Kevin Morris 
Nine humpbacks surface and exhale fifty yards from our dinghy, between us and shore. Dolphins leap out of the water, inches away, splashing water into our small vessel. A family of brown bears forage on the beach 20 feet away, munching grass. An icy chill briefly blasts as we motor through a waterfall that tumbles from rocky cliffs into the ocean. Tidal rapids roar as we zoom through against the flow. … Read more
The most challenging part of cruising on the west side of Vancouver Island is weather. The typical summer weather pattern is calm, cool mornings followed by clearing and warming in the afternoon. Fog is frequent. As temperatures climb, a northwesterly breeze fills in and conditions can get rough. By September, this pattern is more often disrupted by cooler, cloudier, wetter weather and moderate winds from the southeast. When Environment Canada … Read more
From Hot Springs Cove we went into Clayoquot Sound. Clayoquot Sound is best known for Tofino, the town at its center, but the inlets, channels, and anchorages are wonderful cruising areas. Our first anchorage was Bottleneck Bay in Sydney Inlet. The bay gets its name from the narrow entrance channel, which looks a little intimidating at first. We found at least 25 feet of water mid-channel and current doesn’t seem … Read more
The small settlement of Walters Cove is in Kyoquot Sound, just eight miles south of the Bunsby Islands. We popped in and tied up at the public dock for a quick look around and to see if the small general store happened to be open. It wasn’t, but the woman we asked about the store hours was the store owner, and she opened it for us so we could do … Read more
We left Kynumpt Harbour and cruised four nautical miles to Shearwater, where we tied up for a couple hours to do laundry, grocery shopping, and top off the fuel tanks. The grocery store was closed for restocking until 1:00 p.m. (Our lucky day! Fresh produce!) so we took advantage of the new laundry drop-and-fold service ($20 Canadian per load) while we had a late breakfast. With chores done, we headed … Read more
We left Point Baker after breakfast and headed for Coffman Cove. Sumner Strait and Clarence Strait cooperated, and we enjoyed another calm, sunny day on the water, punctuated by a midday whale show at Bay Point. The transient dock at Coffman Cove was full of fish boats when we arrived. Several slips were open, but the harbormaster didn’t respond to our VHF radio calls so we anchored out instead. The … Read more
Our first stop north of Klawock was Sarkar Cove. It’s a pretty spot with good holding and protection, but several houses and a high-end fishing lodge make it feel less remote than it otherwise would. The biggest attraction was Sarkar Lake, which flows into Sarkar Cove and looked like a great place to explore by dinghy. Aerial view of Sarkar Cove Unfortunately, we didn’t make it far. Soon after the … Read more
From Hunter Bay we headed west to Nina Cove, on the east side of Long Island. The charts had been quite accurate in Hunter Bay and Kassa Inlet, but we found them seriously lacking in Nina Cove. Several rocks are accurately shown, but a big one isn’t. The picture below shows where the rocks are and the route we took. The safe channel between the rocks is narrow, probably about … Read more