Category: Excursions

Decided to move the short 24 nm from Port McNeil to shorten our passage around Cape Caution to Fury Cove anchorage. Cape Caution has a nasty reputation so we are making sure we respect it.

Saturday AM: woke up and looked at weather. I had called Port Hardy moorage options the night before with a maybe answer. So called again and harbor authority said should be plenty of room just find a spot and quarterdeck inn and marina said they had room. So we left Port McNeill around 11am. Had a nice sunny and only mildly choppy cruise to Port Hardy, got there around 2 or so. Fisherman’s wharf had no room so we went into spot at Quarterdeck Marina.

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Walked into town to see the sights (not many) and then had dinner on the boat and to bed. Weather looks good for crossing open water in Queen Charlotte strait tomorrow.
At the main town area there was a wood sculpture of a carrot and the story is the BC government promised potential settlers /people a good highway if they moved to this most northern town on Vancouver Island…the highway being the carrot. The town is pretty small though…in summer population probably increases as big hunting and fishing area. Also of course logging is important.

The Port Hardy public dock outside the inner harbor looks like a good spot in settled weather but did not get any details on staying there. The inside side might not be bad.

Ran into an older couple walking their dog: they lived here in summer and in AZ USA in winter.

May 6th To May 24th

Port Macniel is our planned jumping off point for the possibly tough passage around Cape Caution that you want to do carefull planning for with wind and currents. Currents coming out on ebb from the sounds on the east side hit the NW prevailing winds coming in from the Pacific causing very confused steep seas when conditions are not good. We will use Predictwind for good wind window, the Canadian marine forecast and the data from the bouy out in Queen Charlotte sound which reports wind and wave:

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46204

May 6th-7th Drive Up to La-Conner From San Jose

Packed the truck up and got out of house by 0730 in the morning for the drive to La-Conner WA. Stopped in Williams for fuel and stopped at the infamous “Granzella’s” Vince had raved about as good food stop. Continued north and ended up stopping in Wilsonville, OR in between Portland and Seattle. Stayed at La Quinta (no pet fee). Last couple hours of drive truck was giving us a warning about cleaning exhaust DPF error code. It cleaned with high speed driving in 10 minutes but then came back. Driving at lower gear cleared it and error code did not come back

The next day we checked in to the Heron Inn and Day Spa in La-Conner for two days while we worked on the boat before the splash on Thursday May 9th.

May 8th-9th La-Conner Maritime Boat Yard

Usually do this work myself but this year since we where not located near the boat I had La-Conner Marine replace seals on the TRAC stabilizers and thruster, replace raw water pumps on 20KW and 8 KW genny’s as well as clean raw water systems on both engines and genny’s. Ended up also replacing the (12)6V house battery’s since they old ones did not load test well. Water Dog splashed on Thursday the 9th so Patty and I painted parts of the hull with Micron-66 and got the boat ready to go. I also replaced the sight tubes on the main diesel tanks and replaced balls the flush and duck bill valves on both heads.

May 10th-13 th La Conner Marina Guest Dock

Did sea trial to check out work done by yard and had some oil on stabilizer fins so had Justin the mechanic come check them out and oil was just residual so all OK. Woke up and had left over scones for breakfast from the famous Scone Lady in La-Conner, great scones dont miss them.

May 14^th, Cap Sante Marina Anacortes, WA

when we arrived we loaded on 1300Plus gallons of diesel at $2.64/gallon and then we secured a slip at Cap Sante Martina. Found a great source for John Deere parts and a valuable resource in Wayne Gregg at Gregg’s diessel. Family run business and will be ordering parts etc from them for now on.

Decided to hike up Cap Sante, which is right next to marina, with dogs while warm and sunny! Staying tonight at marina. Had a nice dinner at Anthony’s and left the next morning to go Poets Cove for customs to enter Canada.

May 16^th,  Cap Sante to Poet’s cove to Ganges Marina (Patty Reporting)

Left Cap Sante fairly early around 9am. Fought tide a bit with Alex complaining. Over cast but not too bad. Forecast says big winds and rain in evening. Easy uneventful cruise to Poet’s cove customs’ dock: EMPTY! Alex called with all our info ready and they had it saved and just gave him a number…easy peasy. Dogs had an out on dock and then since only 12 or so we decided to go on to Ganges.

Got to Ganges around 2:30pm. Tried to get municipal wharf but occupied so went to Ganges Marina.  Big wide dock (splinter prone) and we backed down inside the dock/breakwater. Walked to Leaf Compassion, Mout’s park and then took dogs back to boat. Went and did vege shopping at Thrifty foods but of course Alex got cookies and ice cream. Had Fish tacos for dinner on boat and to bed by 9am for 6am wake up. Need to shove off by 6:30 or so to make slack at Dodd narrows.

