Sidney Bay, Johnstone Straight, Port Harvey, and Lagoon Cove

Hello and welcome back! We left you with us at Blind channel and we pick right up from there.

The following blog post covers the purple path on the map above.

After a restful night at the docks, we left Blind Channel to arrive at the next rapid, Green Point Rapids at slack tide. A few miles after Green Point, there's Whirlpool Rapid, which also needs to be run at slack water. We probably could have made it through the Whirlpool towards the end of slack tide, but erring on the side of caution we opted to wait until the next day, so we took a detour and spent the night at Sidney Bay.

Our guidebook said Sidney Bay was a dock with no services, built by a homesteader who moved there in the 1970's. Not knowing what to expect we pulled in to find a few other boats there. As soon as we tied up, we met everyone at the dock and started happy hour! Everyone was so nice and we were instantly friends with everyone. One boat, a french Canadian couple, were making curry and we were invited to dinner and drinks! We stayed up late talking and trading stories.

The dock at Sidney Bay

Dessert from our new French Canadian friends!

We had planned on leaving in the morning, but we opted to stay another night because we had so much fun the first night. The second day, everyone at the docks went across the bay to the homesteader's property and we took a tour. And by tour, I mean the homesteaders, Dane and Helen, gave us a tour of their workshop, gardens, and property. Dane was insistent that we take 15 pounds of fruit from the trees on his property. They have been living there since the early 70's and had built everything, including the docks.

The homesteader's dock 

Look at all the fruit!

Cool porch thing on the homestead

The homesteaders! We weren't ready for the pic, but I think it turned out just right.

It was fascinating looking around knowing they built everything.... keep in mind we are miles and miles from the nearest road. After the tour we had another community dinner, bouillabaisse, a seafood soup, with fresh prawns, shrimp, and fish all caught from Sidney Bay. We have never had truly fresh prawns before and it was an eye (and mouth!) opening experience. We now own a prawn trap.... Many thanks to all the wonderful people we met at the docks on Sidney Bay. We hope to see you soon!

Look at that prawn! YUM!

The communal spot on the docks at Sidney Bay- a guaranteed good time!

After an unexpected and awesome layover day in Sidney Bay, we set out at 5:30AM in order to traverse Whirlpool Rapid and pass through Johnstone Straight as early as possible so as to avoid the increased afternoon winds that typically occur there. We watched an incredible sunrise as we motored out of Sidney Bay and on to Whirlpool, which we passed just fine. With Whirlpool out of the way, we were set to unlock our final and most notorious gate.... Johnstone Straight. The Straight has mountains on either side of it that funnel winds down through, usually in excess of 20 knots. Up until this point we had pretty much avoided Johnstone Straight, but we were forced to sail up it for about 20 miles. We entered the straight motorsailing with a double reefed main up. The wind was basically on our nose so we made some light tacks, but mainly just beat into the wind using the engine. After what seemed like an eternity we made it to Port Harvey and out of the straight and with that our last major gate was cleared!

Early morning

Sunrise

Maya's crew enjoying the sunrise

Worth getting up early for

I swear this is the last sunrise pic... it was a REALLY good sunrise!

Post Whirlpool rapids. Rita looking proper

The mountains surrounding Whirlpool rapids were super neat

We arrived at Port Harvey after our longest travel day- 45 miles and 9+ hours.  We were whipped! Port Harvey is a small marina/restaurant that well known and liked by boaters. Unfortunately, the owner had passed away several weeks prior so the resort was closed for business. And when I say closed for business I mean basically abandoned. Boats were allowed to tie up at their own risk (the docks were fine), but everything was boarded up. When we pulled up there was one other boat tied up, but it soon left, leaving us alone at the docks. There was a rather eerie feeling about it. Although we totally appreciated the free dock spot (it really makes everything easier). We stayed there long enough to get a good night's rest (and a relaxed morning) before we left Port Harvey. It was a total relief to be done with Johnstone Straight- we could now weave our way through small channels to get to the Broughtons.

Closehauled motorsailing up Johnstone Straight

Quick slacking on the job ya bum!

