“We have interesting days...” - Admiral Gerry
Day 2 started early, leaving the dock in Westview Harbor at around 7:00am. Best part about our stay was that we arrived after the harbor master was gone and left before he arrived, so no moorage for us. Score.
Just north of Westview is Powell River, which houses are rather large pulp mill built back in the 1930s. The mill is pretty much the reason Powell River exists. Anyways, in order to protect the shipping traffic in and out of the mills, a number of old container ships were sunk just out from the mill, forming a breakwater. It was almost creepy to see all of those old ships, left there to die in a line. But at the same time, it’s a pretty clever way to make a breakwater.
The seas were pretty choppy with scattered rain showers. Definitely not the “dream cruise” conditions, but at the same time, very typical for the coast of BC. It is a rainforest after all...
The “raincoast” indeed
The waters just north of Powell River were a scurry with crab and prawn boats, zipping this way and that with no concern for fuel consumption. Must be an interesting career.
A little while past Powell River, we sailed off the end of the world...
...errrrr, I mean map.
At around 11am, we encountered a favorable wind shift that allowed us to throw up the genoa...AND TURN OFF THE ENGINE! Boo-yaaaaa!
Unfortunately, the wind was almost a dead tailwind, which anyone who sails will know, is rather a pain to sail with. For you land lubbers (this is officially a sailing blog now that I’ve used that term by the way...), the reason it’s a pain is that with the wind coming from straight behind you, any minor change in wind direction or course causes the sail to want to switch sides of the boat. If you’re using the main sail, you can prevent this from happening by using a (wait for it...) “preventer” vang which holds it over to one side. However, this isn’t really available when using just the genoa. So it’s a pain.
BUT, regardless of all that, we were finally sailing, spending $0.00/mile on fuel consumption, enjoying the peace and quiet and making almost 5.5 knots to boot (almost as fast as we were motoring previously). The further north we sailed, the more epic the views got. The rainy/foggy conditions almost added to the mysticism of the whole thing. Sure sun and blue sky would have been nice, but in a lot of ways it feels like this is the way you should see Desolation Sound.
While all the sailing wonderfulness was happening, we continued to have troubles with the water system down below. The tubes we “fixed” the day before started leaking once again. More tubing, more clamps, more leaks popped up.
As we approached the Yucalta Rapids, we realized that we did not have an accurate tide book on board. This is a serious problem when trying to sail in this area. There are a number of channels and passes that experience some significant (to say the least) changes in tide level from low to high tides. In areas like the Yucalta Rapids, these tide changes can cause strong currents, whirlpools and rapids making them very hazardous to pass through at the wrong time.
Approaching Yuculta Rapids and Big Bay, BC
Our plan was to make it to Big Bay to tie up and purchase fuel and a tide book, as well as get more freshwater. When we arrived at the Yucultas, we guessed by the shore line and currents that we had just missed slack tides (when it’s neither flooding nor ebbing) and the flood was just starting. For this particular channel, the flood caused southerly currents of up to 10 knots. Now, in a sailboat with a whatever horsepower engine (some small number), this presents a problem as we can only make 6-7 knots in calm water! The result was a hopeless attempt to make headway up the current. Imagine a person on a treadmill or someone trying to run up a down escalator. Now imagine that person is a boat.
Not going to happen...
We decided to tie up to a private resort dock just across from Big Bay in hopes that they would have a tide book for us to purchase. Now usually tying up to private docks is not an option. However, when you have a Captain as charming as Captain Peter, it’s not a problem. He explained our situation and offered to pay for moorage, which turned into the resort organizer offering us to buy dinner at their 4-star restaurant as payment. Peter talked her down from $190/person to $190 for 4 people, they bought the wine.
So in the end, we spent the night at Sonora Resort and got an amazing meal consisting of (from what I remember) quail eggs, asparagus soup and prime rib. There was also rhubarb crisp which I forgot to get a picture of. Amazing meal. The resort is HY Louie Company, which has ownership of KingAir airlines, IGA Supermarkets as well as a number of other companies throughout Vancouver and Canada. The is primarily used for entertaining clients and other such expensive endeavors. Classy place to say the least.
Slacktide was 9am the next morning, so we had some downtime to kill. Downtime = time to play with my camera(s).
Pretty impressed with my new Sony so far...
This shot took waaaaay too long to get (note the jumping fish)...
Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a good shot of the porpoises we saw out in the channel. Here’s an embarrassing blurry image to prove I’m not making it up...
It’s now a goal of mine to get a better picture of a porpoise by the end of this trip...
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