batteries, washed clothes, washed the boat, washed the boaters, altered running rigging, made some minor repairs, and generally reorganized our gear.

Now we’re ready to venture north heading out tomorrow Wednesday July 18.

We probably won’t have Internet access until we get to Shearwater toward the end of the month. We will get you caught up then. Possibly Jennifer will post an update or two in the mean time to let you know where we called in from.

George and JoAnne

Winter Harbor to Sea otter Cove

(click on images to open in new window)

July 11, 2007:

When we awoke at 4am, the bay was flat. As we stumbled on deck to make ready for our departure to Sea Otter Cove, a line of fishing boats streamed by in the dim light of dawn. There were a couple dozen of those little boats all heading out to the good fishing spots, with brave and sleepy fishermen aboard.

We wound our way through the passage between Kains Island and Cape Parkins, and up the coast to Sea Otter Cove. The sun was shining and wind was north enough so a warm breeze was coming off the land. It was hands down the most pleasant passage we have had this season.

The entrance to Sea Otter was easy and the cove flat calm. There were three sailboats riding at the four available moorings, we took the fourth (50° 40.690’ N / 128° 21.070’ W).

Shortly after we were secured the other sailboats left, and we had the cove to ourselves. That afternoon we had a light northwest breeze, but the weatherman was forecasting yet another South Easter. Winter is still hanging on. We were planning to leave the cove for our slack tide rounding of Cape Scott at daybreak. At 03:30 the front went by and the South East winds came on strong. At 04:30 the weatherman was forecasting S.E. gales. We turned over and went back to sleep. Our rounding of Cape Scott, just ten miles up the coast from here will wait another day.

July 12, 2007:

The wind blew and Teal strained at the mooring as small white caps came through the cove, but we were very comfortable being here rather than making way up the coast in a gale.

About mid day a 39-foot trawler came through the tricky entrance and into the cove. He had come 34 miles, around Cape Scott, from Bull Harbor. He had to make several attempts in the strong winds to get a line around the mooring next to us. After he was secured, we chatted on the radio. He told us that Cape Scott was pretty lumpy, but the seas were worse as he got closer to Sea Otter. They still had to cleanup the stuff that spilled on the carpet in the heavy seas. We both complained about the vagueness of the weather reports, and he said in hindsight that he should not have stopped at Bull Harbor the night before.

July 13, 2007:

The South Easter blew all through the night. The winds were lighter at 0:4:30, but the weatherman was forecasting continued strong south easterlies. We decided to stay put one more day for more favorable conditions tomorrow. The day was windy and gray until late afternoon when the sun peaked through the clouds and we started seeing blue skies…. A promise of a great day tomorrow! This photo is looking seaward from Sea Otter Cove.



More to come,

George and JoAnne

Winter Harbor to Port Alice Yacht Club

July 8, 2007

Eclipse was sorting out some engine problems and decided to go to Port Alice with us to check things out.

We left mid morning and had a wonderful down wind sail to Rumble Beach the community serving the pulp mill at Port Alice.

We went into the Port Alice Yacht Club ( 50° 25.397’ N / 127° 29.131’ W ) and tied up next to Bob and Liz on “Curlew” a 33 foot sloop going around the Island from Comox, B.C. We had seen this boat every time we had visited Comox in the last couple of years.

Anna phoned Errol, the PAYC wharf finger (Canadian for Harbor Master) and within just a few minutes he drove up to the club and gave us a key to the locked gate. He also ran a 100 foot power cord from the power source to within reach of our power cords so we could charge Teal’s batteries. The next day after re-provisioning, we did laundry and took showers at Ozzieland a clean and tidy little trailer park a short walk from the yacht club; the most roomy and best equipped shower rooms we have seen north of San Francisco Bay.

Sail boats Jade I, and Autumn Win, seen at Winter Harbor, arrived later in the day and now all of us shared the single visitors’ gate key. That proved to be interesting at times…as the gate needed to be unlocked going and coming. Janet from Autumn Wine invited us to their “banana boat roast” bon fire party on the beach. Banana Boats are an adult version of s’mores. A shallow channel is scooped in the banana and filled with rum, choc chips, brown sugar, etc. The peel is brought back around the banana and sealed in foil, thrown on the fire to just warm up, and what tasty treats they were. Yum, yum.!

