Port Hardy to Nanaimo

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August 18: After 4 days in Port Hardy getting caught up, we headed for Bull Harbor on Hope Island at the west end of Goletas Channel to stage our rounding of Cape Scott and start our cruise down the west side of Vancouver Island. As we approached Goletas Channel from Hardy Bay, I switched on the weather channel to get the latest report. Gales, gales, nothing but gales being forecast on the west side for the next week to ten days. A couple of days ago they were forecasting moderate northwesterlys.

We turned back to Port Hardy to re-think our plans. Not willing to spend a week or more at Port Hardy waiting for a weather window, we decided to head for Port McNeill the next morning and spend the remainder of our cruising season in the Broughton Islands.

While at Port McNeill we met up with the folks on Mist Approach (pictured) and rafted to at Shearwater.





We met Emerald Sea (pictured) at Duncanby Landing. We also met a single-hander on the Nonsuch 33 “Pilgrim” from Bellingham, that was heading out to the islands to do some fishing and thought we might meet up again at Joe Cove.

August 21: We headed for Joe Cove, but along the way took a different route than we did the last time. When we got to Blackfish Sound instead of heading into the 2 + flood current, we fell away from the current and shaped our course to White Cliff Ilts. and into Retreat Passage, then through Blunden and Misty Passages. We set our traps near the inlet to the cove and went into the anchorage to find two large power boats already tied to the float. We anchored at the north end - in the same spot as last time.

The next morning we hauled the traps and collected no prawns but six crabs. We kept the four largest and then fished Misty Passage for salmon without any action. We went through the narrow passage between Eden and Insect Islands and into Eagle Cove for lunch. We fished along Eden and Fly Islands before calling it a day and returning to Joe Cove. In the cove, we found Pilgrim tied to the float. We tied to the other side, and after landing, we visited with Phil while he was filleting a couple nice looking Coho salmon.

I fixed bloody marys, Phil brought fresh Coho steaks, and we had a great visit over dinner. The next morning he shared where he had all the fish action the day before, his trolling speed, and gave us the identical lure that he caught fish with, a hoochy named “army truck”.

We headed up Return Channel to fish in Fife Sound where Phil had the action the day before. We trolled along the Baker Island shore and by the time we reached Fife Rock, we met Pilgrim trolling the other way. We signaled each other that we each had the big zero, but before Teal reached the west end of Davies Island the rod went down and we had a fish on.

After landing, bleeding, and cleaning the 29-inch Coho, we headed for Shawl Bay Marina for the night, and filleted, and vacuum packed our catch for the freezer.


The following morning after the Shawl Bay traditional pancake breakfast on the patio, we were visiting with Bruce and Alekxos of SV Cavolina, only to discover they are neighbors of our friends John and Cheryl from Spruce Harbor in Vancouver. That was a fun surprise. Bruce shared experiences of growing up on the west side of the island. Stories of the old days when his dad was fishing and the fish were abundant and the canneries flourished and fishermen were able to make a good wage and provide for their families.

At Shawl Bay was the first we had heard of water shortages in the Broughtons. Loren the owner told us that Echo Bay hadn’t allowed laundry for the last two weeks.

As we were coming out of Shawl Bay headed for Pierre’s Bay Resort, we heard a woman from the Echo Bay area on the radio calling for help. A cougar had left her dog in very bad shape and she was pleading for someone with a gun to come to her place and shoot her dog. There was follow-up chatter on the radio from Bill Procter and concerned folks from the area. They apparently have a similar problem with mountain lions that we do on the Klamath River.

As we approached Pierre’s we heard a fellow from the adjoining resort calling the Coast Guard about the cougar that had attacked the dog. The cat had come back and had the guy pinned down in his boat and his wife and kids in the house and was prowling freely mid day in his yard (more than likely looking for his kill – the dog). He was calling the Coast Guard out of frustration trying and failing to get a hold of the “Conservation Officer” to come out and take care of the cat. They said they would do what they could. Later that afternoon, we were told that the authorities had flown in with dogs. They tracked and shot the cougar.

