Hello and welcome back to our blog series documenting our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, aboard our 37' sailboat Maya.
Our travels in this post are indicated in Purple
Distance Traveled in this post: 275.3 nautical miles
Distance Traveled from Trip Start: 1,023 nautical miles
Time duration this blog post covers: 16 days
Amount of time motoring/sailing during this post: 65.1 hours
Total Amount of Fuel Used From Start of Trip: 100.4 gallons
In the last post we finally landed our first salmon and overcame the trip's biggest hurdles: Cape Scott and Brooks Peninsula.
Picking up where we left off, we were in Dixie Cove, waiting out some nasty weather. Once the system had passed, we ventured out to the open coast and headed south towards the next safe anchorage, which was provided by Nootka Island.
Nootka Island is a large land mass that sits just off of Vancouver Island- giving us a chance to make miles southward, while in the protection of Nooka Island. Inside these sheltered waters of Nootka Island sits two settlements: Zeballos and Tahasis.
We motored up the Zeballos to find a terrible anchorage and extremely small village. There was only a sliver of a spot to anchor, which was very close to shore, forcing us to anchor in much more shallow waters than we would have liked. We had about 2 feet of water under our keel. In spite of bad anchorage, we dropped the hook, and rowed to shore.
Zeballos is mainly a port for commercial fishing boats, along with a few houses. We walked around "town" for a bit and happened to meet two 20-something-year-old fishermen. We had a good time meeting them and hearing some of their crazy fishing stories, but we opted to leave Zeballos because of the poor anchorage- a big gust of wind in the wrong direction would have the boat grounded.... and that is something we want to avoid!
Anchored in Zeballos
Shallow anchorage at Zeballos- rowing to shore
Fishing fleet at Zeballos
Leaving Zeballos, we motored out the channel to Saltery Bay, 9 miles in the direction of the next town.
Upon arriving, we discovered our anchor options were limited. The bay was narrow, with only a small shelf to anchor on. What's worse is the shelf drops off to super deep water. These conditions called for us to use a "stern tie" which is where we run a line from the back of our boat to shore, in order to eliminate the boat swinging around in the wind.
Without the stern tie, a big gust of a wind in the wrong direction could put us on shore. The rope to shore essentially keeps the boat in one spot. It's interesting that a satellite view of the bay shows the anchor puzzle. You can see the shelf stick out and drop off deep.
Satelitte View of our stern tie, Link to google map below:
All went well and we retired for the evening. The next morning when it was time to leave, we started the engine like normal, however almost immediately there was a loud bang and the engine halted to a stop.... oh no!
After surveying the situation, it appears the transmission was left in reverse upon shutting it down the night before, and when we started the engine, the boat started to creep back.... right onto the rope tied off of Maya's stern.
Sure enough, the stern tie line was wrapped around the propeller!
I quickly donned a wetsuit and got to unwrapping the mess underwater. Thankfully the engine stalled before it got really messy, and after a few minutes the prop was free of the line. Lesson learned: make sure the transmission is not in gear before turning the engine on! We let our guard down and were immediately reminded.
After a slight hitch, we got underway to our next destination: Tahsis.
What we found in Tahsis was a fisherman's paradise. We pulled into the town's only marina to discover Maya was the lone sailboat! Fishing boats galore.
Upon docking, we enjoyed our first taste of civilization since Port McNeill over two weeks prior.
Maya, the lone sailboat in the marina.
We got beers and watched all the salmon fisherman come in to clean their fish. Tahsis was a good stop, we even got a road run in while we explored town... Disco was quite happy about that! We also got to take a hot shower which was glorious, as well as filled up the boat's water tanks.
We left Tahsis and headed for Friendly Cove, where Nookta Sound meets the Pacific. This cove has a lot of historical relevance as this was the site that Captain Vancouver and Spanish Explorers met and discussed how to divide up this new found territory. Also, this cove was the settlement of one of the coast's biggest Native population, dating back many generations.
Today, the cove has a lighthouse station and the keepers gave us a tour. The island also had a network of trails that we enjoyed exploring.
Lighthouse
Just outside the cove, we noticed tons of sport fishing boats trolling for fish.... naturally, we followed suit and brought in a nice big Lingcod. Delicious white meat for days!
Headed to Friendly Cove from Tahsis via Princesa Channel
Spinnaker out- headed to Friendly Cove
Path at Friendly Cove
Endless Pacific Ocean- On Nootka Island
At this point, we were looking at rounding another peninsula to the south, so we had to wait for good weather in order to make that trip. Unfortunately, another strong weather system had moved in, so we headed further inland to Bligh Island and spent several days waiting out the stormy conditions.
After several wet and windy days, we received a promising break in the weather and made a dash south for it. While the forecast was correct, sunny and almost no wind, we had some nasty sea conditions and I suffered the trip's first episode of seasickness. Woof. That sucked.
Being seasick is miserable!
At any rate, we made it around Hesquiat Peninsula and landed at Hot Springs Cove, which is famous for its natural hot springs. It's so famous that people flock to it- by sea taxi and seaplane. Luckily all the tourists leave around 5PM, so we got to enjoy the hot springs when it was pretty empty... aside from the naked Australians.... hence no pictures.
The path to the Hot Springs.... it was a mile long boardwalk!
After a calm night at anchor in Hot Springs Cove, yet another large weather system moved in. We thought about moving the boat further inland for better protection, but we ultimately stayed, and thus reaped the fury of what would be trip's biggest storm.
It absolutely poured! The wind whipped!.... and soon the swell from the ocean found us. We even had to reset our anchor once during that storm. Additionally, the wind from the storm pushed all the smoke from our fireplace into the cabin, causing us to be smoked out. It was a mess! Another lesson learned.
The next morning the storm subsided and we hoisted the anchor, and made our way to the interior of Flores Island- much like Nootka, Flores Island offered us a way to make miles southward without having to travel along the exposed coast.
In the sheltered waters of Flores Island (Young Bay)
Clear weather following a nasty storm (Young Bay)
The next few days were spent hopping from anchorage to anchorage, ultimately arriving in Tofino, where we refueled and filled our water tanks. Sadly, we could not stay in Tofino, as the anchorages are poor and the town is not set up for sailboat cruisers so we pushed onward to our next major destination: Barkley Sound.
This is a good place to stop for now- thanks for sticking with the story up to this point.
Be sure to check back in for the next blog post, because that's when we really flex our fishing muscles and land the biggest fish of our lives.
Thanks again for stopping by- really appreciate it.