May 17^th  Ganges Marina to Comox harbor. (Patty Reporting)

Left 7:09 am. Alex worried as at first against current and we might miss narrows passing.  After an hour or so we picked up speed to 9 knots (at 1900 RPM) and caught up a bid. Got to Dodd Narrows perfectly timed for slack and got through no problem. Still only 11 am at Nanaimo so decided to move on to Comox ..another 4 hours or so. After Nanaimo more open water in Strait of Georgia and with down sound wind bumpy ride, not too bad but Holly dog worried with bouncing. Stabilizers do not help with going into waves.  ETA Comox harbor 3:30pm, dockmaster said plenty of room to slide in there guest dock.

May 18-20^th Comox to Campbell River (Patty Reporting)

We had a walk in the morning. Went to park and green belt along creek and then circled through neighborhoods.

Found park with tennis courts and bummed some tennis balls from two nice guys to use with chuck it. They informed us Vancouver island total population is 850K…fun fact. Stopped at food truck at the nice waterfront park by marina and had some lunch: me halibut and chips and alex pan fried oyster po boy: GOOD.

May 18-20th Comox To Campbell River

Shoved off around 2pm. Currents in discovery passage (by Campbell river) are strong and pointless for an 8knot boat to fight 6 knot current. So we cruised extra slow and arrived near opening of south end of discovery passage just before slack. Fought some current but not bad. Pulled in to slip at Coast Marina at 6:30pm or so. Dinner was tortilla soup and then to bed.  Next day stopped at hardware stores to get needed stuff for sat phone install.  We did a quick tour of the farmer’s market and had a snack (Schwarma) and then went for the hike.

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Sunday was Victoria day. I rinsed boat, alex worked on Sat phone install. Some parts needed so plan was to get Derrick (super nice marina owner) to give us a ride to Elk Falls park and we would walk back with a Nice hike along Campbell river: dogs swam. Long walk though…per my phone 9.6miles! Picked up stuff at Canadian tire (hardware store) and Walmart, got a Starbucks cold coffee and back to boat. Had left over soup for dinner and chilled.

Decided to stay one more night to get last bit of Sat phone install.  That took much of the day. We did get to walk out to the spit where Campbell River spills into discovery passage, had an early dinner and early to bed. We need to catch slack tide at Seymour narrows (a must to avoid rapids/currents) so we will have to leave dock at 6am tomorrow to get there at 7am. After Campbell river stop new territory…so far stops have been revisits. Up the discovery passage to Port Hardy and onward.

Comments for us to remember. This place is nice but can be very wavy and its pricey compared to fisherman ‘s wharf (by a lot) or discovery harbor(about 30% less I’d guess)

May 21st and 22nd Campbell River to Blind Channel Resort

Left dock around 6am. Got to Seymour narrows with good timing ie at 7ish at slack and cruised through narrows no problem.

Now in Johnstone strait. Smooth sailing but wind was 10-20 knots. Despite wind not bad ride at all but we could see smaller boats bouncing about in wind waves (which were steeper due to wind against tide). Once turned into Mayne passage to get to blind channel calms sees. Arrived at Blind Channel resort around 10am.

Chilled, worked on misc boat things, took a walk to 900 year old cedar and had dinner at the Cedar post Inn (Good!).

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A couple on a 42 foot Krogen Mana Kai was berthed nearby. They too are going to Alaska. Had a boat built 6 years ago and brought/sent it up here. Planned to take back to Long Beach but love it so much they been keeping boat at Van Isle Marina in Sydney. They are more experienced so had some tips on good places to visit. We may run into them again…we shall see!

May 23^rd Blind Channel to Port McNeill (Patty Reporting)

we where told that Port McNeill Harbour was a much better place to provision and hang out at verses Port Hardy and this turned out to e true. Very nice grocery store and shops only a few hundred yards form marina verses long hike at Port Hardy. Left dock around 6am to get tide and reach Wellborne channel narrows.  Forecast for Johnstone strait said ok til 12pm then 25-30 knot winds. On ebb tide (against NW wind) could be bumpy. So we tentatively planned to go to Port Harvey Marina Resort (closed but allowed to tie up to docks) or if really bad Port Neville public dock. Green rapids was near slack so no problem, cruised up chancellor (need to confirm name) channel to turn up Wellborne passage. Got to Whirlpool rapids near slack and only a few large but mellow whirlpools. On to Sunderland channel and out to Johnstone strait. The strait was mildly bumpy at first and got better and better. By passed Port Neville public dock, by passed Port Harvey inlet and northward up the strait. Got calmer and calmer with less wind and sun came out for last part of cruise. NICE! Got to Port McNeill around 2pm, secured dockage. They wanted to put us on a west side of a side tie and Alex had me ask for slip which they did give us. Alex knew smart move as the wind kicked up to 20-40 knotts in evening and it would have slammed us up against docks! 

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We had a short walk about town and then hung out in the boat. Lost local channels. Paid for two nights as not a good weather window until Sunday. also went over to see the worlds largest burl, indeed was big!

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