Nanimo to Blind Channel, May 2 -6, 2015

Sunrise Roche Harbor

It is a beautiful sunny morning. We are heading to Nanaimo, 46 nautical miles.  Departure is at 6:10 as we have to cross the dreaded Dodd Narrows, a short and skinny dogleg, at exactly slack tide – 9:59 AM.  The current in the narrows run at 9 knots and the cruising books devote several paragraphs to the dos and don’ts of crossing.  This is not our first time through but we respect the wisdom of experienced sailors.

House on a Cliff

Entering Dodds Narrows

We leave the calm of our harbor, and as soon as we poke our bow out into Haro Straits, we are faced with a wall of white caps.  Immediately we are bucking and Wiley is hurling.  Clearly, the sun is not the friend I thought it would be.  We are in a full moon phase and it amplifies the tides and boosts the currents.  By the time we get to Dodds Narrow, we are one hour and 31 minutes late. 

There is much debate about an alternative course of action but we, along with four other boats, line up and one by one forge through.  It is calmer than our entire trip has been.

We dock in Nanaimo, an old coal mining town recreated as a technology, manufacturing and tourism destination.  The wind is howling, making docking, and our entire stay, uncomfortable.  We remember a great sushi restaurant from 3 years earlier and spend hours walking the town searching for it only to find it has also recreated itself -  into general Canadian fare.  Jim spies poutine featured on a sidewalk restaurant sign – Pirates Chips – and that is where we have dinner.  Their claim to fame is 8 deep fried “signature” desserts – everything from deep fried ice cream to deep fried cheesecake.  The poutine was good.

Dodging logs

 

The next day we head for Pender Harbor, across the Straits of Georgia.  Those darned straits.  The wind report is for 15 – 20 knots and yes, it is sunny, with white caps and walls of waves greeting us. The currents are strong on our stern and we ride the crest of the surfing waves at 12 knots, drop, roll, wallow in 8 knots and repeat.  I feel like a Blue Angel pilot spiraling into a nose dive.  Our belongings are flying, my computer sails by, the camera crashes down, it is so bad Jim dons our Scooter helmet to stay safe.   

Sunrise Pender Harbor

 

From Pender Harbor we head to Blind Channel requiring one more difficult passage through
"the rapids,"  a series of 3, Yuculta, Gillard and  "The Devil's Hole," Dent Rapids.  They are each approximately 2 nautical miles apart and timing is the key. 

There are complicated tables and diagrams,  math calculations - about speed, distance, full moon, slack turning to ebb versus ebb turning to slack - all detailed with precision in the Tides and Currents Book.  Every publication on board devotes paragraphs, if not entire pages,  to these rapids. By the time we finish reading the cautions, study the pictures and digest the horror stories of someone who knew someone who didn't follow the directions, we conclude only a fool would try this -  so right up our alley. 



What Rapids?

Of course hundreds of people cross these rapids every year without dying and so do we.  This time we are not late and we have a perfectly calm crossing. Although my stomach hasn't been the same since.



 

Seattle Departure, May 1, 2015

It is May 1, our departure date, and we are ready - in a manner of speaking.  The boat has been provisioned and I learned my lessons from last time.  We are not heading to Mars, there will be grocery stores, there is no need to pack 16 cans of beans.  However, in my 16 trips to the grocery store, I am now stowing 16 cans of beans.  Plus, as a seasoned Alaska cruiser, I know that I have to include hors d'oeuvres for all those impromptu cocktail parties that happen whenever two or more boaters are gathered at an anchorage.  Smoke is rising from my beloved FoodSaver as it works overtime vacuum packing everything from chicken breasts to baguettes.  

But finally the cupboards are full, the bilges bursting with extra  blushers, mousses and moisturizers.  I even find room for some medicals supplies.  When I'm satisfied that I have everything I possibly need, Jim comes back from the marine supply store with the necessary spare parts for the engine, generator and water maker but the bilges are full.  I may have to consolidate.

We are prepared to leave at 7:30 AM armed with a great bottle of red wine from Carolyn and Gary, our dock neighbors to the left; and home baked breakfast muffins from Kathy and Eric to our right.  It is a beautiful, sunny day - our first May crossing of the Straits of Juan de Fuca in good weather.  Surely this is a good omen.

