July 10 – 15th Planning comes together!

Moored next to us in Campbell River is the s/v Funny Girl from Portland.  We take up a nice conversation with skipper Bruce, realizing it truly is a small world.  Our paths overlap with Bruce, both in our history of work for the Forest Service, battling wild fires, and in our friends at Rose City YC.  He gives us some great ‘local knowledge’ information and helps us off the dock.  The winds give us a full 360 degree spin to get fully out of the slip and waterway, controlled by Carl at the helm and then we venture out into Discovery Passage.

We fight some nasty wind, waves and current but the goal is solid as it will get us to Seymour Narrows at the slack before the ebb and we will transit Johnstone Strait on the ebb, which flows in a more northerly direction in this area.

We reach the Narrows right on time with some help from our head sail and venture through.  The wind and current are favorable and we make the decision to continue on clear to Port Neville for our evening anchorage.  We have, of course, charted out “bail out” anchorages all along the way, on our old fashioned paper charts.  Johnstone Strait is not to be trifled with as the wind and currents can howl through here. 

The day is uneventful other than some of the worst, torrential rain we have ever encountered while ‘sailing.’  At one point it was flying straight across the cockpit on a 19 knot beam wind.  The black clouds tell the tale.  We carry on and are thankful to reach Port Neville, successfully having transited the entire Seymour Narrows and a good portion of Johnstone Strait.

July 11^th Beware Cove Turnour Island

Safely off of Johnstone Strait we meet a cruise ship exiting Blachney passage.  All the boats in Johnstone scurry out of her way and we motor on through the passage to our evening anchorage Beware Cove, Turnour Island.  It is very difficult to find just the right spot as there are numerous crap pot type buoys that we think might be for research.  We do find safe anchorage and settle in for the night, the angst of the Strait and the Narrows behinds us.

July 12^th – 14th Dusky Cove Bonwick Island in the Broughtons

Leaving Beware Bay we do some fishing along the way only to realize that the currents will not allow us to drift safely around the rocks.  Carl does however catch a nice lingcod in Spring Passage. 

We continue to Dusky Cove where we separated from our buddy boaters Walt and Odile a couple of years ago when we all made it nearly to Alaska.  

We like Dusky Cove and the small islets which will make a great area to try out our kayaks.  We have both of them on board this year.  Carl’s is a fully rigged fishing machine with net, rod holder and bucket for his catch.  I have on board my book and camera and road snacks!  We venture far enough over that we are outside the rockfish conservation area and kayak for nearly 6 hours, each of us catching fish ranging from smallish flounder to very nice greenlings and rockfish.  Most of the rockfish are catch and release and the greenlings go into the freezer.  The kayaks are a success but a critique of the excursion includes a promise that next time we will have also scouted out a good place to beach the kayaks, take a break and stretch our legs.

July 15^th Spout Islet anchorage Hanson Island

Leaving Dusky Cove we take a short trip to our anchorage at Spout Islet off of Hanson Island.  We spend a lazy day and night, Pam pouring over charts and tide books to plan our rounding of Cape Scott, the northernmost point of Vancouver Island.  I chat back and forth with Walt and Odile via email (when the boat drifts into the tiny bit of cell coverage we have).  They have gone around the top a few times and have some great information for us.  Carl of course fishes and reads.  There is only one casualty for this anchorage…..Pam’s throw is as good as it always has been and the very over ripe avocado she meant to compost in the bay becomes impaled upon the rod holder instead.