A deserted Port Harvey 

We were the only boat there. Free dock spot goodness!

Video highlights from Sidney Bay to Port Harvey

A little haggard from our Johnstone Straight travel day, we made a short sail to Lagoon Cove, which is another small Mom & Pop marina nestled into the hillside among a bunch of channels. Lagoon Cove is known for good crabbing so as soon as we dropped the hook Jenny was fishing for bait. Jenny snagged a few fish and we baited the traps. Lagoon Cove is famous for its dockside happy hours where they serve fresh caught prawn. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain and we were soaked from spending the entire day outside so we had to skip. We did however pick up a prawn trap and had a nice chat with the owners (who were from Minnesota of all places). Just before we left Lagoon Cove we swung by the crab traps and to our delight there was one keeper crab in there (you can only take males that meet a certain size). Thanks Lagoon Cove! We will be back!

Jenny with her catch and crab bait

Maya at anchor in Lagoon Cove

Successful crab catch!

Tasty Dungeness crab

Lagoon Cove from the shore

Video highlights from Lagoon Cove

Please check back in for the next blog post where we start exploring the Broughtons. Lots of wildlife in the next post!
And as always, thank you so much for stopping by and reading. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment or a question- we would love to hear from you.... give us a week to respond as internet is in scarce supply up here!
Cheers!

Didn't know where to fit this pic in the mix, but I wanted to make sure it got on here. As you can see logging is the main industry around here.

Headed North and Entering the Inside Passage

Welcome back! On the last post we left you just as we were leaving Desolation Sound. The Broughtons are the next renowned cruising destination! The Broughtons sit on the northern end of Vancouver Island, approx 100 miles by boat from Desolation Sound. In between Desolation and the Broughtons are a series of channels, mountains, and islands that make up the Inside Passage.

In this post we will cover our travels from Desolation Sound to the Blind Channel... approximately 1/3 of the way to the Broughtons.

Zoomed out map of our travels covered in this blog post

Zoomed in map of our travels covered in this blog post

Sad to be leaving Desolation, but excited at the prospect of exploring more, we set out towards the Broughtons and into the Inside Passage!

Our first stop was Cortes Island, which had several good anchorages to choose from (always nice to have options!). We stopped in Cortes Bay based on a tip from a fellow cruiser, but decided to pass and push on a littler further to cover more ground.

We opted for Gorge Harbor. As the name implies, there's a gorge! And you sail through it to get to the harbor. It was pretty neat cruising past the vertical walls. Also, we traversed the gorge on a rising tide and you could see how much water was going in. It still amazes me how much water moves with the tides- even into a small bay there is an incredible amount of water being pushed around. Gorge Harbor is well protected from weather, but it's deep. We anchored in our deepest water yet- 70 feet at high tide. And with 15 knots of wind predicted overnight we threw out all of our new chain (220'). The night's forecast held true and so did our anchor. Again, we are so happy to have made the investment in new chain.

Great band and a lovely evening at Gorge Harbor

Leaving Gorge Harbor

About the time of dropping the hook it was about 5PM and we had a million things to take care of... trash, laundry, run, shower. Ahhhh! It was the first civilizaion we had seen in about a week and there was much to do and so little time! We mobilized and organized, emptying our composting toilet, making a trash run, laundry run, and an actual run! Cortes Island was nice for runners- people still drove fast, but there was basically no traffic. Where are all these people driving in such a hurry?!

Freshly laundered, the next day we set out for Quadra Island. With no particular rush to get to our anchorage and very calm conditions, we threw the trolling line out, hoping for salmon. We have been told that 2.5-3 knots is a good speed for trolling salmon, so we lowered the engine RPMs and putted along.... sadly no salmon, but not for lack of effort! We tried hard damnit!

After failing at fishing, but suceeding getting to our destination, we tried anchoring at Rebecca Spit, but the water depths around the anchorage dropped significantly and erractly. There were a ton of other boats there so after trying to drop the hook once, and failing to set it properly, we pulled up the anchor and made the quick motor over to Heriot Bay.

