BC Coastal Itinerary - Summer 2008

We're back trying to adjust to life "on the hard" after a fabulous summer. Here's where Skipper Jack and First Mate Baggywrinkles took Aurora. Or rather Aurora took us.

July 16 Port Hadlock at home dock.
July 17 Port Townsend at dock.
July 18 Friday Harbor at dock.
July 19 Sucia Island at anchor.
July 21 Vancouver at dock.
July 24 Pender Harbor at anchor.
July 26 Grace Harbour at anchor.
July 28 Laura Cove at anchor.
July 30 Gorge Harbour at anchor.
August 1 Shoal Bay at dock.
August 3 Port Neville at anchor
August 5 Lagoon Cove at dock.
August 7 Kawtsi Bay at anchor.
August 8 Port Neville at anchor.
August 9 Shoal Bay at anchor.
August 10 Gorge Harbour at anchor.
August 12 Comox at dock.
August 14 Nanoose Bay at anchor.
August 15 Thetis Island at anchor.
August 16 Prevost Island at anchor.
August 17 S. Pender Island on buoy.
August 19 Victoria - Oak Bay at dock
August 22 Port Hadlock at home dock.

Our experience is so infused with awe and wonderment. that I suppose I'll keep adding to this account. Please do not hesitate to comment, ask questions, tell us where we're confused, or point out lousy spelling and grammar. As we are still getting insights and finding out things, there will most likely be changes to postings entitled Lessons Learned, Wild Creatures and Cruising through BC History.

Lessons Learned

Cruising is all about problem solving, decision making and fine tuning. Here are some lessons learned and other things we need to remember. We'll keep adding to this list.

1. Cruising is work. Sailing is sport rather than recreation. Therein lies the satisfaction. You use your mind and your muscles to move your home, which in turn carries you and all your stuff. It's very different from camping, where you carry stuff and have to find or create shelter as you go along.

2. Cruising the BC coast means getting yourself into the midst of one of the world great remaining wildernesses. It also means finding yourself in the midst of two of the world's great cities: Vancouver and Victoria.

3. North of Desolation Sound is really wild. Where once the area was inhabited with loggers, fishermen and miners and their camps were served by steamship lines, today it has largely returned to Nature. Old timber camps and fishing villages - some of them floating structures - function as "marinas" but with very limited services. 4. We need to learn to crab and fish. Groceries were hard to come by so rice and beans served us well. Other key staples were canned peas, corn, pears, pineapple, tuna, and sardines and dried apricots, ginger, raisin and nuts. Live foods like celery and carrots travel well: next time we'll take lots. And before departure we'll seed a planter of lettuce and strap it on deck between the galley and aft cabin hatches, where the lettuce will not be mowed down by the sails. The inspiration for this came from a big yacht from San Francisco.

5. We need to learn diesel maintenance. We motored much more than we thought we would. Partly it was summer weather, partly narrow channels and rapids, partly the wind patterns. Margo Wood says the idea boat for going north to Alaska is a trawler. But for the trip back south, a sailboat is best. So far we've concentrated on learning sailing, which is the essential skill in the strong winds of Port Townsend and Juan de Fuca. But the Inside Passage calls for self reliance in other skills. Fortunately Portland Community College has a very strong Diesel Services Technology program, with DS 9112 in Small Marine Diesel.

6. We note with appreciation bordering on awe five British Columbians who shared their mechanical skills or advice. All are natural teachers. In Vancouver we've noted Bob and Rick of Wright Mariner at 604.682.3788. At Lagoon Cove on Minstrel Island, it's Bob; reach him on VHF 66A when you're nearby. On South Pender Island, where cell phones sometime work, there's Ross at 250-629.6988. And Mike in Sidney spent valuable time teaching us trouble shooting. Fortunately, there was no trouble and we didn't go anywhere near Sidney. Mike refused our offer to pay but for the next perplexed mariner he'll be there at 604.818.4357. 7. Things that are hard get easier. Sometimes you suddenly find an easier way to do something. For example I was able to stop swearing at the anchor after I figured out how to bring it in without jamming the chain. You run the windlass while counting off ten seconds; then you go below to the V berth to flake the chain in the locker, which is very good exercise, like doing deep lunges. We also learned that the teak panel in the aft cabin comes off to make changing the oil filter easier. We no longer have to lie on the bed and reach down into an impossible space with the filter wrench at an impossible angle.

Navigation Notes

As you head north toward the Broughtons, where you are far inland from the main channels and the "Inland Passage" to Alaska, the aids to navigation become fewer and farther between. However, key points of danger that cannot be easily be read on a chart - for example in the five sets of rapids - are clearly marked with buoys and on shore towers.

For the rapids, we read as many sources as we could. Guides written by sailors as apposed to power boaters are important here, since the timing of the slack is so much more difficult in a slow boat. Anne Vipond and William Kelley in Best Anchorages of the Inside Passage include a guest essay by the leader of the first Canadian Hydrographic Survey team to develop instruments which could accurately assess the rapids at different times of the tide cycle. Their navigation tips are helpful as are those of Margo Wood in Charlie's Charts. The exception is her suggestion to northbound travelers to wait for slack Whirlpool Rapids in a bay at the NW end of Chancellor Channel; We couldn't find place to anchor there but the cove immediately south of the rapids was perfect, for low water slack at least.

The northbound trip through the rapids is considerably more difficult to time in a slow boat than the southbound. When passing the Dent-Gillard-Yaculta trio, keep in mind that you can change your mind between Gillard and Dent and wait our a tide cycle or two in Big Bay. And even ten minutes off slack can be a challenge if you are fighting a drift filled ebb or flood.

While we loved Comox, crossing the bar was counter intuitive. Heading south in one of our are-we-there yet modes, we saw the distinctive bluffs of Cape Lazo and stayed a bit too close to shore. Soon we were heading east looking for two east cardinal buoys which are waaaaaaaay out in the Strait. They are quite distant one from the other and they don't even look alike; the base of one one is tall, orange and open and the other block, short and squat. Once we found them in our binoculars we could make southerly progress. Then we had to negotiate the bar. Margo Wood says follow the the ranges. Waggonner says use a 222º heading but remember to correct for magnetic. Vipond and Kelly were the most helpful because their directions included reference to the two new red buoys (firmly on starboard this time) which were not on our map.

Thetis Island was easier the second time, but still it's very shallow rounding into Telegraph Bay. If there is anything that must absolutely be left to "local knowledge" it is The Cut between Thetis and the First Nations Reservation on Kuper. It was hard enough to do in dinghy, yet we watched a 35 foot sailboat head in a high tide.