It was a fun time watching the ambers glow and identifying constellations of a starlit night. We headed back to our boats around midnight and realized that we haven’t seen the dark of night much since we started cruising, as we are usually in bed around 10pm when it’s still light.

July 10, 2007

Jade I, and Autumn Wine left early to keep their appointment with Quatsino Narrows and onto Coal Harbor to change crew. About mid morning Eclipse headed for Winter Harbor and Teal fished, without success, before going into Julian Cove for lunch and to check out the anchorage for the night. The cove was beautiful, but it was so hot we decided to head back to the coast.

We had another nice down wind sail back to Winter Harbor, this time in the opposite direction, a rare phenomena when sailing. We considered anchoring in North Harbor, but the winds were a bit fluky, so we decided to go on to the Outpost docks. Just about then we saw a whale spout, and the flotilla of sea otters were still playing in the harbor. On the way into Forward Inlet we saw a big male bear working the same beach where we saw the female with the two cubs. A lot of wild life for such a short distance.

When we arrived at the Outpost docks, Eclipse was already tied. The winds in there were really blowing and the moorage was pretty rough. We appreciated help getting tied to an inside dock. The wind blew like crazy until around midnight.

More to come,

George and JoAnne

Klaskino Inlet to Winter Harbor

July 7, 2007

We awoke to sunshine, collected our traps to find two small rock crabs and just 8 prawns, before heading to Winter Harbor.

After getting into Forward Inlet and out of the ocean swell into smooth water, we hung out the trolling gear and started to fish for a salmon. We didn’t go much more than a few boat lengths before getting hooked up with a small Coho. Lost that one, and within a few more boat lengths we had another. This one found his way to the boat;

and with dinner secured, we headed for Winter Harbor to clean the fish and moor for the night.

On the way in we spotted a good-sized female bear with two cubs.

After topping off the fuel tanks we secured moorage at the Outpost Resort Docks (50° 30.562’ N / 128°01.663’ W) with at least six other sail boats doing their circumnavigation of the Island, the most we have seen this season. It must be summer.

On the way to the fish cleaning table, we met Anna and Lew on Eclipse, a 33 foot Sweden sloop, trucked out from their home at Darien Connecticut. They had a hors-d'oeuvre get-together with Jeff and Sally from their beautiful cruising boat “Grace”. We all had a good time visiting. Jeff and Sally were doing a circumnavigation of the Island as a shake down cruise in preparation to cruise south to Mexico and on to the South Pacific later this year

Bunsby Island to Klaskino Anchorarge

July 5,2007

We left the anchorage and the other boats at sleep and made an early run around Brooks Peninsula, Solander Island, and Cape Cook. This passage can be nasty so we wanted to make our rounding before the forecast afternoon NW head winds built. We had calm, flat seas until approaching Solander Island when the wind started to build, and we were getting some spray in the cockpit, but Teal rode it out in good order. When we rounded Solander the wind and seas laid back down and we had a smooth, dry reach over the 6 to 8 foot swells into Klaskish Inlet.

We went through the very narrow passage into totally protected Klaskish Basin (50° 15.361’ N / 127° 44.007’ W), and took one of the three unoccupied floating moorings. There was a fishing party on an aluminum charter boat tied to the other.

We kicked back, watched seagulls vying for space on a single drying rock, and numerous eagles diving for herring, and enjoyed the warm afternoon sun and a peaceful evening/night on the mooring.

July 6, 2007

Awoke to a great sunny morning and listening to our satellite radio of a slow speed chase on I-5 in the “Grape Vine” vicinity of southern California, as we cruised along – closest we’ve been to highway traffic since we left Bellingham in May.

We had a smooth passage through the reef into Klaskino Inlet, and through Scouler Pass to a beautiful anchorage (50°18.400’ N / 127°48.620’ W).







We set the crab and prawn traps before anchoring and kicking back to enjoy the scenery in the warm sun. This summer stuff is all right, for a change.




More to come,

George and Joanne