As we approached the entrance to Pierre’s Bay a humpback whale surfaced off our starboard bow. Pierre told us several humpbacks had been hanging around in front of his place for several days. But we only saw that one quick roll. Even though we met Pierre last year at Port McNeill and have run into him on several occasions there, we had never been to his resort. We looked forward to this fish and chip dinner as we heard so much about his resort last year. We no sooner got settled in when “Mist Approach” (Brian & Patti) and “Emerald Sea” (Lee & Waunell) came in from Port Hardy.

We had a great dinner under the tent, with Pierre and Lady Di (the resident baker) serving. After dinner he showed a whale/grizzly bear DVD in his, new this year, movie theatre. That Pierre! He and his wife dream up gimicks that keeps cruisers coming back multiple times during the cruising season. His popular Pig Roasts on Saturday night have a theme, ie, Christmas in July, Circus Night, St. Patricks day in August. Pierre’s is clean, neat, and fun to spend time at.

No showers. Pierre had water, obviously not an over abundance, (attested to by the sign over the toilet: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down”). Their public showers are on the fritz, and he offered the one in the house, but we decided to wait til the next stop. We parted ways with our boating buddies and agreed to meet at Lagoon Cove the next night.

The mornings have been overcast with marine layer turning to “sunny breaks” and 80-degree temps in the afternoons, August 25 was no exception. We cruised to Lagoon Cove, arrived 3-ish and were greeted by Bill, the resort owner, and Lee from Emerald Sea.

Bill laid out the particulars: cocktail hour, burn barrel, trails to hike, book exchange, and showers – AFTER 4pm when he starts the boiler back up again. Bill serves generous amounts of large prawns EVERY night at the cocktail potlucks. How does he do it? Guess he knows the hot spots. We bought the Lagoon Cove cookbook and had Waunell and Patti autograph their recipes. AND we got our showers.

The next morning we had a great ride down Johnstone Straight. We thought we might stop at Port Neville, but we were making such good time on a flood with the wind at our back, (moving 8, 9 knots, and even a 10.1 at Current Passage) that we just kept on going. Arriving at Blind Channel around 4 PM.

August 27: We headed to Heriot Bay. Made it through Okisollo and Surge Narrows at the appointed times. We actually went thru Surge Narrow with a rower who was keeping up with us most of the way (6.2 knots). George remembered him from when we were coming into Shearwater a couples weeks ago. We waited for him to come out of the rapids and had a nice little visit. He had made the cedar-strip rowboat himself, which was a beauty. He complimented us on what a nice looking boat we had also, and then he invited us to come for dinner at his new place in Okisoalo channel that he’s taking a lease on, next time we’re thru. What a cordial Canadian!

We arrived at Heriot Bay’s Taku Resort on Quadra Island around 3pm. Again it was strip off the polar fleece and put on the shorts. We’ve had sunny weather, but not really high temps until now. And not rain-filled days on end like last year. We’ve had only 3 days of rain in the last two months.

Free showers at Taku! You can bet we took up that offer. We visited our favorite little grocery store before turning in. We were moored next to a big sailboat from New Zealand, which has been cruising around BC for the last 10 years.

We headed to Comox the next morning on the same route going north . As we pulled in, there were seals sprawled all over the log breakwater, not unlike Pier 39 in San Francisco.


They seemed to have run of the place. We had a nice stop over at Comox. I did laundry and got calls in to the family before we left.



August 29: We anchored at False Bay on Lasqueti Island just about equal distance from Comox and Nanaimo. We had a smooth sunny crossing from Comox. We got settled, George got the crab trap set, and lo and behold, it started to rain. While we were fixing and eating dinner, it came down in buckets. It was amazing how hard it rained at times.