The term "local knowledge only" actually appears on charts (for an alternate entrance to Victoria's Oak Bay, for example). That means don't do it. At the same time, the whole concept of local knowledge is cool. But how do you identify it? Smack in the middle of the entrance to Laura Cove in Desolation Sound National Park there is a submerged rock. But three sailboats, two power boats and a bunch of kayaks were rafted nearby - obviously on a pre-planned multi-family vacation of folks who'd been here. As we crept in, I called out my query and immediately a teenaged girl sprang to one of the bows and pointed to the nefarious place. But short of meeting an old salty fisherman on the dock and then following him out, assuming of course he has the same six feet of draft you do, it's impossible to take advantage of "local knowledge". And it's quite chilling to be taken for local knowledge just because Aurora's bright work is peeling off and her crew looks comfortingly scruffy.

Canadian Aids to Navigation & Charts

We're still figuring out Canada's system of buoys and navigational aids, which seem at once very smart and very dumb.

Their cardinal buoys are simply brilliant. They consist of two large black cones atop a pedestal. The arrangement of the cones tells you which side it is safe to pass on. Of course from a great distance, the cones look like triangles. But, unlike a flat sign, they convey the same message from any point that you view them.

But Until you learn these messages by heart they scare the living daylights out of you. (Come to think of it they are only daylight markers so navigating them at night is simply unthinkable.)

Here is a short primer to be committed to heart by the wise mariner or any fan of elegant symbology. If the two cones point upward, it is a "north cardinal buoy" and passage is only safe on the north side. If the two cones point downward, you need to stay south of the buoy. If the top cone points up and the bottom points down, the message is pass to the east of the buoy. If the top cone points down and the bottom cone points up, safe passage is only to the west; two triangles with their points touching look more like a "W" than an "E" right? Well, you get the idea that this is pretty consequential.

Most aids to navigation are white pillars on land, rather than buoys. The top part of the pillar may be red, green or white, They look like miniature light houses. They seem to date back a few years but now most have solar charged lights.

Of course, there are also buoys shaped like our buoys in the US: green flat-topped "cans" and red pointy "nuns". Usually, at least often enough to be dangerous. So when we we entered Nanoose Bay straight into the setting sun, we took the cone shaped buoy to be a red. When we were right on top of it, we saw it was green.

Even worse, "red right return" into port is not consistent at all. Not just the usual big port little port stuff we have to work out down here (Is this set up for a boat going north to Port Townsend or south to Seattle?). No, it's more of mess in Canada. Entering the rock studded Baynes Channel leading into Victoria's notorious Oak Bay Marina forces you to leave green buoys on starboard!

We managed to get some Canadian mariners arguing whether "red right return" applies at all. The conversation ended when one of them pointed out that in New Zealand, it's green right return.

Nigel Calder is not helpful here apart from pointing out that the colors used in Region B are the opposite of those used in Region A, which includes the US.

Nor was Calder helpful on ranges; he doesn't say a single thing about ranges! We discovered this as we waited for slack to get though the very narrow but straight Chatham Channel. Fortunately, Canadian ranges are exactly like those with which we're familiar on the Columbia River. You line up the black stripes on the red range markers at one end and head for the aligned black stripes on the range markers at the other. You just need to pirouette from bow to stern with your binocs while keeping a steady hand on the tiller.

Unlike the US authorities (which seem more interested in Homeland Security than the safety of mariners) Canadian Coast Guard requires that mariners have paper charts on board. As I learned from Nigel Calder, paper charts are essential and any electronic navigation systems should be seen as supplementary. The requirement is also an excellent source of revenue for the Canadian Hydrographic Service; so many ordinary navigators using them might be an impetus to accuracy, readability and frequent updating.

That said we found our share of discrepancies. There were rocks at the south entrance of Laura Cove that remain above water at high spring tide but which show only as drying rocks. And two of the three buoys you need to cross the Comox Bar were not on our chart at all. Next year we'll get on the Internet and arm ourselves with updates before departure.

Wild Creatures - For my Dad

This post is dedicated to my Dad. He taught me to notice wild things, to go back to the same places to look for them again and to look for the same sort of things in similar environments. He's still trying to get me to slow down so I don't miss so much; Aurora must be his accomplice in this.

Here's a picture of Dad in March 2007 when he went sailing with us out of Port Hadlock Aurora's the boat at the farthest right, with the port side view of Indian Island. Maybe this will persuade him to join us for part of of next year's cruise.

I don't know if any experience of the natural world can be "the best" but the most unforgettable was finding ourselves among a huge group of Pacific white-sided dolphins. As soon as we rounded Minstrel Island to enter Knight Channel from Chatham Channel, there they were, splashing all around us in tremendous erratic waves. They would swim up to Aurora in pairs, doing a couple of tricks for us before joining the rambunctious chaos of their kin. Everywhere dolphins were arcing out of the water, every which way, like the waves of confused seas. We figured that we saw about fifty of them.

Later we learned from the Kelleys' Best Anchorages of the Inside Passage that Pacific white-sided dolphins move in groups of 115 on average. During the mating season, these seven and eight foot creatures are particularly impressive acrobats. They really make waves.

We did only a short stretch of Knight Inlet at the end of a long day, but here is what the Kelleys say about it: The longest inlet on the British Columbia coast, Knight Inlet (named by Lieut. Broughton) cleaves its way for nearly 70 miles into the Coast Mountains. No wider than one-and-a- half miles, the inlet winds past snow clad summits and numerous waterfalls before reaching the glacier fed rivers at its head. There the massive peak of Mount Waddington rises more than 13,000 feet.

Several days later in Tribune Channel to the north, a smaller group dolphins made a big deal of racing alongside of us to cross our bow before swimming up the wild Bond Channel.
Then one warm afternoon, we were motoring very slowly down Wellbore Channel waiting for slack at Whirlpool Rapids. I was reading on deck and Jack was daydreaming in the cockpit when strange sounding blows and snorts got our attention. We stood up and looked down very near the boat at what I believe was a Dall's Porpoise, After finally getting our attention, the lone animal performed for us, jumping clear out of the water four times on starboard, then crossing the bow and doing the same on port, then swimming around again to compete the sequence on starboard. Each dive left a perfect whirlpool about a meter in diameter. Jack quipped, "he clearly did that on porpoise."

Here in the Gulf Islands we're back to the ordinary harbor porpoises, which arc in an out of the water steadily, without antics. When a pair was crossing our path on the way here, we stopped for them and they did not resurface until they were at some distance.

So far our closest encounters with orcas - or "killer whales" - remain those in the wildlife rich southern reaches of Puget Sound. On this trip we saw a pod only when the light was just right, following a rainfall under the vast sky. We watched several females swimming north from Nogales Channel across Cordero and into Frederick Arm, surfacing predictably at 15 to 20 second intervals.

In the category of if-we-hadn't-seen it-with-our-own-eyes-we-wouldn't-believe-it, we can report on harbor seals. They are ubiquitous, swimming nearby and staring at us with their big eyes over whiskers before dipping modestly back into the sea. But there's a habitat change between the northern waters and those of the Gulf Islands.