First, Wiley the cat got sick.  And what is that loud banging?  Ah, the waves beating on the hull. And although it is still sunny, we are facing 180 degrees of white caps.  The bow drops into the water and rises back up, up, up, and crashes down again.  It is not raining but the wipers are furiously trying to clear the windshield of the salt water  washing over the pilot house.   Wiley is now howling, lending a nice counterpoint to the banging noise.  I enter the galley to batten things down when spice bottles shoot by – I duck to avoid incoming curry, cumin and cinnamon.  I open the refrigerator door to secure things there and a 6 pack carton of eggs immediately shoots out.  Note, get  eggs at the next stop.


Celestine docked at Roche Harbor

We continue this way for several hours until we reach the calm waters of Roche Harbor, our destination for the evening.    We spend the next several hours washing the hull, removing the seaweed from the dinghy on the flybridge and generally restoring order to the interior. Yes, this has been our worst ever crossing of the straits…but it was sunny.

Roche Harbor

Echo Bay, Gilford Island, August 15 – 17, 2012; The Party Place

Echo Bay

 

Entering Echo Cove

Land!  I feel like Christopher Columbus discovering the United States, euphoric.  We can walk on something other than docks.  But we still don’t have Internet service and word has it that cell coverage is only sometimes available in the store’s ketchup aisle.  But never mind that, this is the famed Echo Bay of Pierre and Tova – they are like rock stars in the boating world,  known both for their Saturday night themed pig roasts and their flamboyant personalities.   This couple go out of their way to make you feel welcome and catered to.  And they attract not just boats, but yachts.  Several 100 ft. plus mega boats came here just to partake of the ambience.

The setting is upscale rustic.  We arrived just in time for the traditional Wednesday night prime rib dinner held at sunset in the newly built mess hall overlooking the bay.  No BYO appetizers here – well you do bring your own wine and utensils – and you best bring them early.  At 3 PM in the afternoon I spotted a woman from a neighboring boat marching to the mess hall with plates and silverware.  When I stopped to ask her about this she informed me that the protocol is to “reserve” your seat.  Nikki invited us to join her group so I gathered up the paper plates and headed out.  The room was set up with banquet tables and most spots had already been taken.  These are clearly veterans of this event – and no paper plates or plastic silverware here.  China and goblets are the order of the day…and placemats.   I scurried back to the boat to exchange my low rent eating utensils with the real deal and headed back up to claim our place.

Dinner is a fun experience - everyone remains seated until Tova waltzes  in and rhythmically claps her hands, at which point we clap back.  I feel like I’m part of a sorority and we’ve just done the secret handshake.  The meal is a feast of prime rib, salmon – always salmon – and a ton of side dishes.  I don’t even know where all this food was prepared as there is no restaurant here.  And this is only one of three weekly events; there is a Thursday night Italian Supper and of course, the fabled Saturday pig roast.  Running this place is real work.

We stay a couple of days and meet a fellow boater with one of those 110 ft. plus boats who really wants to tour our boat – now there’s a twist.  This guy has been serenading our dock in the evenings with his concert quality piano playing that drifts out of his yacht.  He looks just like Alec Baldwin and when I mention this he admits to having worked in Hollywood for 10 years doing, among other things, doubles for Baldwin and stunts for Schwarzenegger.  And looking at this guy, I get that.

View from Echo Cove

As wonderful as it is here, we must push on – we are running out of supplies, and by this I mean wine. I last provisioned in Ketchikan and  I can’t believe we made it all the way through Alaska without being short of anything and now, when we are in civilization, (although Jim claims this is an intermediary step to civilization) ,  our supplies are dwindling.   But I grab a cinnamon roll before I leave – it has the consistency of a Danish and despite seeing tons of cinnamon, it lacks any real flavor.  Definitely time to push on.



Fog Rolling In

Shawl Bay, August 14-15, 2012: Another Dock, Another Cocktail

Approaching Shawl Bay

Shawl Bay Marina

Our next stop, a short 1 ½ hour ride south, is Shawl Bay, the funky one.  There is no grocery store but there are daily fresh baked pies and cinnamon rolls (raisins, too, too sweet).  The Bead Lady sells jewelry in a tiny shack on the dock and there are a few one room rental cabins plus a Doggy Yacht Club, the now standard 6’ x 2’ patch of grass at the end of a float.

Cabins on the Dock

Leads to Doggy Yacht Club

I decide to make sourdough bread for dinner with some starter I snagged from a fellow boater in Ketchikan in May.  But the starter has now separated, is a funny gray color and my recipe calls for two cups of this goop – the whole thing doesn’t seem right to me.  So I stroll over to the pie lady but she doesn’t know sourdough, only pie crusts.  She directs me to The Bead Lady – her qualifications are unclear and when I meet up with her on the docks, she confirms her lack of knowledge.  But Utsi, a woman on one of the nearby boats, just made some sourdough herself – really, only 15 boats in the harbor, what are the chances of this – and shows me her own starter, similarly unappetizing.  Jill, on the boat next door,  overhears our conversation and chimes in with her take: yes, 2 cups seems too much, no the color is fine.  A group has now gathered, each woman offering her own ideas on the state of the sourdough.  This is my own version of googling since there is no Internet here.

