Thursday 31 May  2018  Bedwell Harbour  48º45’N 123º14’W

S/V Aurora casts off lines at 4:40am.  No sooner do we exit Boat Haven than we feel the swells and get the main up right in Port Townsend Bay.  There on the historic waterfront we pass Dogbark! the sixty foot refitted racing boat that is taking friends through the Northwest Passage this summer.  We rock and roll around Point Wilson and then sail across Juan to Fuca to Haro Strait on a single tack.

To clear Canadian customs in Bedwell Harbour in mid afternoon, it’s the usual drill, with Jack clambering up the ramp to the kiosk on the wharf, where the federal official on duty simply puts him on the phone with someone in Ottawa. Since S/V Aurora is known quantity, long in the data base for this coast, we pass without question and snag a provincial park buoy nearby. Still no park host so it’s free. Only five boats there, all sail.

Friday 1 June  2018 Nanaimo 49º10’N 123º56’W 

We take Swanson Channel from South Pender to avoid Active Pass traffic in Trincomail Channel.  After a view up Ganges Harbour, we sail northwest along Salt Spring Island, round the north tip via Houston Passage, head south toward Chemanius and north again into Stuart Channel.  We Ladysmith and Thetis Island for future excursions once we find that with sails plus power we can make slack at Dodd Narrows. Pushed to Nanaimo on a flood, we tie up among fishing boats and early cruisers on G float right behind the fish and chips place.  

Saturday 2 June 2018   Boho Bay, Lesqueti Island 49º29’N 124º13.7’W

With no Whiskey Golf naval exercises on weekend, we head across Georgia Strait, where four hours of lumpy following seas bring us to Lesqueti. Drop anchor only to see the shoal rise, ringed with the bring green algae that spells a low low tide. We expect to re-anchor, but discover the shoal drops off steeply a full half boat length from our stern leaving us just enough room to swing. I take a bunch of photos of the shoreline to facilitate future anchoring and nuture my love of being close up to the shore.

Sunday 3 June  2018  Campbell River 50º02’N 125º14.6’W

Long day starts with anchor up at 5:30 and ends 11 hours later when we tie up in Campbell River.  Goodbye Georgia Strait.  Lumpy yes, but all that horizontality, those vast expanses embrace so many beloved spots:  Powell River, Comox with its diminishing glacier, Courteney whose rich paleontology yields the bones of footed fish, little Lund at the end of the road that starts in Patagonia, the high peaks of Desolation Sound, and the Discovery Islands with so many more nooks and crannies to explore (God willing) when we’re really old. This is the end of our home waters – the Salish Sea – fed on the east by the gray green waters of of Toba Glacier and bounded on the west at Seymour Narrows.  South of the Narrows the Pacific Ocean floods north and ebbs south.  North of this passage or just mile or two, ocean waters flood south and ebb north.

Monday 4 June 2018 Shoal Bay 50º27’N 125º21’W

Seymour Narrows is a riot of marine mammals somehow able to time passage at slack in the the absence of Ports and Passages the copious guide to tides and currents issued each year.  As we enter the narrows, a small group of southbound Orcas – a female with her calf and a male with a gigantic dorsal fin – dive and spout early morning greetings.  Then a couple of northbound humpbacks swim by, arching into the current to show off their powerful flukes.  Next we see about twenty small dorsal fins splashing south off starboard.  Three of them – undoubtedly distracted by the sound of our engine – race headlong back toward us.  One plays on the bow wave long enough for me to see it’s a Dall’s porpoise who like the other two, races back to join the pod.

Nodales Passage is sun-filled, dreamy and spectacular.  As we turn into the Shoal Bay wharf, a downpour lets loose so as soon as we tie up, we strip off our wet clothes and fall into warm naps.  

Upon waking, we see Ama Natura across the float. I go up to the tiny lodge to pay the seventy-five cents a foot fee and find Portland friends sharing their new project with Mark McDonald.  Ama Natura, designed by Capt Peter Wilcox and built a decade ago by the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building, is a pioneer petrol free boat.  This I learn is thanks to Peter and spouse Bridget Bayer’s intrepid provisioning of biodeisel from a production facility that uses the byproduct of Oregon potato chip manufacture. In other words, they transport the biodeisel by car to Ama Natura at her home port of Olympia.  This is quite a chore and a deterrent to most of the rest of us.  So now Peter and Bridget have launched the Northwest Passage Decarbonization Project and dedicating the next twenty years to winning over the communities and tribes already fighting petroleum tanker traffic and the pipeline from the Alberta oil sands.  A promising initiative. Hats off to them.

Tuesday 5 June 2018  Port Harvey 50º34’N 126º16’W 

We time our departure from Shoal Bay so we reach Greene Point rapids at slack and can transit Whirlpool Rapids with the northbound ebb or enjoy the option of anchoring in Forward Harbour if conditions in Johnstone Strait are stinky, as they often are. As it happens, following seas rush us up the strait. I awaken from a brief daydreamy nap on deck to find we’ve passed Port Neville and are bound for Port Harvey.

