This is our home and mode of transportation across the waters of B.C. We love sailing the B.C. coast and visit the many wonderful anchorages, coastal towns and marinas.
We were waiting for the tide to change to catch the Ebb current out off Klewnuggit anchorage. That left the morning for some pleasant visiting on Curtsy with tea and cookies. We were expecting the current to change around 4:00 PM. We left a little earlier, thinking we could handle it. We went back into Grenville Channel and kept reporting back to our buddy boats, expecting the current to change in our favor, any minute. We were going anywhere from 4.7 to 5.5. knots. We knew this was not going to be a good ride for the others. They decided to stay the night in Klewnuggit and we carried on to the next anchorage, Kumealon Island. Another peaceful night, all by ourselves in a lovely inlet.
Vaughan brought up 7 starfish on the anchor chain on Kumealon Island.
Leaving Kumealon Island anchorage.
MAY 28, Sunday.
An uneventful trip to Prince Rupert, except for trying to get into the Prince Rupert Yacht Club Marina. The current was too strong and we could not back in, not even using our bow truster. So we went bow in, port side. Vaughan was right to make this decision because the next day, the 70’ Norhavn, ‘Invictus’ , with Dave and Meta, we had visited in Port McNeill, came in and the current pushed his hull right into an anchor of another boat and badly scratched the side of their boat.
‘Incivtus’ docked behind us. Vaughan and I coming back from shopping. in Prince Rupert.
A closer look by Vaughan at the damage on ‘Invictus’, 70′ Norhavn.
After we arrived in Prince Rupert we went straight to the little Cowpuccino’s Coffee shop in ‘Cow Bay’, another name for this area of Prince Rupert.
Cowpuccino’s coffee shop with red roof.
That night, the 6 of us, we went for a well-deserved dinner at the pub near the marina.
MAY 29, Monday.
Vaughan spend most of the morning on the phone trying to find replacements for our batteries. He is not completely happy with their performance; they do not seem to hold their charge. Nothing available in Prince Rupert. We’ll see what we do about this later in Kechikan We went to Starbucks and did some shopping at Walmart, the Source and Safeway. Walked around a lot and did some sight seeing.
That evening we had a delicious dinner at ‘Smiles’ , a restaurant nearby. I would highly recommend this place, as the food was delicious. The waitress/owner, a lady from Vietnam, entertained us with stories about her successful children. She was a very proud mother of her daughter’s, Kimberley Thruong, accomplishments. Her daughter was chosen to perform in the new Miss Saigon show in New York. http://www.bclocalnews.com/entertainment/411695086.html?mobile=true.
It is always nice to hear people’s success stories, especially since her parents had been ‘boat’ people, fleeing Vietnam.
We had a long day ahead of us so we left Alexander inlet at 6:10 am. We travelled up the Princess Royal Channel for a long time. After around 6 hours travelling we were nearing Butedale. We decided to take a little break there to wait for the others to catch up and floated in the bay admiring the powerful and impressive waterfall coming down into the bay.
The caretaker at Butedale was on the docks, probably hoping we would dock. It must be lonely out there, but we asked the other 2 boats what they wanted to do and they wanted to carry on. He warned us that we were close to a shoal. We had a little chat with him and we mentioned that we were on our way to Bishop Hot Springs. He mentioned that the Maple Leaf, an eco tourist ketch was on the way there as well.
Butedale
We carried on and reached Bishop Hot Springs exactly 10 hours after leaving our previous anchorage. We were happy to see that the Maple Leaf was NOT there, as that would mean many people at the hot springs. There was only one power boat, the ‘Hobbit’, with one lone male. The bay is very deep and there really aren’t any good anchorages. We were too big to go on the little dock, but fortunately there were 3 mooring buoys, one for each of us.
3 mooring buoys for our 3 boats.
After we were all tied up we went to the Hot springs. It was fabulously refreshing and extremely enjoyable. A hot water stream came out of a pipe, great for showering. The six of us had a great time, taking turns keeping our heads under the hot water stream. The water was clear and odourless. We stayed there for well over an hour.
It was such a lovely evening that Vaughan and I decided t play a game of Rummikub on the deck. This was the first time using my ‘selfie-stick’ I had purchased in Port McNEILL.
We all slept that night like logs.
MAY 25.
