Middle Watch Musings
• Jun. 26, 2007 - In The Wilderness
We have made quite a bit of ground since our last blog entry. We spent a few days in Courtenay relaxing and filling the boat with food before setting off into Desolation Sound. From Courtenay we sailed all the way to Squirrel Cove with a southerly pushing us. Squirrel Cove is a destination for power boaters because it is a great sheltered anchorage with a store and restaurant close by. While we were there, there were about a dozen boats, most of them power boats. We saw one large power boat (about 45 feet) with four large dogs on it (two retrievers,a shepherd and a newfie). The owner was roaring around the cove in his dinghy and didn't take the dogs ashore even once while we were there. When we rowed by the dogs looked very frustrated.
From Squirrel Cove we sailed up around the north end of Cortes Island and down to Gorge Harbour. It was another great sail with the wind in our favour all the way.....unbelievable.
Gorge Harbour has a great restaurant and the cell phone even worked after a walk up the hill away from the harbour.
After two days in Gorge we sailed across to Campbell River to watch the Van-Isle 360 finish and to go through Seymour Narrows with them the following day. Of course Discovery Marina had tons of room and great facilities.
Early on the 19th (0600) we slipped from Campbell River and powered up to the Narrows with the racing fleet. The race leg started in Deep Bay and we watched a wonderful spinnaker start and got some great pictures. They raced off ahead of us as we put up our little kite and trailed along at a respectful 6.5 knots. We spent that night in Port Neville at Lorna's dock. She wasn't there but Dave came over from the other side of the harbour and gave us a tour. The old post office is very interesting. Next time we'll send ourselves some mail there.
From Port Neville we sailed out Johnstone Strait, again with following winds, and watched the Van-Isle racers coming up behind us. The wind built to 25 knots and we were double reefed with a tiny jib with our boat doing 8 knots. Icon went by us like we were stopped and went on to set a record for that leg (Telegraph Cove) of the race. Spectacular!
We overnighted in Growler Cove. It was very well protected and quiet. We were the only boat there. From Growler we sailed on to Telegraph and met our parents to celebrate Nancy's 50th birthday. Dinner at the only restaurant was great. We were the only sailboat in the cove although there were several trailerable fish boats on the docks.
From Telegraph we motored up to Port McNeil to resupply and get ready for the next leg out of civilization. McNeil is a great stop, fairly priced and convenient. We liked it.
While in McNeil we took the ferry to Sointula and spent a few hours walking around the town and visiting their museum. Lunch at the bakery was great.
We sailed from McNeil to Mamalilaculla to visit the site of the famous potlatch. When we got there the anchorage had a boat in it and there was limited room for us so we moved to Pearl Passage and spent a safe comfortable night there. The next morning we went back and went ashore only to discover that the place was infested with garter snakes. This would not normally be a problem except for Nancy's phobia so she stayed on the beach while I looked around. I could have spent more time there.
From Mamalilaculla we motored on to Echo Bay where we found this intenet connection and where we now are. We caught a sole for dinner and enjoyed a quiet night on the dock enteratined by Carol "The Bead Lady" and her husband Gerry. Good fun.
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• Sep. 21, 2007 - Growler Cove