Brooks Peninsula is one of the most challenging sections of a trip around Vancouver Island. Actually, it may be the single most challenging spot on the whole west coast, from Olympia to Skagway. The problem is that it juts a dozen miles seaward from the Vancouver Island shore. Wind funnels around Cape Cook and Solander Island. When the rest of the coast is reporting light winds, it’s not uncommon to … Read more
We left North Harbour about 8:00 a.m. for the relatively short run to Klaskish Basin. A couple of black/white fog and tree photos on our way out of North Harbour: This route crosses the mouth of Quatsino Sound, and we’d hoped for calm morning conditions. Instead, we found 15-knot outflow winds meeting a low westerly swell. The seas didn’t look that bad, but they were confused and resulted in a … Read more
Bull Harbour to North Harbour (in Quatsino Sound) is one of the more challenging runs on a trip around Vancouver Island. Just outside of Bull Harbour is Nahwitti Bar, a shallow spot with swift moving current and ocean swells. At slack, it’s not a big deal, but with an ebb, it can be awful. The problem is it’s also good to be at Cape Scott at slack, and unless you … Read more
We’re off on our first Vancouver Island flotilla! We all met at North Island Marina in Port McNeill prior to departing for the west coast of Vancouver Island. This is an outstanding spot, with mechanics on call (who show up promptly), divers (they cleaned our hulls and running gear), fuel right at your slip, a good grocery store a short walk away, laundry, and a chandlery nearby. Best of all, … Read more
Skull Cove was foggy and gray as we left and headed into Queen Charlotte Strait toward Malcolm Island. We made plans to meet up with friends Carol and Park in Sointula this afternoon. (You might remember them from last year’s Alaska flotilla, on the Nordhavn 50 Akeeva.) Sointula is on Malcolm Island, just four miles or so from Port McNeill. A group of Finnish settlers came to Malcolm Island from the Nanaimo coal … Read more
Guess what? We liked Skull Cove enough to stay a THIRD day! There is so much to explore around here, and with decent internet we are able to get a lot of work done. It’s also nice to have some down time before we start our next flotilla in three days! This morning we decided to visit Nakwakto Rapids near max ebb. Well, we decided to visit NEAR Nakwakto Rapids, … Read more
We liked Skull Cove so much that we decided to stay another day! This is a beautiful anchorage with endless nooks and crannies to explore, the weather is great, and we have internet so we’re also able to get a lot of work done. We took the dinghies out to Nakwakto Rapids (at slack) to take a look. We were a little bit early and the tide was still ebbing … Read more
The forecast for Cape Caution wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Wind northwest 15-25 knots, diminishing to 10 knots in the morning, and increasing to 15 in the afternoon. Seas 1-2 meters. Windy showed a short period of calm wind close to shore, but it didn’t extend very far offshore, didn’t start until about four in the morning, and ended by the early afternoon. Our concern was that even … Read more