Beautiful sunshine came peeking into the bedroom this morning. We were greeted by a gorgeous blue sky. Vaughan wanted to leave so he could work on his watermaker again. He has the disposition of a bulldog terrier, I always say. He will not let go of a thing once he sets his mind to it. Pros and cons for sure, we wouldn’t have had a beautiful log home and this boat if it wasn’t for this tenaciousness. We left around11:15 and travelled around Gribbell island with its awe- inspiring snow covered mountains.
It never comes across as majestic in a photo as in real life. Gribbell Island
When we turned the corner into Verney passage, the mountains were even more impressive. It is lined, both sides, with raw, polished rock mountains, 3500 feet high. Great glacier-carved bowls, called cirques, are hollowed into the mountains. From the water you can see the sheer rock walls.
Verney passage.
AND FINALLY, the automatic pilot did an amazing job keeping us on track. The past few weeks it had made us wander like a couple of drunken sailors all over the place. AND EVEN BETTER , Vaughan GOT THE WATERMAKER WORKING!! His tenacity paid off. We like drinking the water we make much better then the water we filled up in Shearwater. Tea just does not taste the same.
Vaughan must have spend at least ten hours working on the watermaker.
We went into Hartley Bay, partially to get some water , but mainly because the people of this village are famous for having saved the lives of many people when the BC ferry ran aground on Gill island about 11 years ago., March 21, 2006.
We filled up some diesel, 165 lt. and paid top dollar for it, $1.65/lt., but we thought it was worth it to support the economy a little in this lovely, little, ‘dry’ (no alcohol permitted) native boardwalk village of about 200 people. I walked around a bit on the boardwalk and took some pictures of the lovely little church, Community Hall and and the Big hall with the Tsimshian paintings , carvings and totem poles.
Waiting for fuel at Hartley Bay.
After we finished fueling up, we left and anchored around the corner in Otter shoal, Coghlane anchorage, were Curtsy and Waterford joined us a few hours later.
MAY 26, Friday.
9:30 am. Departure from Coghlan Bay, heading for Grenville Channel, a narrow 45 NM channel, also called ‘the Ditch’, as it resembles a major highway for all the traffic to Alaska. We were expecting to see lots of this supposed traffic, like cruise ships and tug boats with barges, but we hardly saw any traffic at all. What we did see where lots of waterfalls tumbling from the high granite peaks above, due to some heavy rainfall a few days ago. We were also passed by the ferry from Hartley Bay to Prince Rupert and the BC ferry going south.
The winds started building against us and I asked our buddy boaters if they would like to go into the first protected anchorage, Lowe Inlet, but the consensus was to carry on. Maybe not the best idea, because it became one of the more challenging passages of this trip so far for our buddy boats. With our 120HP motor we had no trouble fighting the winds up to 31 knots on the nose. It was a different story for our buddy boats. Curtsy reported later that their GPS, SOG (Speed Over Ground) indicated 0.0. They literally stood still and were reading 38kn of wind on their wind meter. Waterford’s speed went down to 1.0 kn. as well, but when they turned into the Klewnuggit anchorage, where we were already anchored, Janice was excited to notice that their speed went up to 7.0kn. After we were anchored we has a nice visit with Gail from Cruzeiro do Sol, who came to visit on his dinghy. We had a quiet evening in a cove by ourselves, because as it turned out we were in the only suitable spot to anchor. We had not taken the 21ft tide change into consideration, it was the lowest tide of the year. Curtsy was smart and anchored around the corner with Waterford, Imagine and Cruzeiro do Sol. The next morning when we woke up and I stepped into the cockpit I yelled out to Vaughan to come and have a look because our stern was just about resting on the beach. Our steering vane was already stuck in the sand. Vaughan quickly turned the motor on and took the scope in of the anchor and pulled our boat forward off the beach.
After our lovely swim at Sager Lake we pulled up the anchor at 2:30 and set course for Shearwater, on Denny Island. We passed the native village of Bella Bella, on Campbell Island, and docked at the large marina at Shearwater at 5:30 pm. My friend, Karen Bigelow, who grew up in Bella Bella, just posted this lovely article about Bella Bella on Facebook: http://www.macleans.ca/news/bella-bella-the-town-that-solved-suicide/
Passing by Bella Bella on the way to Shearwater.