Great groups of Harbor Seals languish on the gently sloping rocky shores of the Gulf and San Juan Islands. You don't always see them immediately but you predict where they should be, pick up the binoculars and there they are. They look like huge slugs. Or maybe maggots, if they are grey and wiggle on rocks black with the receding tide. They are so plentiful that you don't bother to get close; there will always be more. Nor should you get close and babies are nurtured in these great haul outs. (Once when we failed to notice a haul-out and got too close with the boat and several of the biggest seals made a racket, dove in the water and chased us away!)

Farther north, however, steep mountains fall vertically into the sea. So while we saw seals everywhere we didn't see any hauled out. Then one day when I was in the galley fixing lunch, Jack shouted to me to come up on deck. He hadn't believed his eyes, until it was just on our beam, but there was a harbor seal riding calmly past on a large log in the company of three seagulls!
Since we'd never heard of such a thing, we chalked it up to a charming fluke. But two days later, a particularly nasty looking piece of drift turned out to be another seal riding on another log!
The weirdest marine creature we saw was an Elasmosar, 80 million years dead. The Countney Museum has the bones - found on the banks of the nearby Puntledge River - and also a superb reproduction of this 40-foot long creature with a short heavy body, four limbs and an elongated neck. The museum's paleontological collection is amazing and hardly dusty: every day the museum offers tours of their active excavations. This is a must the next time we stop at Comox.

There's no Internet here so I can't give links but I do have on board a favorite book The North West Coast: A Natural History. In this copiously documented work (published by the Timber Press in my own Portland neighborhood) author Stewart Schultz begins his chapter on marine mammals and seabirds like this: As we walk the beaches and bluffs, it is difficult to envision how, some 3 billion years ago, the cold grey oceans provided the first great arena of life. But it was here, in the deluged, volcanic childhood of the earth, where searing energy from volcanic heat and lightening by chance struck the proper combination of methane, ammonia, and water vapor in the primeval atmosphere, producing the first organic molecules. Seventeen of the 19 phyla of animals on earth evolved, and still thrive, in the sea. Over the last 0.5 billion years, some of these abandoned the ocean and colonized land, where new selective forces catapulted them into new, advanced evolutionary trajectories, leaving their primitive ancestors in the sea. Later a few of these land creatures re-entered the ocean, whose stable temperatures, buoyancy, and high productivity nurtured and gently reshaped their form and function over the ages.

The return of mammals to the sea took place on at least five distinct occasions. The ancestors of our Orca, Dall's porpoise, and Pacific white sided dolphin returned to the sea about 65 million years ago. Those of the seals headed back 35 million later while the forebears of the sea otters we've never seen and the mischievous romps of river otters on the docks of Aurora's homeport did not return to the water until 5 million years ago.

As for the birds, they readapted to the water about the same time as the ancestors of the whales. But we're lousy at birds, hoping that Stewart or another of our bird-watching friends will come and help us out. We have lots of time to make sense of the diving ducks and the dabbling ducks who winter around Port Townsend. We've given up on the gulls; they're are so many kinds plus the hybrids. And identifying birds is far less fun than just wondering about them.

For the record, we looked for Rhinoceros Auklets and found them exactly where they should have been - in the agitated rapids of Juan de Fuca as we entered Cattle Pass on our way north to Friday Harbor. We saw them nowhere else, as their habitat is so particular.

As for loons, the national bird of Canada, they joined us frequently between the 48th and 50th parallel but seemed to disappear more to the north, perhaps because of the high peaks separating their fresh water lakes from our ocean channels.

Here in BC swallows seem act like shore birds, probably because they like people and the natural habitat of British Columbians is the shore. At Shoal Bay the barn swallows were tame, letting the boat-dwelling homesteaders take care of their young on the docks until they were able to fly. At Lagoon Cove, there were no barn swallows at all but great numbers of cliff swallows darting about. They must hate the fog, because when it rolled in, a bunch of them hung out quietly on Aurora's life lines.
There doesn't seem to be a great variety of birds, nor small land mammals. The bald eagle who merrily merry-go-rounded down the Yaculta Rapids on the drifting log until he caught sight of the ring necked plover may be the problem. Suddenly there are way too many of these powerful hunters.

Among the interesting ordinary creatures we see everywhere is the ochre sea star, misnamed because it also comes in fuschia, purple and orange. After helping a crab fisherman empty his trap, I marveled at the underside of a many-armed sunflower starfish. And every morning on shore and on the boat we have our tenacious, talented spiders. But we notice them especially when the dew drops show off their handiwork.
My greatest disappointment was not seeing bears, though we didn't really go looking for them. Both black bear and grizzlies live in the Broughtons. There is no more common sight in cruising waters than dog-owners taking their pets to shore in dingies. So everywhere you go in the north you are reminded that dogs are bear bait, usually with a story to back up the contention.

The folks at Shoal Bay say there are no bears on West Thurlow Island, but they've seen a lot of wolf tracks this year and a corresponding decline in the number of deer.

Cougars live along the northern inlets as well. Desolation Sound: A History has stories of entire herds of sheep and goats being slaughtered and old photos of rifle-totting settlers after they've taken revenge on nine-foot cats.

Finally, a brilliantly striped garter snake at Shoal Bay. A small creature, either disappearing or simply over looked, but one this seafaring apartment dweller has not seen since leaving her Dad's garden.

British Columbians and the meaning of cruising

Our visit to the museum in Courtenay left me hungry for more local history so when we got off the bus in Comox, we stopped at the bookstore. Waggoner's mentions Blue Heron Books so I entered with high expectations, which were suitably rewarded.

The proprietor, a woman in her fifties, ushered me to the appropriate section and started introducing her tomes one by one. Explorations into First Nations culture. Accounts by George Vancouver and crew members (with names like James Johnstone, Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey). Nature studies. A thick academic history of British Columbia. Dairies of homesteading immigrants. A new biography of Muriel Wylie Blanchet, author of the Canadian classic The Curve of Time.

Before settling on Heather Harbord's 2007 Desolation Sound: A History, I'd asked a few questions; soon nearby browsers had joined in, making comments about their favorite islands in the great wilderness across Georgia Strait from Comox. In the course of this conversation, the owner mentioned that she'd never been to Desolation Sound! Quite extraordinary for a middle class business owner in a town with a harbor jam packed with well used boats, many are just big enough to make the crossing on a fair day and would probably welcome extra hands. Then she added, "I have to learn to sail first."

Here it was again! That fathomlessly deep passion for cruising the people of British Columbia know in a way none of the rest of us can. Without cruising, they would be quite ignorant of their history, both of the lives of the native tribes and the exploits of early settlers. They would have no wilderness access to experience the creatures that live in their seas and on their land.