Then the boat started to rock, pretty hard. George put out the flopper stopper, which really helped, but it was still rocking a lot when we finally fell asleep.
We awoke Wednesday morning to full bright sunshine. Another beautiful day in B.C.! However, we heard on a local radio station, Tofino, a resort town on the west side of Vancouver Island, has had to cancel reservations of incoming tourists, at the directive of the town’s mayor, due to a water shortage. They are afraid that if a fire breaks out they won’t have enough water to fight it. What a bad break, as this is the Labor Day weekend – in Canada also. Reportedly based on the great weather this summer, they have had a better than average season…. What an unfortunate finale.

August 29: We left False Bay against wind and wave to go around the north end of the island. We went into Scottie bay to take a look, as we did all along the east side. We explored the island in Bull Passage, and chose Boho Bay to anchor for the night. This anchorage was much mellower than False Bay; we enjoyed a very tranquil night with about six other boats. The Bull Passage area of the Island is very picturesque with numerous anchorages.

The next morning we had a smooth passage across the Strait of Georgia to Nanaimo under warm sunny skies. We will be here for two days getting caught up on posting to the blog and all our other domestic chores.

We apologize for the delays in posting to the blog. Internet connections in this part of the world are iffy and slow at best. We appreciate the tireless efforts of our daughter Jennifer fixing our posting errors and doing the final editing. Without her help we would have had to abandon the blog early in our cruise. The blog took on a life of its own and threatened to interfere with our cruise schedule.

We will do our final post to the blog in a few days after going into the San Juan Islands to re-enter the US and returning to Bellingham.

George and JoAnne

The material on this log is protected by copyright
© 2006 George Benson. Reproduction of any of the material on this log without written permission from George Benson is prohibited.

Namu to Port Hardy

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Saturday, August 12, after stowing the prawn trap, we headed for Namu, a quaint little dock side respite. We motored down Fitz Hugh Sound in a drizzling rain and arrived at Namu under clear sunny skies mid afternoon.

We were fortunate to get dock space as there were many commercial fish boats – gill netters – rafted 4 and 5 deep. They were waiting for the fish buyers to come in on Sunday and were repairing seal-damaged fish nets in the meantime. We were invited by the harbor master to share clam chowder and her cinni-buns. The clams were dug and put into a chowder by one of the gill netters. Both offerings were delicious. It gave us a chance to visit with the gill netters and hear stories of the trials and tribulations of making a living at sea.

This was a thriving fish cannery town which, like Ocean Falls, was really booming in its day.

The houses on the hill looked livable, but sit empty rotting away.

The wharfs are crumbling, like all else around the place originally made from wood.

Rene the harbor master told us if we wanted to take the boardwalk – which once serviced the part of Namu that is built back in the cove - we should step where the nails hold the boards together, not in the middle of a board, and to walk 20 feet apart so if one of us fell through the other could pull them out. We stepped gingerly as we went and didn’t walk very far before coming to a section that had completely collapsed. This is unfortunate because there are archeological digs that we wanted to visit back in the valley behind the town where habitation has been traced back 10,000 years. Rene says she plans to work on improving the boardwalk so folks who can get along with grizzly bears can get back to that trail.

Rene and her husband Pete were involved with the final logging operation in Draney Narrows that we talked about earlier. When they were hired to be caretakers of Namu, they brought their own floats and docks. One of the docks brought from Draney is covered and set up for cooking and feeding large groups of boaters. They have built a large kettle-shaped fire place that is used for doing salmon on a plank. The large table they have built is a long slab cut cedar log that shows a friendly amount of stress.

The big float holds their house, which they live in during the summer. In winter, the winds blow thru at 125 kts, so they move the floats around the corner, and live in the old concrete block building that once housed the post office, pub, and other businesses.

Rene told us that during lunch one day last winter, they opened the door to get some fresh air and one of the grizzly bears from up the hill popped his head in to see what was cooking. Pete said he just yelled at him and the bear lost no time getting out of there. Life in this part of the world requires a cool head and a good grip on reality.

