Sam Landsman

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 6 | Bunsby Islands to Walters Cove/Kyuquot

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The narrow entrance to Walters Cove is a fun navigational challenge. The channel is well-charted and well-marked, but it’s narrow and winding. Looking in from the outside, the buoys look more like a random sprinkling of green and red than a defined channel. The chart clarifies the path, but it can still be intimidating. Inside Walters Cove, we found the public dock almost empty, with ample room for the whole … Read more

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 5 | Columbia Cove to the Bunsby Islands

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Today’s cruise was a short one — only 8nm or so from Columbia Cove to the Bunsby Islands. We anchored in the northernmost (slightly larger) anchorage, then took the drone up for some quick aerials before going exploring. By dinghy, we found a small island with a nice landing beach so we went ashore and found some great tide pools! We saw quite a few of these in the intertidal. … Read more

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 4 | Klaskish Basin to Columbia Cove

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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

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 3 | North Harbour to Klaskish Basin

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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

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 2 | Bull Harbour to North Harbour

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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

West Side of Vancouver Island Flotilla | Day 1 | Port McNeill to Bull Harbour

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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

Big Frypan Bay, Cape Caution, Skull Cove

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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

Khutze Inlet, Kakushdish Harbour, Big Frypan Bay

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We left Khutze with a simple goal: anchor somewhere near Shearwater with good internet! We hoped to catch up on some work, and more importantly, pull all the weather resources we could to look for a weather window to get around Cape Caution. Our route south took us through lots of narrow passages. Hiekish Narrows (filled with floating logs), Jackson Narrows, Perceval Narrows, and Reid Passage. Jackson Narrows is particularly fun. … Read more