And cruising means do it yourself in a small boat. To take a "cruise" along the "Inside Passage" in an ocean liner is an utter oxymoron! First of all, a cruise implies moving without a fixed route or destination. Second, the "Inside Passage" is really the outer, most western of the routes to Alaska; it is only "inside" in the sense that it does not go into the open ocean around Vancouver Island.Cruising in British Columbia by ordinary people - recreational cruising, if you will - is about a century old. Captain George Vancouver wrote about every nook and cranny later cruisers would visit. Since his mission was to find the Northwest Passage, that's what he had to do. He got along relatively well with Captain Dionisio Galiano of the Spanish fleet, which was also exploring these coasts in 1792. The crews of both expeditions had fairly good relations with the Indians, too, trading bits of metal for fish, fowl and game. Had they bothered to ask the natives if any in the maze of channels led deep into the mainland, they might have had the answer on the Northwest Passage. But Vancouver's legacy is the superb mapping of every passage, channel, arm and inlet.

Vancouver's charts allowed the British to exploit the coast for timber, minerals and marine life. At the end of the 19th century, the first settlers followed the loggers, fishermen, miners, and trappers. They included loners running from old lives or bad debts, Scandinavian immigrant families and even intellectual idealists, Thoreau-types but unlike Thoreau, unable to sneak back home for Sunday dinner. Living in nearly total isolation, they developed the fishing, hunting and logging skills needed to survive.

According to author Harbord, the first cruisers up the BC Coast were Amy and Francis Barrow, who set out every summer shortly after they were married in Vancouver in 1906. I'm eager to read their journals, though those before 1926 were lost in a fire.

Muriel Wylie Blanchet is the cruiser who inspires everyone who has come after her. After she was widowed - her banker husband presumed drowned when his rowboat was found not far their coastal home - Capi Blanchet cruised with her five children in the 24-foot Caprice. For fifteen summers they rented out their house on Vancouver Island for much needed income and explored desolation Sound and the coves and channels to the north. The Curve of Time is Blanchet's account of the native people and settlers they visited, about their encounters with wildlife, the zen of marine engine maintenance and her own journey through life.

Comox, B.C. - Land of Plenty

I doubt that it was because we'd been away from civilization so long that the town of Comox felt so welcoming. If anything, we were a bit wary of returning to places with cars and supermarkets. But in our two nights and a day in Comox lived up to its native name, which means "plenty".

First it was the forty odd small sailboats in the bay with hundreds of youngsters learning to sail. When we arrived at the fuel dock, a sailing instructor who was was competently giving instructions to first time crews pushing off in in three 10 foot catamarans, helped us in after a gust push our bow off the dock. And we liked George, the fuel pump guy so much that when he invited us to dock right nearby, we did.

The people of Comox love being out on the water. Small boats laden with fishing gear passed one after the other in the wide fairway behind our stern. Venturing up on the docks in the evening we found that the fairway led to a double width launching ramp leading to a flower bed-ringed parking lot full of empty boat trailers. A vast park with milled timber gazebos and a totem pole extended to the east; a balconied pub with laundry, showers and high definition Beijing Olympics events on the other. Over the local lager and IPA, we watched beautiful women from the warring states of Georgia and Russia fight it on the sands of beach volleyball.

What is it about Comox? The best civic infrastructure I've ever noticed? Perhaps the wilderness has helped me notice. The place is intensively floral. Hanging baskets start at the fuel dock. Every bit of ground is gardened, even around the fire hydrants. The main street is so pedestrian friendly that there are no stoplights. Rather there is a slow polite minuet that comes with four way stop signs and striped pedestrian crossings that even families of deer have learned to use properly.

Everywhere you look their are interesting places to sit and watch the world go by. Or walkways and bike paths to explore. The businesses all seem to be local. The Lorne Hotel, the Pub at the main intersection of town was the original hotel, little changed from 1887. The coffee shops have toy-filled play areas. This is a town that invites you to just hang.

Between Comox and the mighty Comox glacier in Vancouver Island's Beaufort Range is a gentle river valley that is home to the towns of Courtenay and Cumberland. The bus service is smart and convivial. Yes, like Portland, this is a place where people call out "Good bye" to fellow passengers and 'Thank you!" to the driver, even when exiting the rear door. Like many towns in the Northwest - but very few elsewhere - school and civic transport are merged into one caring system. Attractive bus shelters - no two alike - are sponsored by local businesses. And it's official policy that night or day the buses serve as safe havens for anyone in need.

In Courtenay we visited an excellent small museum and learned about the mining, fishing, forestry and farming that sustained the valley's economy. Staffed by six full time professionals, they hardly asked us for a donation. Today the relative affluence of the area is helped by regular federal salaries of Coast Guard and Fisheries and Navy staff and the pensions of retirees from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The mix is morelike Vancouver than Vancouver Island, with Canadians of African and Asian descent. Bulletin boards everywhere speak of dense community fabric. Everyday pleasures like badminton, baseball, basketball, belly dancing, bowling, boxing, community choirs and so forth down through the alphabet abound. A good sign. And the public restrooms are open all the time.

Most North American towns built in the late 19th Century boast grand courthouses, banks or other significant buildings. Nothing of the sort in Comox. The tiny blue and white town hall looks as if it has taken over the site of a convenience store fitted out with huge hanging flower baskets. Across the street, adjacent to the senior center and overlooking the marina are the Council Chambers. The marina is municipal. As a visitor you "feel" it's owned by the taxpayers and you are their guests. Along the breakwater between the fishing boats and the bay is a dock whose only purpose is to take pedestrians to watch the sailing races or to buy fresh salmon from native fishermen.

And there was something else we had never seen before. Public grids. None were in use and even after reading the fairly complex rules for physical and environmental safety, we couldn't quite figure them out. So we asked George. "Oh, that's so we can all take care of our boats ourselves," he said, with evident pride. "Commercial marinas make you pay to be hauled out with travel lifts. But we just pull up, tie up, wait for low water and work until the tide comes in."

Fogust

The month of Fogust is upon us, at least in the Broughtons and the area North of Desolation Sound. At Lagoon Cove I was up at 5 studying the charts Jack had laid out in anticipation of an early departure. But the tiny cove was complete socked in. It just sat there and hugged us until about 9. The cliff swallows that flit between the slopes and docks there all came down an hung out quitely on the boats. At about 8 the fog started rollimg out a bit and then rolled right back in. At one moment you could see the top of the mountain above the marina. The next moment it would disappear again but you might be be able to make out the faint contours of a rocky island about 300 feet out in the cove. And it went on like that. It wasn't acting like any fog we'd seen before. And it wasn't.

Finally when it was almost 11 we pulled out anyway but soon got stopped in our tracks, or rather forced to shuttle between visible cliffs. By this time the sun was bright behind the fog, playing all sorts of tricks with us. A vibrant opaque white arc rose opposite the direction of the sun and closed in a full circle around the boat. Then another intersected it like some freakish, albino version of a double rainbow. My eyes hurt. Then the landscape would come into view all around the edges of a fireball of fog, a detached retina of fog, lying exactly where we wanted to go. But then we broke out into one of the most beautiful days of the trip.

