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| RESEARCH CRUISE 2008, WEEK FOUR
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July 15, 2008.
North of Cape Caution. We have left behind the security of calmer seas and friendlier locales. Once again we have gone north, around Cape Caution, to the central and northern B.C. coasts. Saying good-bye to kinder channels to the south is an important moment. The feeling is of casting off, of setting out, of facing the unknown armed only with a sturdy boat, a capable crew, and hopes that all will work out. Marilynn and I have done this 22 times in the past, 11 times north and 11 times south. This year’s northbound crossing wasn’t as anxious as our first crossing, but I’d be lying if I said we didn’t consider it carefully.
I’ll get to the mechanics of our Go, No-Go decision in a separate item. First, some thoughts about cruising destinations from south to north.
Unless the weather is perfectly awful, Puget Sound cruising is fairly straightforward. But the San Juan Islands, guarded by the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Rosario Strait, are very different from Puget Sound. The Canadian Gulf Islands, while different from the San Juans, are essentially the same, at least as far as challenges go.
Then comes Desolation Sound. The formidable Strait of Georgia must be crossed, and sometimes it can’t be crossed – at least in comfort. Once in Desolation Sound, though, you know you’re no longer south. It’s another world.
After Desolation Sound come the challenges of the rapids and the pleasures of the facilities along Cordero Channel. Cordero Channel is the introduction to life in the Broughtons farther north. After the rapids and a 12-mile run in Johnstone Strait (listen to the weather!), the Broughtons, with their remoteness, beautiful anchorages and friendly marinas, beckon.
At last we get to the big decision: Do we venture north of Vancouver Island or content ourselves with near-perfection in the Broughtons?
We go north. Beyond the north tip of Vancouver Island and around aptly-named Cape Caution, life changes as dramatically as it changed from Puget Sound to the San Juan Islands/Gulf Islands, again to Desolation Sound, again once more to Cordero Channel/the Broughtons. North of Cape Caution the living changes. Pete and Rene Darwin, at Namu, are genuine north coast people. They told us they don’t intend ever to live south of Cape Caution. Cape Caution is a defining place. Welcome to the next level of Northwest cruising.
Last night, after three straight weeks of tying to docks, we anchored. Not to disparage docks, but we’re not on vacation per se, we’re working. Facilities need to be toured and updated, photos taken, advertising commitments collected for the next year’s Waggoner. Where there are marinas there are people, and we do enjoy meeting with them. But three unrelieved weeks of people is enough.
After an eight-hour run (easy run this time) from Port McNeill, around Cape Caution, and ending at Rivers Inlet, we had the choice of putting into the high-quality Duncanby Lodge and Marina with its excellent docks and facilities, or anchoring down in Goose Bay, across from the old Goose Bay Cannery. We were tired. We decided to stop working and anchor out. All alone, swinging with the breeze, wavelets talking to the hull. Marilynn made a simple supper. I helped with dishes. We sat quietly and read. It was wonderful.
I’m writing this tonight from Frypan Bay, not far from the mouth of Fitz Hugh Sound, where we plan to be tomorrow. Today we visited and toured Duncanby Lodge and Marina and Dawsons Landing. We had an ample and tasty lunch at Duncanby, where passing boaters are definitely welcomed. You don’t have to stay the night. Although moorage, power and internet are upper-end and priced accordingly, prices at the excellent restaurant (breakfast, lunch, supper – they have to feed their fly-in fishing charter guests) are certainly in the ball park.
At Dawsons Landing, Rob Bachen is finishing a new, 132-foot-long float, which will stretch to the end of their water lease. The Dawsons general store has just about everything you might ever need. Young people from inlet lodges came in while we were there. Our beautiful blond waitress from Duncanby was one of them, and bought a couple Rivers Inlet shirts for herself. An attractive woman from one of the fishing lodges had a big plastic freezer bag filled with little baggies of booze orders, cash, and credit cards. Each baggie in turn, the order was placed, filled, and paid for. Rob Bachen loaded the orders on a hand truck and took them out to the waiting boat. When was the last time we have seen transactions like this?
Now it’s evening, and we’re down at Frypan Bay, a favorite spot where we’ve anchored in the past. We’re in about 60 feet of water, excellent bottom. No other boats. A bank of gray marine cloud has rolled across the sky from the west. Fog is predicted for tomorrow morning. Marilynn mentioned that the boat didn’t seem as cold as before, so we put a thermometer in the water. After 15 minutes the thermometer read 65 degrees F. We don’t trust the reading, but there’s no question the water in Frypan Bay is warm. We don’t expect it to last.