Over the years we’ve watched the old guard along these passages pass on.  On our very first voyage we met Lorna Hansen, last of a line of Norwegian homesteaders at Port Neville. She soon retired to Campbell River leaving the old place and former government wharf unattended, as it remains today.  (Mark McDonald, however, was able to purchase and maintain the government wharf at Shoal Bay.)  Farther up the coast and inland we spent many summers visiting Lagoon Cove and listening to the tales spun by master storyteller Bill Barber.  After Bill passed several years ago, his widow put the modest marina with its old fashioned marine ways and strategically-located fuel dock on the market.  It’s now been sold and continues to serve fishing boats and cruisers.

At the end of Port Harvey, a 3-mile long channel off Havannah Passage, lies the grandly named Port Harvey Marina and Resort. It was founded by plucky Albertan retirees, Gail and George Cambrdge, as a much needed place where mariners can shelter after (or before if southbound) transiting Johnstone.  Former hardware store owners, they moved their inventory into a new floating store and bakery, atop which they built a restaurant. In the winter of 2015, the bladder on which the building stood, sprung a leak and sank. Only the long mooring float was spared. Undeterred, Gail and George, built a float big enough for a tent and opened the next summer serving pizza every night and cinnamon buns every morning.  

When we hail Port Harvey on the radio, Gail answers. George is off on an errand so today she’s working the place single handedly – no summer help – and still managing to proffer the best customer service on the this part of the coast.  She puts on her bright orange safety vest and runs down from the house on shore to take our lines on the dock.  She’s preceded by their dog, who we disappoint for not having a dog on board.  A new restaurant sits on a proper barge and a new store on the tent float.  Yes, we’ll order a pizza. And what? You have wifi out here at the end of this float?  We can just sit here now that it’s starting to rain?  Super. Just before putting our meal in the oven,  Gail knocks on the boat. “The restaurant is a still bit cold. Is it okay if I just bring your pizza to the boat?”   

Wednesday 6 June  Waddington Bay  50º43’N 126º37’W

Another short day ends with the plonk of the anchor into the waters of a favorite anchorage in the Broughtons. Past seasons left us enthralled by the fjords of  Tribune Channel with towering flanks punctuated by waterfalls and challenging anchorages. Now we go for the rocky islands with their historic and contemporary Native settlements.  As we pass the one in Gifford Passage and admire the traditional art work of its long house, I realize that the main entrance bears the shape of “a copper.”  Coppers are distinctly shaped metal plaques of various sizes which were and probably still are ceremoniously gifted at potlatches.    

Thursday 7 June 2018  Allison Harbour  51º02.6’N 12737’W

From the Broughtons we wend out way out into Queen Charlotte Sound and on to Queen Charlotte Strait. Remembering our encounter in the fog with a huge tug and tow, we’re thankful we can see every rock in Richards Channel. Then w turn toward land, taking the round-the-rocks route necessary to enter Allison Harbour, the best possible jumping off point for a rounding of Cape Caution. This year we’re able to get the weather on the radio. Finding that it’s likely to rain on Saturday – which it does solidly – we hole up with our books.  I finish the History of Denali Park and Preserve by Tracy Salcedo, mother of Jack’s cousin Cruz Chouré, who crewed with us in 2012 and 2014. I continue have my thought provided by Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling, which was gifted by Jo’s friends Kate and Eric, who came to say goodby to her at our celebration last month.

Saturday 9 June 2018  Green Islet Anchorage  51º38.4’N 127º50’W

This was the most relaxing rounding yet of Cape Caution, there in the background of a  photo that says it all.

What a beautiful day!  Cape Scott off the end of Vancouver Island was in full sun, with a rainbow dividing it from the more stormy areas to the south.

We just kept going. Past Egg Island Light, up broad Fitzhugh Sound, leaving Calvert on port, the lovely Fury Cove and Addenbrook Island Light on starboard, to snuggle into a favorite anchorage for a night of deep grateful slumber.

Sunday 10 June 2018 Shearwater  52º08’N 128º05’W

For a couple of days now Jack has wanted some cell phone service to reserve a place at this outpost on Heilsuk tribal lands; we often find it booked solid. But when we show up, there is Harbour Master Christophe to greet us.  Opposite us on the float is a 46 foot Nordhaven that’s come crossed the Pacific with its Australian owners.  Down the dock, a Swede from a village at a higher latitude than the Bering Sea. While doing the laundry, two crews of Quebeckkers exchange info on their separate circumnavigations. It’s always nice to know who our fellow travelers are on these lonely passages where we seldom see another cruising boat.  This also supports the notion that the Inside Passage has the best cruising grounds in the world, a wilderness wonderland no global circumnavigator can miss.