In the wonderfully informative Anchorages of the Inside Passage, authors Anne Lipond and William Kelly talk about two kinds of fog prevalent in these parts. Radiation fog is thickest at sunrise and gradually burns off. Common from September through February, it is a product of clear cool nights. As the land cools, water droplets condense and gather over the warmer waters. Summer sea fog, or advection fog, is formed above upwellings of cold water caused by tides, currents and the motion of waves across an irregular sea floor. Warm moist air blows across colder water to form the fog and to push it into even the longest inlets, where it lingers stubbornly long after the sun is out. And of course it loves rapids and difficult narrow passages.

At Kawtsi Bay, the mouth of the bay was clear when we awoke but then the fog thickened and enveloped us. About ten, when it had broken just a bit, we pulled up anchor and headed out. The first boat of five in the bay and another 10 at the docks to do so, we found ourselves leading an impressive flotilla. I guess when your boat is older and scruffier people look to you as "local knowledge". We looked back to see a silky strip of fog draped like a woman's dupatta over the mountains shouldering the bay.

From deep in Port Neville inlet all the way down Johnstone Strait and into to Green Rapids, we were always in fog. At our anchorage to the mouth of Port Neville we had a good enough view of the surface to wend our way through the patches of Bull Kelp.
Once out in the Strait the fog was thick as pea soup. Since we'd timed our departure for arrival at the rapids at low water slack, we edged south along the shore. With eyes on the radar and on the chart and blowing a fog horn though the greyness, The blessing of strong winds the day before had translated into a blessing of absolute stillness. Johnstone Strait is not a moderate body of water. Summer mornings mean thick, unruffled fog right up until the gale force winds of the afternoon blow it away.

Jack says I've come a long way. He says the first time we hit fog I panicked and wanted to call the Coast Guard! An earlier post covers some of these adventures with fog.

Kwatsi Bay Ambrosia

To our surprise and delight, we are in a wilderness that gives up seafood but offers nothing in the way of everyday provisions. Although we've visited docks four times in the past week, there has been no opportunity to acquire anything like groceries or bread. At one there was fuel, which we didn't need, and water, which is always useful. But you can always find fish hooks, line, sinkers, and crab traps. And everyone seems to know the art of fishing.

Our approach has been to learn the basics first and subsist on whatever food we have until skills in eating from the sea are acquired. Fishing is for the future. Yes, at times - like now when big fish are jumping clear out of the water all around the boat - this seems a little silly. But for the moment we'll endure the envy of watching fellow cruisers row out to their traps to get fresh crab for their breakfast omelettes or artfully fillet a bright red wild coho 18 inches long to throw on the barbecue.

Our first priority has been learning to sail. The Juan do Fuca Strait that Aurora calls home have winds that instill fear and trembling in most of the sailors we've met this month. We know we have the whole winter ahead to get even better at making them work for us.

Next we need to hone our skills in diesel engines and marie electronics. Up here you have narrow straits, crazy williwaws blowing down steep slopes, and tidal current rushing through rocky passages to create deadly whirlpools. So motoring is important. And you want to relax at anchor so you need to your amps, watts, solar panels and inverters all balanced and happy.

But back to food. We're completely out of fresh fruits. As for fresh veggies, three carrots and four stalks of celery plus the onion and three new Yukon Gold potatoes we dug up at Shoal Bay and are saving for a special occasion. We could just as easily have thrown ten pound bags of onions and potatoes into the hold but we thought, hey, we'll just patronize local businesses. We've got three packages of frozen chicken and beef but since we're at anchor and there is so little to keep cold, I've turned off the fridge until tomorrow when we motor out of this small bay. As for canned veggies, fruits, tuna, ham and rice, pasta, and quinoa, we've got lots.

Okay here's the recipe.

1 can of peaches
1 can of pears
1 can of crushed pineapple
10 dried apricots
6 oz candied ginger, uncrystalized, from Trader Joe's.
Handful Gulalai's raw energy mix - sunflower & pumpkin seeds, almonds, cashews and raisins.

Drain half of the juice from the three cans of fruit. Mix everything in a bowl that can be sealed. Let sit for six hours. Ummmmmm. Delicious.

Lagoon Cove

We're really in the wilderness. We see very few boats, next to no buildings along the shore, very few aids to navigation, no cars, no electric wires. Nights spinning around on anchor particularly in a wider, wilder expanses of water beg to be tempered with a bit of company, both traveling mariners and landbased ones.

So we've enjoyed two days of camaradie at a tiny and well run marina - Lagoon Cove. The marinas that serve recreational cruisers in these parts are all former fishing villages or logging camps. Bill Barber escaped a career in advertising to buy the site and turn it into the most convivial spot in the area. There's a boathouse on the wharf where folks gather for pot luck hors d'oeuvres. We showed up with whatever pathetic nibbles we could find on board and our host Bill and his wife Jean put out huge platters of freshly caught, steaming hot bright red prawns. Best of all, Bill is an expert storyteller whose favorite topic is bears and preferred performance space is around the campfire in front of his bungalow on the bluff overlooking the cove. The true story of the suicidal bear learning to waterski was worth the trip.

Although Lagoon Cove has no grocery or restaurant, there is a fuel dock, which attracts its share of gas guzzlers. Most folks agreed that this was the year for sailboats and large boats. The cost of diesel was keeping away the family cruisers in smaller power boats. (One impressive exception was a young couple with dog, from Alberta, of all places. They'd trailered a twenty-something foot Bayliner to Vancouver and were having a great time setting up their kitchen on the dock and learning fishing from the coastal people.) Our big boat neighbors included Cadenza, a 76 foot, six deck cruiser out of Seattle with a crew of three lookking after a couple in their 60s, possibly honeymooners. The vessel behind us was built in 1944 and had served Canadian Navy stations along the coast before being bought by a couple of wooden boat fanatics. (Yep, these two boats are so big you can hardly see the skippers as they chat while tying up Mediterranean style - stern to dock and rafted.)
This morning when we wanted to move to let the bigger boats out, Aurora wouldn't start. This was our first problem of this sort ever. But we were in the right place at the right time and Bob came to the rescue. Bob and Pat, a talented couple from Port McNeill who live aboard Tonga, an old wooden fishing boat, and work at Lagoon Cove. In the afternoon we spent a couple of hours with Bob leaning how to check out the wires leading into the starter motor selenoid and tighten the belt that charges the alternator.

Inside the Inside Passage

At the end of a most amazing day, we gazed out on this.

(This was written on August 2 or 3 but didn't get posted. It really goes after Gunkholing in Desolation Sound and before We've Run the Rapids!) We left Gorge Harbour and easily navigated Uganda Passage, which had looked impossible to use when we'd views it from the road during a Cortez Island walk two years ago. Skipper Jack then piloted us from the waters of Desolation Sound into the inside of the Inside Passage. This is the place where the waters change direction: South of Desolation Sound the tides flow in and out from the South, through Malaspina and Georgia Strait. By the time you get to the 50th parallel, currents are restrained; this one of the attractions of Desolation Sound, which nonetheless has remarkable and interesting tides. North of Desolation Sound, tidal waters generally flood south and ebb north. Here Vancouver Island lies very close to the mainland. Not that you can tell in this swiss cheese of land mass what is mainland and what's not. It's all watery. Islands separated by relative narrow passages.