Go, no-go. It’s seldom a clearcut decision to set out for Cape Caution. West Sea Otter can be around one meter, and Egg Island and Pine Island seas can be rippled with a low westerly swell. But the tides can be wrong. A big ebb might be coming just when the boat will get to Cape Caution. Or some other disquieting event, such as an approaching low, or hot weather in the B.C. interior creating a brutal afternoon sea breeze.
This year, all the signals were good. A ridge of high pressure was hanging over the area. West Sea Otter was at 1.2 meters. Egg Island and Pine Island weather reports were encouraging. We did have an ebb beginning shortly after Cape Caution, but we were at half moon, and the range from high to low was only five feet. We left Port McNeill early and had a good crossing.
Pruth Bay & West Beach. A trail leads from the deluxe fly-in fishing resort at the head of Pruth Bay to stunning West Beach on the west side of Calvert Island. Tie the dinghy under the ramp that leads down from the wharf and walk north along the front of the lodge to the marked trail. The first short distance of the trail goes over tree roots and such, but the trail soon smoothes out and after a few minutes you’re at West Beach. Plan your excursion to return to the dinghy before 5:30, when the fly-in customers are back from fishing. The resort doesn’t want yachties interfering with their major business.
Namu. Namu’s docks have been moved to the south side of the old cannery. There are more docks now, and a better log breakwater. Pete and Rene (pronounced “Reenie”) told us the new location provides better protection from swells coming off Fitz Hugh Sound and the wakes from the BC ferry and passing cruise ships.
Every visit to Namu is a new and different experience. About the only constant is that Pete and Rene Darwin, the caretakers, are real north coast people, unsuited to living in the city. Think home-brewed beer, homemade wine, hand-rolled cigarettes, a greenhouse with home-grown vegetables, numerous planter boxes with herbs, a pair of ducks, the usual menagerie of cats and dogs, six grizzly bears hanging out in the area, a sawmill, a machine shop, fork lift trucks, a tractor, and heaven knows what else.
Fishing lodges winter store their guide boats in Namu’s abandoned warehouses. Port Boathouse in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island has built quite a business, equipping and servicing guide boat fleets with motors. Mike Hudson, the owner of Port Boathouse, was there. He told me that last year they were Canada’s largest Yamaha outboard dealer.
Dinner at Namu was bring your own to the barbecue shelter barge. Dinner wasn’t the only thing brought. Thirst must be quenched. By 7:00 p.m. things were pretty cheery. Rene provided dinner for a crew of 13 who were working on the guide boats. The rest of us included a couple from Quesnel, in the B.C. interior, who were living at Namu aboard their 24-foot boat for the summer. The husband was a retired carpenter, with multiple sclerosis. He does a little work around the cannery. Another couple, from Williams Lake in the interior, were on a McGregor 26 sailboat they trailered to Bella Coola, and were sailing for the summer. They just bought the boat, and were learning to sail. Seventy-one-year-old Zoe Roberts, the rather astonishing woman who told me about the “Maytag effect” of the waters off Kelsey Bay (“Lots of suds and no rinse cycle”) was there on her round bottom 33-foot converted troller, built in 1938. Between drags on her cigarette she said that the boat doesn’t rock and roll around Cape Caution, it’s more like a jitterbug. Zoe was on her way to the Charlottes – single-handed.
When things began to slow down Pete took me over to their float house, where he produced a beautiful bronze signal cannon. It was about a foot long, mounted on its own wooden carriage. It had been built the previous summer by a visiting boater from Vancouver, who just happened to have a metal lathe on his boat. The cannon was made on that lathe, from a length of bronze propeller shaft found at the cannery. Pete and I took the cannon and a five-foot-long potato gun made from PVC pipe back to the barbecue barge to entertain the assembled guests. Loaded with black powder, the signal cannon went off with a loud bang. We did it twice.
The potato gun took a few tries to work, as the hair spray propellant had to be just right for the spark to ignite. Then, with its own loud bang, it fired potatoes in fine arcs into the sky.
We had arrived at Namu a little before 5:00 p.m., and by 8:00 we were in sensory overload. It’s like that at Namu. Don’t go if you’re looking for five-star services, because there aren’t any. Don’t go if you aren’t ready to see things in a very relaxed way. If you are open minded and ready for the unexpected, Namu will fill the bill.
