Porcher Island Trip - Part 1

Nick, Alan and I decided to circumnavigate Porcher Island as our second excursion out of Prince Rupert.  As the first trip went so successfully, we decided on a slightly longer jaunt this time, 6 days.  Porcher isn’t that far from Rupert, so the travel times between anchorages would be nice and short, giving us lots of time to choose our anchor spots carefully and explore the surrounding areas. 

Day 1

Before leaving port, we had some last minute jobs to finish on the boat, including replacing a burned out light bulb at the top of the mast.  Nick is our resident mast-climbing expert, so up he went.  Last time he went up the mast, he took my camera with and took a bunch of awesome pictures.  Well, at least I’m told they were awesome as I never actually saw them, due to memory card failure (see earlier post for details).  Anyways, he took my camera along (with a good safety lanyard) and got some more shots from up top.

Photo by Alan

 PRRYC in Prince Rupert.  Photos by Nick
(remember to click panos for the full-sized image)

After finishing that up and refueling at the fuel dock, we headed out of Prince Rupert Harbor.  The weather was pretty awesome, especially considering the amount of rain we’d had the previous week.

Once we were out of the harbor, the NW winds worked nicely with a bit of genoa out.  The swell was pretty mild so we were making good time.

Four hours later, we arrived in Edye Passage, near the entrance to Welcome Harbor.  This passage is somewhat narrow and feeds out into the Hecate Strait to the west.  As it’s kind of shaped like a funnel, the winds/swell in there can get pretty chopped up.  We later heard this area referred to us as the “Hell Hole,” though it wasn’t nearly that bad when we went through it. 

After some careful navigation through the harbor entrance which is somewhat shallow/narrow, we were securely anchored in Welcome Harbor.  Very pretty place.

As we were eating dinner, we noticed a small sport boat come into the harbor and tie up on the shoreline.  Four guys piled out and headed up into the woods, where apparently they had a campsite all set up.  We’d waved at them as they headed past, but didn’t really think much of their anchoring strategy.

Day 2

Next day when I made my way onto deck for a morning stretch, I saw this.

Well actually, when I first came up, the boat was capsized and almost completely underwater.  However, there was a guy on shore calling for our assistance so I didn’t have a chance to snap a candid picture.  We motored over in the dinghy and gave them a hand flipping the boat back over and hauling it up onto shore.  The plan was to let the tide run out to drain the boat and get it floating again.  We figured what happened was they anchored right up on shore with a short anchor line during high tide.  When the tide ran out, the boat beached itself, lying on its side.  Then the tide came back in and flooded it, leaving it in the sorry state we saw in the morning. 

We discussed with the owners the possibility of towing them back to Rupert in the chance that their engine didn’t start.  However, later in the day, the Coast Guard showed up and relieved us of this task, which we were all quite grateful for having no experience towing. 

See how the sport boat is tipped forward?  That thing was absolutely PACKED to the gills with stuff.  I couldn't believe how much they fit in there.

After the swamped boat excitement, we decided to take a short hike over to Secret Cove, just west of Welcome Harbor.  Neat little forested hike to the other side.

When we reached the beach, we were greeted by a precipitous drop down the bank.  Purely death defying (not really...)

The beach below was so nice that Alan just had to stop and ponder over it all for awhile.

Another short hike and we were on the outside facing out into the Hecate Strait.  We spent a few hours toodling along the beach, beach combing and generally enjoying the fact that it wasn’t rainy and cold (note the shorts and sandals...first time this summer we got to bust those out). 

Crab vs. Sea Urchin.  FIGHT!

We found an awesome bit of driftwood that was sticking precariously out over some rocks. 

None of us wanted to go all the way to the end as it was just too sketchy.  Long way down if you fell.

Then we made moose calls from sea kelp.  Ha.

Later that night we decided to take an evening dinghy ride to explore the rest of the bay.  Gorgeous weather out. 

Around 11pm, we decided to finally eat dinner.  So I BBQ’d some burgers...
in shorts and wool socks, much to the amusement of Alan and Nick.