Commercial traffic travels west of here fairly close to Vancouver Island. We have not seen a cruise ship since Vancouver. We passed a skid road where a small timber operation was rolling logs into the water; but no tugs towing log booms. Those vessels use Johnstone Strait, which can be sixty miiles of williwaws howling in the afternoon.

Instead, we're dealing with rapids. The first set lie at the end of the appropriately named Calm Channel between Sonora and Stuart Islands. These can only be taken at slack waters. Skipper Jack sits down with the tide and current tables and calculates when it's optimal to pass. Yesterday we did three closely grouped sets of rapids. Well before slack we arrived at the Yuculta Rapids and restudied the charts while watching the southbound boats speed past on the flood.

There was also some significant drift and we followed that as well, to learn the currents. We saw one particularly large log with a bald eagle perched on it. The log was spinning around just like a merry go round and the bird was clearly enjoying it. How fine to see a bird playing! I thought back to an afternoon in Yemen when we'd watched a group of crows play tag with a plastic bag, snatching it from one another's beaks in wild mid-flight. Then suddenly the eagle took flight toward our boat; instinct had kicked in and it was in hot pursuit of a plover a tenth its size. The would be prey executed a series of heart stopping ariel manoeuvres and avoided the jaws of death.

Jack calculated the time to enter the rapids perfectly. A slow boat like our needs to start in the Yuculta Rapids 45 minutes before the slack and fight the current of the flood. Aurora was up to it but the size of the drift logs and the masses of entwined ell grass kept us on our toes. We arrived at Gillard Passage ten minutes before the tide turned and were though them just as the northbound ebb started and took us rapidly past the Dent Islands and the notorious Devil's Hole between them.

The day was waning and it was raining quite hard by now, but it was fine as we were through what some consider the most difficult part of the entire trip to Alaska. Soon we found ourselves at the most extraordinary intersection of Cordero Channel, with Frederick Arm to the north and Nodales Channel to the south. It's a vast expanse but the waters were calm and the light was perfect for spotting orcas. It was high tide and there was no shoreline - tree covered slopes fell right into the sea.

The Dark Side of Sun

When the sun comes out from behind the clouds, the wind often calms. The heat is welcome but you make poor progress under sail.

You see things better when it's cloudy. When the sun comes out your eyes start to play tricks on you. There are mirages that put water where there isn't any and remove water that's there. Islands float above the surface. At low tide in a bay, a cabin cruiser looks like a house in the middle of a golf course.

When it's flat and grey, you appreciate what the sea holds. You catch sight of the tall dorsal fin of the orca and watch it swim past, predicting its elegant arch out of the water about every twenty seconds.

Voyaging back through British Columbia history

Between rapids 3 and 4 spent tied up at the small public dock at Shoal Bay, which was founded in 1887. There was a gold mine near by and the usual fishing and logging industry so the town grew quickly to 5,000 souls, at the time bigger than Vancouver. Then it faded away.
The area recently purchased by latter day homesteader and year-rounder, Mark MacDonald. Mark is completely gung ho. There was a modern lodge on the property when he bought it but it burned down. So he simply started over again. He and his summer helpers are building innovative small buildings: at the moment they have a cottage, a washhouse with laundry and showers, the A frame pub to the left of the picture, a green house, a workshop and a splendid new outhouse! There's also a pit for smoking salmon and roasting meat. The pub has no food and only four kinds of drink: lager, ale; red wine and white wine.
But the fish jump out of the Bay so that people get dinner without leaving their boats. The garden is simply beautiful: everyone is invited to do a bit of work and harvest the crop. We returned leafy lettuce, three potatoes, a badly needed onion and bunches of herbs richer. There's a small can in the garden if one wishes to leave a donation. In the middle of the garden is the chicken coop. New hens and a rooster arrived the day we left; a marten who had slaughtered their predecessors had been captured. In the morning at low tide I joined the crew on the beach and helped in the inch by inch moving of old ironwood sinker logs under the dock. These will be a way, one of these slop structures upon which ships are launched or hauled out and repaired. Just the week before the community had repaired a hole in the hull of a malfunctioning swing keel sailboat by pulling it all the way up on the beach. These folks cruise through life, solving problems as they come.

They also have fun. Some folks from Gibbons who stayed for the Saturday night pig roast said it was a blast. Do it yourself entertainment included everything from magic and belly dancing to male stripping. On the 16, Shoal Bay hosts its annual music festival where folks camp and make the music themselves.

Then there was Port Neville. After our harrowing trip up the Johnstone Strait in a modest 25 knots but 25 knots right in out faces and against the current we sought refuse in Port Neville, which sounds like a settlement but is actually a fjord explored and named i 1792 by Captain George Vancouver. It has excellent anchorage both at its further reaches and near the windswept mouth that looks out on the Strait. It's near the mouth that a public wharf leads to a tiny settlement of three families, which is also named Port Neville. Lorna Hansen Chesluk, the postmistress who sold us a cruising guide we were missing, is the granddaughter of the fist homesteader who came from Norway to settle there in 1891.

Heavenly Bodies

This weekend has been made slightly more dramatic by spring tides, the very low and very high ones caused by full moons and new moons.

This new moon has brought not only extraordinary seas beneath us but awe-inspiring skies over our heads.

As the light disappeared over Port Neville, Venus appeared. I've never seen Venus look like this! Solidly round. Like a silver dollar. Or a mirror, clearly not burning, but reflecting.

After a simple bowl of the stew I'd made ahead while Jack was doing the route planning, I grabbed a sleeping bag and settled down for a night on deck. I figured I'd keep an eye on the anchor and the stars at the same time. What a show! The stars blazed down to the black horizon all around. In their midst was the Milky Way, really milky, with an infinite depth, a third dimension of stars I'd never ever seen that way.

There's no electricity here. No generators. The soft light of lamps in the only two cottages for miles and miles had long been extinguished. So I was puzzled when I opened my eyes to check on the transit of Venus and the stars and found them dimmed by what appeared to be ambient light. So I pulled my weary body up on an elbow and had a look around. There miles away in the middle of Johnstone Strait a southbound cruise ship glowed like a gaudy toy.

We've Run the Rapids!

We finished off the rapids to the Broughtons on August 3. Here's how we did it. Jack spent a good part of the day before studying tide tables, poring over a new set of 1:20,000 charts, and packing them carefully in the zipable Hefty Bags recommended by his friend the Armchair Sailor.

At 5:30 am the day of departure I was sitting in the aft cabin berth with my coffee and the four charts laid out on the feather comforter. Jack gave an overview of the plan and, with my mind morning-fresh, I came to terms with it and saw it should work.