Ocean Falls. The docks are good, and have 30 amp power. The water is excellent. We fill our tanks at Ocean Falls. The winters are hard, though. They had nine feet of snow in two separate storms this year. The snow collapsed three houses in Martin Valley. We were told that two of the houses weren’t very good anyway. The snow collapsed the roof of the big co-op building in Ocean Falls, and forced Norman Brown (“Nearly Normal Norman Brown, they call me”), to relocate his museum of Ocean Falls artifacts to the second floor of the building that houses the marine ways. The snow also collapsed the bridge that went across the short river that connects the falls to the salt water. I shudder to think that large trucks used cross that bridge without concern. Now the only way to get from the town to the old mill site is by boat.
The wireless internet signal at the docks is weak. The signal is good in The Shack, at the head of the docks, and 120-volt land line power receptacles are available.
We had dinner at the lodge, a hearty meal of pasta slathered with tasty, heart-unhealthy sauce, baked salmon or sole stuffed with crab meat, vegetables, rice, tossed salad, homemade bread, and apple pie for dessert. It was too much for aging, sedentary yachties, but just right for the young helicopter logging crew who were there.
One house in Ocean Falls has been brought back. It has a new roof, new siding, new windows and new paint. The other houses are succumbing to the elements. The apartment complex whose windows once had fluttering curtains now has no curtains and for the most part no roof. It’s a fight. I think Nature is winning.
Shearwater. I know this report is getting long, but there’s a lot to report. Shearwater keeps improving. Except that they had a problem with the dock power, and shore power connections are limited. The electrician is supposed to be at Shearwater next week to replace all the power, with 30 amp installed out to the very ends of the floats.
We had dinner last night in the restaurant. The chef (“cook” would be the wrong term) just got here, but boy can he put out the meals. I had a big slab of prime rib with Yorkshire pudding, veggies and baked potato. Marilynn had salmon on a plank, with an interesting sauce. Because it’s a seasonal business, you don’t know from year to year how the various restaurants will be. This year, Shearwater is good.
Wireless internet is $10.50 for 24 hours. We have decent signal (two bars) half way out the main dock. Up at the restaurant this morning we still had two bars of signal.
The Shearwater shipyard is busy. A Krogen (I think it’s a Krogen) had a little run-in with a rock and lost a big chunk of fiberglass from the bow just below the waterline. A sailboat hit a charted rock at seven knots outside East Inlet, off Grenville Channel. The couple said they had anchored in East Inlet several times before, and simply were complacent when they left the anchorage. Complacency in familiar waters is a hazard all of us face. The impact rocked the keel back into the hull behind. The tiller broke, dislocating the wife’s shoulder and bloodying the husband’s face. The Coast Guard was fantastic, the woman told us.
It wasn’t until the boat was out of the water, however, that it was found that the broken fiberglass behind the keel left only the thinnest film of glass keeping the water out. It’s something like 100 miles from East Inlet to Shearwater, plus the trip up Douglass Channel to Kitimat and back to get medical help for the shoulder. They were unlucky to run smack into a clearly charted rock, but darned lucky to get to Shearwater without sinking.
Klemtu. Based on our visit in 2007, this year’s Waggoner entry about Klemtu is quite positive. I’m sorry to report that our visit this year wasn’t as positive. The dock is in rough shape, and the visitor center building shows the effects of a hard winter with no repairs being made. What welcome we got was not the “Hi, glad you see you” approach. One visit doesn’t make a trend, but each visit is important. Stop with an open mind and be prepared to move along.
Butedale. If you want to see Butedale you’d better get there soon. The famous cannery, now long abandoned, is collapsing. Rain and the winter storms and snows are doing the job. “Butedale Lou” Simoneau is still there as caretaker, and as long as Lou is at Butedale all is forgiven. Lou speaks with a decided French accent. Although 65 now, he’s strong and agile. He’s also able to do just about anything. Lou’s grandson Gordon, age 12, came down from Kitimat to spend the summer at Butedale. Gordon walked on rolly logs at the docks, offered to guide tours up to Butedale Lake, and astonished us with his abilities on a Yamaha keyboard up in the cabin. He’s a good kid.
