Pages

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Northward Bound: Nanaimo to Fury Cove in a nutshell

We've been making good progress and have mostly good weather:
  • June 17th Nanaimo to Blind Bay (BC Mainland, sort of) We had our 2nd real sail of the trip reaching on a SE breeze.  There were several boats in the anchorage, some of which we were to see again later.
  • June 18th Blind Bay to Gorge Harbor (Desolation Sound) Sunny, We actually got to sail all day downwind and reaching.  We had a nice pre-anniversary dinner at the Gorge Harbor Resort Restaurant.  There were a couple boats we'd seen at the prior stop
  • June 19th, overcast S breeze with 30-40 knots forecast for Johnstone Strait.  So we took the long way, the inside via Yaculta and Dent Rapids all the way to Port Harvey (77mi!)  Some porpoises swam along with us in Johnstone Strait.  The strong winds never materialized.  The last few hours were in the rain and we got cold and wet. There were a few other boats farther in the bay from us.
Looking back at Johnstone Strait from Port Harvey
  •  June 20th, pt sunny.  light N breeze.  We watched some orcas along the way from Port Harvey to Mound Island.  We anchored in a beautiful calm bay behind Mound Island (opposite the renovated longhouse at New Vancouver.   We discovered a leak around the mast-deck "seal", so the forward head needed drying out.  We were alone until one powerboat anchored farther in the bay.
  • June 21st Motoring to Port McNeill partly sunny and calm.  We saw several humpback whales sounding and swimming around.  Also some porpoises.  We got a berth in the marina and had a great dinner out at the Northern Lights restaurant.  There's a great supermarket there, so we did provisioning for the 2 weeks trip to Prince Rupert.  Last year we spent several days in Port McNeill with Lynne Werner, so it brought back memories.
  • June 22nd.  After topping off fuel and water, we left Port McNeill under calm and sunny skies in the afternoon, and motored to a beautiful little cove, in the Walker Island group.  There were several other boats there, which left before us the next day.  It's a popular jumping off point to cross Queen Charlotte Strait and pass Cape Caution for boats traveling north.  There's also a regular cruise ship parade, several big ships all heading north or south, depending on the day of the week.  This day marks the one month mark of cruising.
Cove in the Walker Group
  • June 23rd.  Transiting Queen Charlotte Strait from Walker Island group to Fury Cove 41 mi..  We had light south winds and partly sunny skies and motored all the way.  But the good news is, we passed Cape Caution under benign conditions. Cape Caution is open to the ocean and has a shelf (shallow area), so it can be very rough, but not this time.  Yay!  There were at least 16 other boats anchored. Fury Cove is a delightful protected bay with some white shell beaches.  But we didn't have the dinghy inflated yet and it started raining just as we arrived.  So we didn't bother trying to get ashore.  We even cooked dinner on the stove instead of the bbq. 

    That's 176 nautical miles in a week.  We'll post some pictures in the next post.

No comments:

Post a Comment