We visited with Teresa, a lifelong friend of Rene and Pete’s who helps out during the busy season.She showed us thru the old cannery site and the new gift shop and we discovered that in addition to her beach coming and wood working, she is an avid oil painter.

The next morning we headed for Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound to stage our rounding of Cape Caution. We entered the anchorage to find two boats at anchor and two more sailboats came in during the evening hours. After a peaceful night we pulled the anchor at 7am, and we were the last boat to leave the anchorage.

Our passage around Cape Caution was in light wind but was lumpy. There are two opposing currents that come crashing together right at the Cape, and the water has no where to go but up.










After we rounded the Cape we took the picturesque passage through the Southgate Group that gave us flat smooth water to make crab sandwiches for an early lunch.
By the time we got through the Walker Group and Gordon Channel the NW winds had built and we enjoyed a nice off wind sail across Goletas Channel, through Hardy Bay and into Port Hardy.
We are regrouping here for the rounding of Cape Scott and our cruise down the west coast of Vancouver Island. We’re catching up on our Blog posting which we have been unable to do until now.
We don’t know what the internet availability will be until we get further south. Please be patient for future postings.

The material on this log is protected by copyright
© 2006 George Benson. Reproduction of any of the material on this log without written permission from George Benson is prohibited.

Kiltik Cove to Codville Lagoon

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The morning of August 8 we headed for Shearwater working our way around half-dozen gill-netters patrolling their nets. The Canadian government only allows these guys to fish on Mondays and Tuesdays during their short season. And sometimes they have to wait til the following Sunday for the fish buyers to come, as we found out in Namu further on in our trip.

We arrived at Shearwater Marine Resort to find the docks full of very large motor yachts. After our visit to the fuel dock, we worked out a spot with Caroline, the Harbor Master. She put us at the commercial dock without power.

We were looking at the probability of having to stay another day just to recharge our batteries. While walking the dock to stretch our legs we came across the M/V Mist Approach and Emerald Sea that we had met at Duncanby Landing. And Brian and Patti on Mist Approach offered to let us raft to them. A very considerate gesture. We appreciated the visit and the chance to charge our batteries at the same time.

We tried to post the blog, but our very slow $7.50 an hour card ran out before we were able to finish. The wireless doesn’t necessarily work as advertised in these remote northern harbors. We were told Ocean Harbor had free internet so we opted to do it there rather than buy another card. We bought necessary groceries, propane. mailed a few post cards and called home from the pay phone. I did learn from a fellow boater that Verizon gives cell service as far as Shearwater at least and that’s pretty far north. We also did some research on Satellite phones and email from folks docked there. Next year things should be different in the communication arena for us.

Again we met the families from Port McNeill, doing laundry, shopping, and the kids running around the docks.

The next day most all the boats had left leaving the harbormaster wandering around wondering what she was going to do with all the dock space. She told us that the southeast winds the previous day blew all the big boats into Shearwater.

After leaving Shearwater, we worked our way through tricky Gunboat Passage.




Then on to Ocean Falls.

On the way we passed Teal Island which coincidentally is across from Georgie Point.

We really liked Ocean Falls, an old Crown Zellerbach company town which is celebrating their 100^th anniversary this year. It was founded in 1906 and thrived as a bustling community of 5,000 people, until when in 1972, the paper company pulled up stakes and left them pretty much to fend for themselves. The government stepped in and prolonged the agony until 1980, when they too pulled out. The little ghost town is inhabited by 35 year-round residents now living in nearby Martin Valley, the population is gauged by how many show up for the annual Christmas party.

Most of the original buildings are gone. But at one time it boasted the largest hotel north of San Francisco.

Their community spirit supported many organizations, cultural events (ie, plays, art etc), and sent swim champions to the Olympics. As we walked around the deserted, crumbling buildings, the energy that was once a thriving town could be felt.