My baking takes me right up to happy hour under the big blue tent decorated with flags.  Everyone participates and the appetizers are amazing and plentiful, there is no need for dinner – you can just segue right into the morning pancake breakfast served daily, in said tent.  But of course, we have dinner with some very tasty hot sourdough bread.  I made an extra loaf which I shared with Jill and Ray who gave me such good baking input.

Happy Hour Here

It’s dark now and even though we have taken Zippy to the Doggy Yacht Club several times, he has turned up his nose at this pathetic strip of dried, overgrown and under cared for grass.  Jill, who used to show dogs, is sympathetic and lets me in on The Official Dog Show Secret:  before dogs go into the ring, they must go potty so as not to drop a pile on the white carpeted stage.  In order to facilitate this  ah, elimination - and here I caution small children to leave the room -   the handler  takes an unlit match - yes, that's right, a match -  douses the tip with saliva (this  step cannot be skipped for reasons I'm not clear on)  and, well, unceremoniously sticks it up the dogs, um, rectum.  This will immediately produce the much hoped for release.

  Jill helpfully brings over several matches.  I demure, as does Zippy.  After several more glasses of wine and a couple more trips to the Yacht Club, Jill offers to accompany us to assist with The Official Dog Show Secret, the match insertion.  I’ll spare all the gory details, but let me say this procedure is best done by a professional – which Jim and I are not, but luckily Jill is.   Zippy now has said unlit match firmly inserted but being stubborn, he merely clenches the match and refuses to go with the flow for quite some time, astounding Jill. Finally, after scurrying here and there, and never on the actual grass patch, he finally gives  in to nature.  The small audience that has gathered applauds and all is well.  Do not try this at home.

Resting Comfortably After the Ordeal

Partying Through the Broughtons; Sullivan Bay Aug 10- 13, 2012

Sullivan Bay

Here’s what the guidebooks don’t tell you about  “The Broughtons”   - a group of islands in northern BC - this area is one big, roving, floating happy hour.  The marinas are, for the most part, not on land but on floats tied together and topped with shacks, cabins and in some cases homes.  Usually, there is no way to reach land as there is no actual shore or flat soil, just tree covered mountains shooting straight up from the water.   Each of these islands has its own personality and a following; but what they do have in common is cocktail parties at 5- 6 PM – daily.  And as you island hop, you will be meeting up with many of the same boaters heading either south or north. Hopefully, you like your flotilla.

Our first stop in the northern Broughtons’ is Sullivan Island.  This  “village”  is a set of U-shaped floating  docks with a liquor store, of sorts, a grocery store – with BC cherries at $15 a bag  (fruit starved, I plunked down my money like a drug addict  snapping up his next hit ) and a fuel dock.  This cute little town named the “streets” (docks)  which includes about 10 private homes, consisting of several cabins and some upscale houses , one with a helicopter and landing  pad on his roof and another with a float plane in the backyard ( the water). 

 Happy hour is 5 – 6 PM daily on the dock under a tent - bring an appetizer.  Dinner is next door at the Town Hall Restaurant with one offering each night.  We happen to be there for Friday night’s Prime Rib.  In the morning there are fresh baked cinnamon rolls – dough is too light and fluffy, like a crispy crème donut – but great cinnamon flavor.

Golf!

 We want to take a walk but there is no land to hike, still, exercise is an option: if you walk all the docks you will have covered a mile.  We saw some people, with more imagination than I have – running  the docks – back and forth, back and forth….  And there is golf!  A tee at the end of the dock, next to the fuel station, where several guys gather after dinner hit balls to the  “green” out in the bay on a floating dock.  Dogs have a pee pad, a strip of grass 6’ x 2’ and you best get in line early as it gets mighty crowded at bed time.   

Moonrise in Sullivan Bay

Heading South, Chasing Summer: Aug 2 – Aug 10, 2012



Verney Falls, Lowe Inlet

A 6 AM Ketchikan departure - in the rain, 54 degrees, our standard operating  weather  (SOW) while we have been in Alaska – and ten hours later we cross the border, face down customs and arrive  back in Prince Rupert, BC.  Rainy and 58 degrees – oh, it is getting warmer.  But I am undeterred – this is August after all, so out come the summer clothes which were stored under the carpet, beneath the floorboards deep in the bilge.  Now, however, they are ready to deploy at a moment’s notice – like our fire extinguishers or flares, ready, but never really necessary.

