August
1st rafted with B Mondo off Galley Bay in Desolation Sound: This
morning Pam, Carl and Walt are on a restocking mission to Refuge Cove
off of West Redonda Island in our trusty dinghy ET. Refuge Cove is a
wonderful little settlement owned cooperatively by a small number of
folks. They run a supply store, gallery, bakery, fuel dock and small
café. And don’t forget Dave’s garbage barge where we deposited (for
$2.00) our small bag of garbage and for free all of the recycleables.
After a nice lunch with a very tasty cinnamon and blueberry roll we
took off again in ET. ET is powered either by oars or by our propane
motor. Given that Refuge Cove is about 4 miles from our boats we had
motored over. This was good because we also took a wrong course and
ended up going quite a bit further than necessary by way of Mink Island.
On the way back all is well until Carl notices that the motor is not
spitting water. This means that if we keep going we burn up the motor.
Walt starts rowing and Pam suggests we tie up to the local oyster farm
barge that we had passed in Martin Island Passage. We come along side
and Sean and Bill from the Taylor Seafood Farm promptly offer us the use
of their radio which has more power than our handheld VHF. Since we
are not able to make contact with Odile on our mother ships they then
offer us a tow. They are just about off shift and will be heading past
our anchorage. Gleefully we accept, Walt and Pam move onto the oyster
farm boat and skipper Carl stays with his ship. Unfortunately we don’t
have a camera to capture all of this but we do note that it looks like
Carl is taking his nap as his head ducks lower and lower into the
dinghy. Safely back to the boats we wave good bye to Sean and Bill who
will take nothing from us but a package of smokes for Bill. Dinner is
the remainder of the ling cod cooked beautifully by Walt and Odile
while Pam and Carl dinghy off to catch a couple more rock fish for
tomorrow evenings meal. We are visited by a baby seal who has adopted
our boats, most likely abandoned by his mum. He tries and tries to
climb our steps, B Mondos steps and even the oars into the dinghy. He
does not seem hungry as he passes up all of the fish that we offer. We
are not sure what mother nature holds in store for him.
August 2nd rafted with B Mondo in Drew Harbour off Quadra Island: We
had favorable SE winds to make a nice sail from Galley Bay to Baker
Passage. The winds died at the passage so we motored northeastly to our
destination for the evening, Rebecca Spit off of the northern tip of
Quadra Island. Years ago Carl and I came here on our ferry trip from
the mainland. We have a nice view from the spit back up into Desolation
Sound. We have tiny sunfish sailboats racing around our boats and
kayakers slowly exploring. We took a walk along the spit through the
dense forest on a well maintained trail. We came upon a memorial bench
for five men who had “fallen from the sky on February 28, 2005”.
Further along the trail we found ice cream at the small store and all
is well.
August 3rd – 4th Octopus
Islands Marine Park: today we head for Surge Narrows at Beazley Passage
to catch the slack tide and ride through the Narrows. It is sometimes
frightening to read the information about some of these passages. We
made sure that we are there at the right time. The current is only 3.8
knots at slack and we are supposed to be going with its flow but our
engine tells us differently as we power up to make it safely through.
Our destination today is Octopus Islands Marine Park and our anchorage
of Waiatt Bay. We arrive around 10:00 AM just in time to dinghy ashore
and go clamming for tomorrow night’s dinner. With our clams safely
stored we then dinghy ashore for a short hike and an excursion to the
‘art cabin.’ The art cabin was originally a family camping hut for many
years. They now simply leave it for others to enjoy. People who visit
leave trinkets and/or local driftwood and shells with information about
who they are. It is quite an interesting assortment! We dutifully
leave shells and driftwood showing that ExTerra and B Mondo had visited.
The next day we do a longer hike to Newton Lake. The fresh water lake
is too inviting and Pam and Carl (nearly) chunky dunk (most folks our
age don’t skinny dip anymore, we chunky dunk LOL). The warm fresh water
is a nice change from the salt water swimming we have been doing. We
return to dine on spaghetti with Italian elk sausage from Pam and Carl’s
freezer given that we will not eat the clams until we know for sure
that we have not harvested them in an unsafe location (red tide).
August
5th enroute Hole in the Wall passage: We again depart early enough to
catch the slack in Hole in the Wall passage. We again experience that
we enter on the slack but we have up to 7 knots of current that is
supposed to be going with us that is in fact slowing us down. We need
to research this more to see why……safely through we begin our travel
today with no definite destination in mind. We transit Calm channel,
Raza Passage, and Pryce channel with the dramatic backdrop of the BC
Coast Range mountains. It is a nice sunny day so we continue to motor
through Homfray channel passing fisheries ponds and old logging camps.
Earlier we passed the “White Church ruins” a noted location in the book
“A Curve in Time” written by a widow who travelled all of these waters
with her children in the 1920’s and later. Walt and Odile take us past
pictographs in Homfray channel and we continue to meander until we find
the ‘right spot’ to anchor. We anchor in a wonderful little nook on the
southeast corner of East Redonda Island across from Monmouth Mountain
(we think!). Walt, Odile and Pam take a dip in the 76 degree salt water
while Carl catches another nice ling cod from the boat. Our “last
supper” with Walt and Odile this evening is a wonderful buffet of ling
cod, mussels and clam cakes. Bon Apatite! Tomorrow we begin our long
journey home. Not sure how often we will have internet as our Verizon
hotspot is departing on B Mondo!
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