The tag line for Ocean Falls is “Best Coastal Town by a Dam Sight”

The highlight of the area is the natural waterfall below the dam, which was the big draw for the paper company to build their paper mill there back at the turn of the century.

There is so much hard earned equipment left behind.

The harbor master, Sally Isaksen is very friendly and upbeat, as are most of the residents we met. Sally is the local artist and we saw her artistic touch in many areas of town. She reminded us of our friend Barbara Frese in Los Gatos, who paints on white walls and any blank surfaces she encounters. Sally has painted some very colorful water scenes on the electrical box covers at the docks. She told us that people have actually stolen those covers.We ate lunch at the old Catholic Church, which houses the restaurant Eva’s Holy Grill. Her dinners are excellent we are told. The hamburger we had for lunch was a 7 layer deal, messy but great!

When we were leaving we ran into “Nearly Normal Norman”, the town celebrity (featured in the travel guide most folks use up here) who lives in a abandon building (which he calls a museum – it’s really old junk left behind) and walks around with a wine glass in hand hoping for a refill. He tells people what they want to know about Ocean Falls, much to the consternation of some of the original residents Who told us no to pay any attention to him, “he is full of it”, he has only been there 21 years. (Which dates to after it’s demise.)

"The Port McNeill Bunch" made the scene and unloaded their ATV and motorcycle on the road with the lifting spar on Western Cloud. We ran into them several times during our walks around Ocean Falls and at the dam and lake where the kids motored up on the ATV and took a swim. They were really enjoying their time at every place they went. Perfect stops for active kids to play with all their toys.

Our last night at the docks, about 8:00 PM, after the wind calmed, we took Teal out to the old warehouse site which is renown for good crabbing.We set our crab trap.

The next morning on our way out, we hauled in 14 large crabs. We kept the six largest - all over seven inches, with the biggest one at 9 inches.

The 20 miles to Codville Lagoon was Teal-lightful, and we fished unsuccessfully the last couple of miles, then set our Prawn trap before we went into the lagoon

As we approached the anchorage there was a fawn swimming across the lagoon right in front of us.

As we rounded the island, we saw just two boats already in the anchorage. The night was quiet and the next morning we motored out to our prawn trap, which seemed to have drifted a way out into the inlet. A miss calculation on the depth. The buoy supported the trap, and when we hauled it, we had just one large prawn. He went back over the side and back to his home in the deep.

Next time, Namu to Port Hardy.

George & JoAnne

The material on this log is protected by copyright
© 2006 George Benson. Reproduction of any of the material on this log without written permission from George Benson is prohibited.

Ducanby Landing to Pruth Bay

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We went through Draney Narrows at the last of the flood current, about three knots, and trolled our way to Robert Arm. We caught a good-sized black cod that provided two nice fillets for our table and the remains a good amount of crab bait.

We then picked up and headed for the anchorage. We anchored at the head of the inlet after setting the prawn trap in about 220 feet and the crab trap in about 80 feet on our way in.

Shortly after getting anchored, the sun broke through the cloudy sky. We watched several seals, each feeding on their own school of herring, making them boil on the surface of the water with enough frenzy to make the whole show audibly clear across the anchorage.


On our way to the head of Draney Inlet, the next morning, we collected 2 large Dungeness crabs in our trap. When we got to the prawn trap, we discovered 37 good-sized prawns on that haul and five little Spider crabs that we popped back into the drink.

The abandon logging site was the last A-frame yarding operation in B.C. The folks who are now caretakers of the old fish cannery town of Namu were involved with this operation also (more on them in a later post.).

We couldn’t find a suitable spot to anchor at the head of the inlet and opted to go into Allard Bay, a little inlet on the north side. We found it to be a secure, tranquil anchorage, and for dinner we enjoyed a prime rib eye steak, and freshly caught prawns.