Some video highlights!

Working the sheets on the mast

Trolling for salmon

Jenny waiting for the salmon to bite

Good lookin' pup

Fishing on our way to Quadra Island

Another photo op!

We found a little spot to anchor in Heriot Bay and rested before our next gate.... Surge Narrows and Beasley Pass. This would be our second rapid of the trip. Timing is everything with rapids- you need to show up right at slack tide to avoid the fast current and eddies created by tidal water being squeezed through the narrow passes! We showed up early, burning a little bit of time sailing over to a waterfront general store... you heard that right... a general store you pull your boat up to! Sadly, we didn't have time to stop, but it looked really neat.

Sunset in Heriot Bay

Waterfront general store!!

When slack tide arrived, we traversed the narrows safely and sped (relative term for a sailboat) to the Octopus Islands. At this point there were significantly less people (on the water and on shore), with most all boats we encountered heading south.

This book has tide levels, times, and max current for various channels and bays in the Pacific Northwest. This is an invaluable resource that we use all the time.

More resources for trip planning. We use Waggoner's Guidebook and Navionics on the phone for planning purposes. Timing tides is critical so having multiple sources of information is very important!

Typical morning- me working on some blog stuff and Jenny route planning.... and Disco being a bum.

Upon arriving to the Octopus Islands, we anchored in Wiatt Bay. The anchorage was a stark contrast to our previous ones in that we didnt have to worry about neighbors. Major score! The bay was HUGE and there were only two other boats there- that means a worry-free night's sleep! We noticed there was a significantly fewer boats after surge narrows. It was becoming quite apparent that we were moving further from civilization.

After a good night's rest, we awoke very early to start making our way to Blind Channel. We had to leave in the dark in order to time our arrival at Upper and Lower Rapids. Again, more rapids meant we needed to pass through them at specific times. The early morning wake up call was worth the effort as both sets of rapids were a non-issue.

While we have been anchoring out as much as possible, at this point we could not afford to go any longer without a visit to a dock, due to the fact we were low on water. Our 75 gallons aboard Maya lasts us approx 10 days. We knew we were close to empty as we pulled into Blind Channel Resort, but we had no idea we were empty! Our tanks went dry within an hour of landing at the dock.... we cut that close (don't worry we have spare drinking water aboard). Blind Channel Resort is a small marina (basically some docks) that cater to higher end boats. We were unaware of that, and were shocked when the bill for one night's moorage was $88! Yikes! We had to drop off trash too, which they charge $2/pound! While Blind Channel was a bit more than we wanted to pay, we were relieved to have a full tank of water, no garbage, and restocked on some groceries. An additional bonus was that we got to stretch our legs on a run of the surrounding forest. Another fun fact is that the current around Blind Channel that the resort produces their own power with a turbine that sits in the water. The fast moving current spins the turbine which produces the power. In the video you can see a big power boat being tossed around by the heavy current.... ya shoulda waited for slack tide, buddy!

That about does it for this blog post. Stay tuned for our next blog post where we take a slight detour that totally pays off and we tackle our last and most infamous Gate.... Johnstone Straight.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by and reading and please ask questions or comment on the little box below. We would love to hear from you.

Blind Channel Panorama

Video highlights from Blind Channel

Thanks for stopping by! Come on back soon!

Desolation Sound!!!

Hello and welcome back! Picking up where we left off.... we had just finished the Sunshine Coast and were just about to enter Desolation Sound. We were so excited to have finally made it there.... One small problem.... wildfire smoke. There wasn't more than a mile of visibility as we pulled into Desolation Sound.... pegged as one of the most beautiful places in Canada... Damn it!

Our travels. This blog post covers our travels from Lund to Desolation Sound.

That's ok, we entered the sound, hung a right and pulled into Malaspina Inlet and parked our boat- happy to have made it to Desolation Sound, but frustrated we couldn't see anything!
Our first night in Desolation Sound served us with a "learning opportunity" in anchoring... stern tying more specifically. Since Desolation Sound is a very popular destination for boaters, people need to anchor their boats in a way that can accommodate many other boats. When a boat has its anchor dropped, the boat can swing 360 degrees depending on the wind. If you have 150' of chain out that's a large circle where other boats can't anchor. The solution is the stern tie.