We shoved off at 9 am so we could cover the distance up Cordero Channel and arrive at the Green Point Rapids exactly at low water slack, just as the ebb out turned to the flow in. We rounded Green Point along with a fishing schooner. A piece of cake. Best of all we missed sharing the rapids with a huge log boom pilled by a powerful tug with a smaller tug bringing up the rear.

Our next challenge was Whirlpool Rapids, which we would take on the next slack, the high water slack. It was a spectacularly sunny day so rather than sailing aimlessly around Jack suggested anchoring for lunch in the sun followed by a long nap. We could see the clouds against the high mountains of Vancouver Island that border Johnstone Straight (see photo) but we were in good weather.
In Charlie's Charts. cruising author Margo Wood recommends dropping anchor in a small bay off Chancellor Channel just before it meets Wellbore Channel. Alas, we poked around the shores but with the exception of tiny bay with a crab pot smack in the middle, all the bottoms we over 100 feet. We'll have to complain to Margo if we see her at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September.

So we headed up Wellbore Channel, where the flood was already underway and backeddies made our progress difficult. But just before the rapids was a calm crescent beach with a sialboat already moored. We dropped anchor and had a leisurely lunch in the hot sun followed by naps. I took mine on deck under a sun hat with my fleece neck gaiter - yes, we still don snow pants and fleece dickies - protecting my lower lip from sunburn. Delicious.

We took the Whirlpool Rapids at dead slack as well, though it was a flood slack. Nothing to report except a lone fisherman in an open boat perhaps 15 feet long. We waved, reminded of our friend Don Wisham who died this past year doing what he love most - fishing. Evidently he stepped into a hole while fly fishing in wadders off the banks of Oregon's Deschutes River.

Just beyond this final set of rapids is an inlet called Forward Harbor where we'd considered dropping the hook. But there wasn't wasn't a cloud in the sky and we were completely refreshed with naps so we headed on into Sunderland Channel, expecting to make Port Neville well before nightfall. Again our estimated time of arrival was short. As we entered the infamous Johnstone Strait, the wind hit us full force in the face. We motored laboriously on.

We had a couple of encounters with drift. A log 2 feet in diameter and many feet long spun past on port. I impulsively grabbed my camera to photograph it only to hear the thump of a much smaller long as it hit starboard. Another lesson well learned. Drift follows drift. From then on I squinted into the blinding sun looking for the stuff.

The only other boat underway we saw all afternoon was a small speedy vessel that bounced up and down along the south shore. We passed a single safehaven just large enough for one boat: and it was already taken.

When we finally reached Port Neville - a long finger of a bay - the sun was setting orange, making the long bunches of eel grass easy to see. There being no place at the public wharf, we anchored out.

How to Read a Nautical Chart

This is the title of one of the best books I've ever read. It's the sort of thing that Suart Brand would've given rave reviews in the Whole Earth Catalogue if the book had been written then. You know, technical savvy meets universal interest. Before we had listserves dishing up readings in areas of interest we're supposed to be keeping up with. In fact, this is a book that was crying to be written before a sharp editor begged Nigel Calder to write it.

This book is for everybody, especially anybody with the slightest curiosity about cartography. Or risk assessment. Or exploration. Or hydrographic methods. Or international cooperation. Or epistemology. In fact, if you're in Portlamd, you should trot right down to Powell's Technical Books, get yourself a cup of coffee and read the section entitled "The Limits of Accuracy."

Now if you're a navigator, this will be an adrenalin rush. It's pretty great to read stuff it's esential to know and have it be thrilling at the same time. I happened to read it at anchor in Laura Cove sitting on on deck with a tremendous view across the entrance into the Desolation Sound. And lo and behold there immeidately in front of me was a perfectly good rock that had varied in height with the tide between one and 11 feet! And it wasn't even on our large scale ie. small area official Canadian Map that you legally have to have on board! Yikes.

On dinghies, kayaks, scooter and bikes

These are extenders and how many you carry is determined by space, time and budget. While a sailboat can get pretty close to the forested shores of the coast islands, there is always some water to cross.

Fitted out with the inflatable Dinghy Dogs, T/T (ie Tender To) Aurora is serving us well this year. A product purveyed by one of thousands of entrepreneurial, problem-solving, nautical inventors, Dinghy Dogs have bridged differing views the Skipper and the First Mate.

When the Skipper steps off the deck and into the dinghy he wants a fairly solid landing, not the teetering of a canoe. In fact, he long made the case for buying a bulky, expensive inflatable. As for the First Mate, she wants something she can actually row, particularly on longer excursions, when the electric motor runs out of juice. And she's always liked the traditional rowboat design and the way the existing dinghy fits perfectly on the deck.

Enter Dinghy Dogs, inflatable hotdogs six feet long. They simply lash on to gunwale cleats and are kept from popping up by a slotted band at the waterline. Jack the Skipper can actually relax on excursions into the nooks and crannies of the coast and the First Mate still has her classic (if plastic) rowboat.
A lot of cruisers haul a dinghy and have kayaks on deck. The kayaks may be rigid or inflatable. The simplest inflatables resemble blow up lounge chairs. A couple of sailors in this type paddled up just we we squeezing into a particularly tight anchorage and poked around with their paddles to confirm we had the necessary depth. Then they left on wind power: each put up a folding umbrella!

Our decks are uncluttered with extender paraphenalia but stowed in the port lazarette is my everyday bike and in the starboard one, Jack's scooter. The bike is a folding Dahon and the scooter breaks down into five easy pieces so they both can be transported in the dinghy, though not necessarily at once.

Swing? Or Tie Up?

We've been able to do a lot of swinging but last night was my first tie up. Behind Jean Island we dropped our anchor in a 25 foot deep hole very close to shore and just swung with the winds, currents, and tides. The next morning we got up to find ourselves surrounded on three sides with small islands - or rather a bunch of drying rocks - some 7 feet high - that appear at low tide. Over coffee we realized that from time to time something resembling thunder was coming from the v-berth. Ah ha! The grumbling rumbling was just the anchor chain echoing up through the locker as it dragged over rocks protruding from the muddy bottom over which we were swinging in a complete circle.

But swinging doesn't always work. Prideaux Haven is a much coveted anchorage where snow capped peaks preside over a series of small sheltered coves. As we searched for the entrance, we could see masts above the hills and boat through the nooks and crannies. We would have to anchor and then tie up using a stern tie. For the first time.

Without a nylon stern tie per se we'd have to use a length of line that we'd dropped on the very bottom of the starboard lazarette to create a floor for the fenders, tie lines, extra life jackets and bike. Out everything came and then the line. Oodles of it. Obviously it had been purchased on the drum wholesale; it's already being used for the jib sheets. Fortunately, the task of unsnarling the 3/4 inch line and laying it out on the deck was quick and easy. I counted approximately 275 feet of the stuff which I divided into three bunches.