We left the anchorage in the morning in time to make the narrows at slack tide and continue our cruise, trolling our way to Johnston Bay. We, along with most of the sport fishermen in Rivers Inlet, (we hear on the vhs radio) have not been very successful catching salmon. We hear of a Chinook or two and a few Coho making it to the box during the course of a day.

We found the anchorage at Johnston Bay full of crab pots and a few prawn traps to boot. We still had plenty in the frig, so did not bother setting our traps. Several boats came in to check their pots, but we didn’t see much success. We had a peaceful night anchored in about 60 feet.

We later heard that while we were there a female grizzly with cubs was using the Johnston Creek tidelands. That beach was around the corner from our anchorage and all the bear scanning we did with the binocs didn’t bring that beach into view. Bummers!

We did enjoy watching six eagles balancing on tree limbs “eagle eyeing” the waters looking for that easy catch. They had no luck while we watched, but did a lot of maneuvering from limb to rock to tree. We heard wolves howling off in the distance, and a low growling noise accompanying it. That could have been mama bear.

The next morning we headed up to the head of Rivers Inlet where we passed many upscale fly-in fishing resorts, many of which were carved out of the old cannery ruins, and scores of salmon fishermen pounding the waters. According to the chatter on the radio, we heard that a few fish were being caught, and at the resorts, the bragging boards list the big fish brought in, but we have yet to see anyone actually fighting or landing a fish. Where are those fish today? Salmon runs at one time supported 17 fish canneries in Rivers Inlet.

August 4. By mid-afternoon we pulled up to the dock at Dawsons Landing, took on fuel, and tied down for the night. The M/V Chai Yen (John and Mary from Blaine WA) came in and tied behind Teal. We had a good time visiting with them. They too are heading north and we look forward to seeing them again this summer.

Dawsons Landing is a general provisioning area. They have cottages where folks stay while they fish and explore the area. They’re open all year, and they say the winters are fierce – very cold, windy, and it rains everyday. In winter they cater mostly to the local First Nation people (Native Americans in the US), and lumbermen who live in the area. Very rustic docks and again brown water. Everything they need or sell must be barged in. We saw the barge very precisely brought into the fuel dock while we were there.

August 5. After a leisurely breakfast and one more visit to the store we headed for Oyster Cove in Fish Egg Inlet, stopping on our way in the anchorage to set the prawn and crab traps. A little cove named Fish Trap Cove where the local Indian Band constructed fish traps from rocks can be seen at low tide.

It was very tranquil and protected from all winds. We had a restful night. The next morning’s haul of the crab trap yielded only a small rock crab and a sea star, but we scored 40 nice sized prawns on that haul.





After cleaning our catch, we headed for Purth Bay at the end of Kuakshua Channel on Calvert Island.

Purth Bay is the site of an exclusive hotel resort in a provincial conservancy allowing cruisers to land their tenders at the dock & use the trail to the beautiful white sand beach on the ocean side if the island.
While at the beach we met two families cruising together from Port McNeill. They were cruising on a large converted seine boat “Western Cloud” and a modern motor yacht “Island Life”. So the large family of kids had a lot of room to run around. This was to be the first of many times our paths would cross in the next few days to come. After returning from the beach, we watched the freight barge come in to the dock and unload provisions for the hotel.

We then moved Teal from the somewhat open anchorage in front of the hotel to a little cove that bites into the south shore of the bay. We anchored next to the Port McNeill bunch that were rafted together in the cove. We had a peaceful night.

The next morning we woke to a light, yet wet rain, and decided to divert from our course to Shearwater and stopped at Kiltik Cove on Hunter Island about half way. It was a good choice, on our way up Fitz Hugh Sound a southeast wind started to build white caps.

That night, while secure in our anchorage along with two gillnet fishing boats, the winds were reported to have been 50 knots.

Next Blog: Kiltik Cove to Codville Lagoon

Stay tuned, George & JoAnne

The material on this log is protected by copyright
© 2006 George Benson. Reproduction of any of the material on this log without written permission from George Benson is prohibited.