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.