Finally we were entering Laura Cove, which was already busy. The crew of an anchored sailboat guided us to avoid a mid channel obstruction while some kayakers suggested laying the hook toward in the middle of the cove. Once I'd dropped the anchor and let out some rode as Jack motored slowly toward shore, I had to do the stern tie. Under the eyes of everyone of course. Just getting a hugely slippery skein of 3/4 inch line into the dinghy was a challenge. Then after tying the bitter end to Aurora's stern, I had to row to shore, climb up a cliff of slimy rocks, haul the line up to a tree, loop it around and get it back down to the dinghy. By that time an oar had gone AWOL so I returned to the Aurora by pulling one half of the line while letting out the other. Tied up. Made. We only needed about 80 feet but - this line worth a small fortune - we don't want to cut it. After paddling out to retrieve the wayward oar, we sat down to bowls of chili, feeling rather proud of ourselves.

Here is a picture of our next door neighbor, properly tied up with a thin stern tie. This great old wooden vessel was the biggest boat in the cove and could only get in and out on high tide.

There will be more stories of anchoring to come, I'm sure. It is something fraught with challenge, always an adrenalin rush. Much can go wrong. So far, nothing has.

Gunkholing in Desolation Sound

We pulled up anchor at the crack of dawn to sail up the the Sunshine Coast and into the wilderness of Desolation Sound. Normally the winds tunneling through Malespina Strait between the mainland and the spiny baked monster island of Taxeda are from the North, but on this day they were with behind us. We flew north on a broad reach slowing only at the top of the Strait, where we got a nice look at the historic town of Powell River, a few miles beyond its bustling, mundane sister, Westview. The whole town of Powell River has been designated a National Historic District, one of Canada's very few. Through binoculars we could see the rows of pretty craftsman houses and the town center with churches and schools. The lumber mill of this company town founded in 1910 still billows steam and all the houses appear tidy and inhabited This is a place we need to visit. Powell River has a history museum, a logging museum and a fully restored theater which dates from the days of theater organists accompanying silent and still shows movies every night.

Civilization ends at the Swedish settlement of Lund, whose majestic old hotel overlooks the water. It's here that Route 101, already patched together by ferry crossings, peters out in a brief dirt track.

Desolation Sound, so named in 1792 by the gloomy George Vancouver, combines grandeur with a cozy intimacy with the natural world. While snow capped peaks drop majestically into the Pacific, endlessly winding miles of shoreline shelter tiny all-to-yourselves anchorages. We found one such behind Jean Island near the entrance to Grace Harbor in Desolation Sound Marine Park. We could not believe the silence. Loons crying from miles away. The ripples made by a family of a yet to be identified family of ducks. The flap of the wings of a bald eagle as he left his forest perch above our mast.

In the daytime there are the sounds of oyster farmers' boats, the occasional float plane reuniting a passenger with family or colleagues, and other cruisers. But there are no overhead wires or signs or mooring docks and buoys or even navigational aids apart from an occasional plastic ball marking an obstruction. Gunkholing is the nautical equivalent of backpacking before the days of permits and designated campsites. On Cortez Island, we returned to Gorge Harbor, where we'd been with Acquitted in 2006. It's a large bay all but enclosed save for a very narrow but deep and safe set of cliffs. This year we again entered in low tide and were treated to a a show of jewel tone colors: bright pink, purple and orange starfish on a bed of bright green seaweed on the rock.

49º37.69 N 124º01.31 W and how we got here

Provisioning aside we're making steady northward progress. On Friday, July 18th at noon we crossed Juan de Fuca on a dependable breeze and a beam reach. Nice sun. A dearth of 1000 ft cargo ships in the lanes. The wind calmed down as we approached the San Juans and we found Cattle Pass calm as we motored through. The bouys on Turn Island being all taken we pulled into Friday Harbour for the night. The next morning we sailed up the channel to the northern most of the San Juans and stopped at Sucia Island. Yes, sucia is dirty but in a nautical rather than en environmental sense: you need a good chart to get into safe harbor.
When we arrived there were already a bunch of boats in Echo Bay - some folks we met from [the Portland Neighborhood of] Goose Hollow counted 99, most all sailboats. We dropped the anchor with the expected trepidation and when it took hold we were within closer spin range of a fine Vancouver 45-footer than we'd have liked. This led to much interrupted sleep between 11 pm and 5 am but to very good sleep between 5 am and 11 am, by which time we were able to nab a free buoy. To our delight another Valiant pulled up near by, the pilothouse version, of which fewer than 20 were built. Though lacking our extra space on deck and below, this is really the ideal boat for the Inside Passage and Alaska. And compared with the Hunter moored beside it, it clearly performs better under sail.
Dawn rose rosy as we pulled out and hoisted the sails. A nice southeast wind and on a broad reach gave us the chance to read and bliss out on the vast horizon of the middle of the Straight of Georgia. Kindle in hand, Jack even bought and received a new book and got a free sub to the Washington Post.
The sun calmed the wind just as we met the outflow of the Fraser River. Finally we were motoring across English Bay. As we rounded Stanley Park and headed into the First Narrows, a huge cruise ship suddenly appeared; no sooner were we under the Lion's Gate Bridge than an even larger container ship charged forward, squeezing us to one side. Although trained harbor pilots are aboard these vessels, it's strange that they are not required to be escorted by tugs. (The 60 mile fetch of open seas just beyond the narrows can bring unpredictable seas and winds.) But it must keep shipping costs down.

Customs was a snap - a phone call with boat name and number and our names. No passport info requested; they seemed to know us - homeland security everywhere, I guess. We simply write 20082030675 on a piece of paper and scotch tape it to a porthole. Upon tying up at Coal Harbor Marina next door to the customs dock, we called Frances Dodd but she was already en route home and was off the next day with sister Kika from Amsterdam to join the family in Williams Lake for Skander's wedding. Checked email, announced safe passage, and invited local friends to an on board pot luck on Wednesday.

The next day Emily Coolidge, whom we'd last seen on Prince Edward Island, came by and over a bottle of Oregon wine let us know that Vancouver is even cooler than we'd suspected. She lives on the west side in Kitsilano and once sister Amanda leaves Nairobi, she'll probably be her neighbor.

With duty keeping us close to the boat, we didn't get out to visit friends or tour. But we had a wonderful reunion with Habib, Gulalai and Saeed who showed up our last night in Vancouver with a wonderful fish dish and a bag of goodies for the cruise. After supper, we pulled out our maps and guidebooks as they are going on vacation soon and we'd hoped to rendezvous. Lo and behold, reality set in! There are no roads reaching the coast where we'll be sailing! Route 101 stops in Lund, just a few miles north of where we are now.
Right now we're anchored in Garden Bay, in Pender Harbor, inside a maze of islands and inlets on the Sunshine Coast. We've finally got the dinghy in the water and will try to find a some wifi on shore. That's it. This lovely wooden yawl just sailed past - time to be out on the water. (Wait a minute, we ARE out on the water.)