Stern ties are when you take a line from the back of your boat and tie it to something onshore.... elminating any swing and allowing for many more boats to enjoy the anchorage. While, we didn't have any close neighbors, we decided to try a stern tie (for practice and to be neighborly). It wasn't pretty or efficient, but we got the boat's stern tied off, and settled in for an evening of fishing and relaxing. All was well until 3AM when our anchor drag alarm goes off... Oh shit we are moving!

A bit of an explanation about this pic. This is a screenshot of our Anchorwatch app. The purple dots are the GPS location of Maya over time. You can see at the bottom we were parked for a good long while. The line immediately above that is us dragging approx 50 feet until we cast off our stern line and settled out where the green boat is on the pic. While we both woke from the noise of dragging anchor we are still very thankful to have this handy app!

Thankfully, we had no around us, which gave us some time to think through what to do. Why were we dragging? There was no wind..... The current! We were anchored in a channel where a lot of water runs through- and we were perpendicular to that current. We made the decision to tie a fender to the end of the stern line and cast it off... allowing the boat to be parallel to the current, and reducing the amount of pressure on the anchor. With no neighbors, this was totally acceptable. We went back to bed and waited until morning to fetch the stern line. Lesson learned... don't stern tie anywhere that's exposed to current! Valuable lesson where lost sleep was the only price.

Maya anchored in the Malaspina Inlet. This pic is after we drug anchor- you can see Maya is parallel with the heavy current that runs through there on tidal exchanges

After an exciting night we moved further into the inlet and anchored in Wooten Bay where we had the whole place to ourselves! At this point we had been in the smoke for about a week and were fed up with it. People go to Desolation Sound for the views and we couldn't see anything because of the smoke. We figured we should move north in hopes of finding a smoke free area. We made plans to leave in the morning.... until we woke up to a smokefree sky! It was like Christmas morning- seeing mountains and all the views and breathing nice clean air! We quickly scrapped our departure plans- we were staying in Desolation!

Maya anchored in Wooten Bay

Video highlights from our first days in Desolation Sound

Fully renewed from the lack of smoke we took off for Tenedos Bay where stern tying was mandatory. Apparently we learned some lessons from our first round because we stern tied without a hitch! There was added pressure this time as everyone in the anchorage was watching us perform the anchor drop/stern tie maneuver. Everyone was waiting for a show and we didn't supply anything exciting- that's a win in our book! We spent the day swimming, SUPing, and enjoying the views. Life is so much better without wildfire smoke!

Maya parked in Tenedos Bay

SUP selfie- Beautiful clear water

SUP selfie with Maya in the background- notice the stern tie!

Get that ball, Disco

Our last stop in Desolation Sound was an area called Prideaux Haven... more specifically Melanie Cove. This is an awesome area because it consists of a bunch of inlets and islands. It was an amazing area to SUP and swim around- crystal clear water and lots to see under the water. We also stumbled upon a trail at the head of the bay which knocked our socks off! Such lush forests.... I swear we were in Jurassic Park.

Crystal clear water!

Lots of islands and inlets to explore by SUP

Trailhead and dinghy landing

Typical

So much green!

Must have been a big storm!

Desolation Sound

Barnacles are sharp!

Video highlights from the second half of our Desolation Sound tour

We loved our time in Desolation, but it was time to get moving. Stay tuned as we venture North and further from civilization.

And as always, thank you for reading!

Oh, and one clarification from my last blog post. Concerning the massive fuel consumption of motor boats... the 500 gallons figure is for boat travelling in the 10+ knot range. We were surprised to learn that when driven at 5-7 knots, trawlers can see fuel consumption figures as low as a gallon an hour.... meaning their fuel economy is only a little bit worse than ours. Just wanted to clear that up. Thanks for reading- cheers!