We are eager to explore some anchorages we missed on the way up the coast and our first stop is Lowe Inlet, reputed to have a beautiful waterfall.  As we head south traveling through Grenville Channel, the rain gives way, the clouds part and we have sun.  Our spirits are buoyed as we turn off into the inlet and drop anchor right in front of Verney Falls.  There is no time to ooh and aah over the waterfall yet as we have been invaded by flesh eating flies that look like bees and are as large birds.  They are swarming the boat but we have screens to install and our handy electronic zapper which keeps us busy for some time.

When the threat is  finally reduced, we hop into the dinghy to get a look at the waterfall up close but we can hardly get close as the salmon for clogging the way.  Hundreds of them are encircling us -   launching themselves out of the water, splashing and creating great havoc.  As a Native American told us in Alaska, they are jumping because they are happy.  We’d we pretty happy too if one jumped right into the boat – instant sushi – and me without my wasabi paste.

We finally look up at the falls, and there, sitting on a rock overlooking the cascading water with fish trying to jump the rapids, is a black bear.  He is dining on said sushi. We spend a long time peering as he lumbers  to the waterfall edge, grabs a jumping salmon, carries it to his rock and starts munching – without even any soy sauce or ginger.  He repeats this exercise over and over – a fellow sushi lover – and a greedy one.

The next day, with sun blazing, we head to Khutze Inlet, a five hour ride through winding channels lined with evergreens. Just off Princess Royal Channel, we turn into Khutze and meander another five miles to the head of the inlet where we anchor in front of an 85 foot cascading waterfall.  Perfection – except we can’t sit in the sun to enjoy the spray misting our faces because the flesh eating flies have followed us.  But by dusk they disappear  and we watch about  20 eagles perched on the drying mud flats.

Khutze Inlet

Our next stop is Shearwater, a First Nations settlement.  We stopped there on our way north, it is a perfect place to provision– and I use that word loosely here as the freight boat comes only on Mondays and then it doesn’t bring a lot.  But, it is Monday  so we are in luck and get ready for our next big crossing of Queen Charlotte Sound.  This is also where we celebrate my 60^th birthday – the bar in Shearwater where I treat myself to a Greek salad and poutine - a perfect low key way to commemorate the day.

A Farewell to Alaska July 28 – Aug 1, 2012

Who Said Gray is Not a Color?

It’s time to move on and out - the kids are gone, rain has rushed in with a fury and our 20 hours of daylight is over.  We were told that come October, sunrise is 10 AM and sunset at 2 PM – and judging by how fast it gets dark now, I believe it. 

Those Darn Amazing Whales

We spend our last few days in Ketchikan getting ready for the ocean crossing – cleaning, fixing and provisioning.  Provisioning consists of tossing out moldy cheese, shriveled veggies and unidentifiable fruits and replacing them with new stuff to be ditched at the next stop.   This is all accomplished in the worst punishing  rain we have seen since we’ve been here- even the locals are complaining.  I was feeling melancholy about leaving just a few days ago but now that I have water dripping off my nose - even while I am inside - this is just the push we need to flush us out of here.

And the Glaciers!

Alaska has been an amazing adventure in some of the most remote parts this country has to offer.  There is a daily wildlife show and nature extravaganza that will blow you away.  It’s hard to sum up the majesty and enormity of the beauty.  Every way you whip your head is another eyeful of gorgeous landscapes that are indescribable and never ending.  You simply have to see it to believe it.

And More Whales

The people have been reliably quirky and lived up to every notion of Alaskans you might have – they are unique, they know it and embrace it - also part of the charm.  They lead a different life than those of us in the “lower 48,” it is one without many of the amenities we take for granted – and I think they like it that way.  As one native islander summed up – “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it!”  I actually saw the explanation mark as he said it.  It’s a simpler way of thinking about life and one this gal doesn’t want to think about.  I am happy to get back on the grid.

Add Grizzlies!

Sunset

We spend our last night almost the same way we began our first night here,  having dinner with Gay and Wyman,  who have contributed mightily to our enjoyment of SE Alaska.  Even though we have not been with them throughout our journey, it’s hard to imagine our trip without their helpful tips and grand enthusiasm. 

Moon Rise

But this is not good-bye to Alaska it’s -  see you again in a couple of years.