Don’t expect nice docks at Butedale. They’re low and rough – very, very rough. But as noted above, with Lou Simoneau, all is forgiven. At Shearwater, before we got to Butedale, we chatted with some high quality southbound boats who had visited Butedale a couple days earlier. By high quality boats, think Fleming, think Nordhavn. They arrived at Butedale wondering what they had gotten into, and had such a good time they stayed an extra day.
We saw a Spirit Bear! The white Kermode bear, a black bear with a double recessive gene that turns the coat tawny white, was feeding on the beach at the head of the bay at Butedale. Finally. At last.
Hartley Bay. The fuel dock is busy, with a sign at the top of the wharf telling how to get service. A new aluminum ramp, with cover, connects the wharf with the floats. Up in the village, vegetation was growing high, especially in the childrens’ play areas we enjoyed watching last year. The deck on the front of the school is rotting and closed off with yellow ribbon. Part of the deck was built beyond the drip line from the roof. It rains a lot up here. Water, undirected, takes things back to nature pretty quickly. The little restaurant isn’t there. The operators moved to Prince Rupert.
The good news: Hartley Bay has Verizon/Telus cell phone coverage. It’s a good place to call the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club for moorage reservations.
Kumealon Inlet. Kumealon Inlet is at the north end of Grenville Channel, and if you don’t mind anchoring in 65-90 feet of water, it’s a good place to overnight. We had a good stay there. The big helicopter logging show in the outer harbor doesn’t create any problems. The helicopters are interesting, and are far enough away that they don’t intrude.
Prince Rupert. Rolly and sometimes uncomfortable, the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club at Cow Bay is the place to stay. Call ahead for availability and reservations. We called from Hartley Bay. JoLinda (I hope I spelled her name correctly), the caretaker and dock manager, said she couldn’t promise an inside slip, but when we got to Prince Rupert she had one for us. If you’re northbound and fail to call from Hartley Bay, Verizon/Telus cell phone coverage begins around Baker Inlet in Grenville Channel, and extends to Ogden Channel. I suspect it’s the cell phone coverage from the village of Oona River.
At the moment, Prince Rupert doesn’t have Verizon/Telus coverage, contrary to the report in the 2008 Waggoner. It’s a long story, and Serena, our telephone company contact in Prince Rupert, says the misinformation she gave us last fall was unintentional. She says the problem should be solved in a month or so, although cell phones will have to be updated back in the U.S. in order to work in Prince Rupert. Serena is a delightful lady and she’s so believable. Right now, I feel like Charlie Brown trying the kick Lucy’s football – which, despite promises to the contrary, Lucy snatches away just as Charlie Brown is kicking.
We had a wonderful supper at the Cow Bay Café in Prince Rupert, and an excellent lunch at the Crest Hotel. We were told that Rain, a few blocks farther uptown, is superb. Chances, the new casino located next to the Crest Hotel, is reputed to have excellent dining.
The Prince Rupert Safeway is outstanding.
Cruise ships are making Prince Rupert a regular call, flooding the streets with visitors. One couple stopped me and pointed to a treetop and asked excitedly, “Is that an eagle?” Since Marilynn counted more than 20 eagles in one place during out stay at Prince Rupert, eagles didn’t strike me as all that unusual. For someone from a faraway place, however, an eagle sighting was an important event.
We saw a total of three cruise ships dock, unload, reload and depart in our two days at Prince Rupert.
When we came in, the new container facility was loading a Chinese Cosco Lines ship with containers bound for China. The Prince Rupert facility claims to be two days closer to the American Midwest than any other U.S. port, and is revitalizing the town.
Shopping. From the beginning of our cruise, Marilynn has been looking for a few things left behind: a small salad spinner, a squeegee for the shower stall, “museum putty” to hang pictures without nails, and some other things she didn’t know she needed. She tried all the usual suspect stores along the way with no success. Then she found the Bargain Shop in Port McNeill and the Dollar Store in Prince Rupert. Between them they had what she’d been looking for, and at rock-bottom prices.
Boats are out cruising. The docks at Ocean Falls and Shearwater are busy. Namu had visiting boats. Butedale is up. Prince Rupert has had to turn away boats that didn’t have reservations. The world has not ended, at least not yet.
Weather. Despite the cold beginning, June weather was satisfactory. The low pressure areas that blew through during the past couple days found us at Shearwater, where we were scheduled to shop, do laundry, and change the engine oil. A high pressure ridge was forecast to build along the central and northern coasts, but the trip from Shearwater to Prince Rupert was mostly in fog, with rain. Things are improving now. Maybe summer will get here at last.v
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