The harbour master at Shearwater, Christophe, was still there and helped us dock. Turns out that his boat in Guamas, Mexico, is right next to the boat from our friends Barb and Bjarn and in a hurricane last year, Bjarn’s boat fell over and his mast landed on Christophe’s boat. Not too much damage on his boat, but lots of work for Barb and Bjarn.
Vaughan managed to catch the manager for the marine store, just before he got into his car to leave for the long weekend, and purchased some items for the watermaker.. We ended the day with a wonderful, tasty meal at the marina restaurant.
Shearwater marina dock.Enjoying our meal at Shearwater.
MAY 21.
We decided to stay another day in Shearwater and paid our $200 for 2 nights on the dock and electricity. After another tasty breakfast meal, at the restaurant, we caught the seabus to Bella Bella with Mejan, Bert, Don and Janice. We headed straight for the store and did our shopping, while several local people were re-stocking the shelves. The boat with supplies had just arrived and we were lucky to get some fresh supplies for the rest of our trip. In the afternoon we spend time doing the laundry, vacuuming, and texting on wifi. Later Vaughan and I went for a 40 minute walk along a lovely trail called the Spirit Trail.
On the Spirit trail.
That evening Vaughan tried to get the watermaker going again without success. We splurged and had another tasty meal at the restaurant that evening with Bert and Mejan.
MAY 22.
We left Shearwater at 7:30 in the morning and encountered some westerly swells in Seaforth Channel. Vaughan felt like putting up the Spinnaker.
And, of course, as soon as it was up, no wind.
The waves were crashing like crazy though on the rocks at the entrance to Mathiesen Channel, a very picturesque channel with Dahl Porpoises frolicking around the bow of all 3 sailboats.
Well, you know how it goes, way too quick for my phone camera. There will be lots of pictures of Dall porpoises on Mejan’s blog, taken with her expensive camera. https://svcurtsy.com/
We rounded the corner around Susan Island and anchored in Jackson Narrows, Marine Park, Rescue Bay at 12:50. That gave us the whole afternoon to frolick around ourselves in the beautiful sunny weather. Vaughan and Bert went off fishing in the dinghies and managed to catch several flounders (Nederlands: scholletjes).
Vaughan prepping o-mile dinner.
Mejan was baking cookies on her boat, Don and Janice rowed around the whole bay and I went out in the kayak for 1 ½ hour.
Lovely afternoon at Rescue Bay, Susan Island.
Several power boats joined us , one was ‘Imagine’, with Don and Ann from the East coast of the US, the other boat was Gail, from Anacortes, on his boat ‘Cruzeira du Sol.’ We had met them at several places along our trip a few times aleady. That evening after dinner the 6 of us congregated on our boat for drinks, to discuss plans for the next few days.
MAY 23.
Today we had an easy 4 hour trip from Rescue Bay to Alexander Inlet on Princess Royal island, home of the Spirit bear. We took our time passing by the native village of Klemtu, as we were able to have phone reception. We called and spoke to Melissa, Ori and Jason, texted with Jenn and left a message for Isaac.
Spirit Bear Lodge near KlemtuPassing Klemtu
The Alexander inlet was about 5 miles long and took us an hour to get settled at the end of the bay. It was pouring with rain most of the day and the evening. Only Don got off his boat to check about plans for tomorrow with us, otherwise no one came off their boat. We communicated on channel 67 on the VHF about our plans and after that a quiet evening was had by all.
We are currently in Ketchikan for a few days. First of all we needed to stay here because one of our buddy boats, Curtsy, hit an uncharted rock coming out of Foggy Bay on Wednesday. Yesterday they had a diver look at their keel and they need a haulout. A big chunk out off their keel and a crack, some salt water coming in. It was a very upsetting event to all of us, but especially to Mejan and Bert. We decided to wait for them to see how long the repairs are going to take. Also, another reason we are staying here is because the weather is aweful. Winds up to 45km this afternoon and constant rain. We are safely in Barr harbour. May have to leave tomorrow, weather permitting to go to Refuge Bay, where Curtsy will be hauled out. There is not much WiFi here, just sitting at McDonald’s for their free WiFi, so I will not be able to update my blog till later. Thanks for all the nice comments. We’ll stay in touch. xo
Motorsailer Baraka Bashad 