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| 2009 CRUISE REPORT, WEEK THREE
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June 24, 2009.
The first two weeks of our yearly research cruise usually are the most stressful. There’s the challenge of getting the boat ready and loaded, and getting away from the dock. As we were rolling yet another cart of food, bedding, charts, clothes and whatever down the dock, I told a neighbor that a moving van wouldn’t be needed at home. Everything in the house was going aboard the boat. It took the better part of the first week to get it all stowed away. I marvel at a boat’s ability to take impossible quantities of supplies and equipment and make them disappear. Erskine Childers’ classic book, Riddle of the Sands, has a description of the lead character seeing the cabin of the small sailboat he would be aboard completely filled one day, and completely empty the next. Where did it all go?
Beyond the stress of getting away, we have many popular facilities to visit and update in the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands. On some days we’ll make as many as four or five stops. We enjoy it, but the need to be “on” day after day wears a person down.
Finally, after a 40-mile crossing of the Strait of Georgia from Silva Bay, we got to Pender Harbour. And we stopped. With no schedule for the next two days, we could shop in Madeira Park, and wash the boat, and sit and stare if we wanted to. Pender Harbour has several facilities, but they were visited by car in April, so our business was done. Our visits by dinghy were along the lines of saying hello to friends, which is easier than filling notebooks, arranging for advertising and the like.
On to Desolation Sound. The entire coast was setting records for rainless days in springtime, and we were in the middle of it. Sun and flat water, day after day. Our first stop was Gorge Harbour Marina Resort, which has been so improved that it warranted a separate update elsewhere on this web site. From Gorge Harbour it was Squirrel Cove, Refuge Cove, and Toba Wildernest. Heriot Bay was seen by car in May, so we didn’t revisit.
If you haven’t cruised Desolation Sound, you simply must go. It has wilderness and scenic beauty that match almost anything you’ll find farther up the coast. Desolation Sound is nearly all wilderness. You want drama, Desolation Sound has the Coast Range mountains rising from its edge, and islands that emerge from the depths and go straight up. You want anchorages, Desolation Sound has protected coves and bays with good holding ground. You want outposts, Desolation Sound has only a couple, Refuge Cove and Squirrel Cove, with Heriot Bay and Campbell River not far away if they are needed. You want isolation, the Octopus Islands are guarded by the strong reversing tidal rapids of Surge Narrows, Hole in the Wall, and Upper and Lower Rapids in Okisollo Channel. You want waterfalls, Toba Inlet leads 20 miles into the mountains from the northeast corner of this cruising area, with at least two waterfalls you can put the nose of your boat into (we did – see below).
At Refuge Cove we discovered that the Boat Stop Café has moved off its barge and into the Upcoast Summers space on the mountainside overlooking the Refuge Cove Store. Darren and Carol O’Hara and their daughter Meghan still live on the barge, but the delicious hamburger you’re looking for is across the cove and up the stairs.
Our first anchoring of the trip was in the back of Squirrel Cove, where we could see the gentle rapids from the tidal lagoon. Later in the season, 70 or more boats will anchor in Squirrel Cove, but that night there were only 12. Two of them were Katinka and Brown Sugar.
We saw Katinka and Brown Sugar a few years ago, anchored in stunning Khutze Inlet, far up the north coast of B.C. This picture shows them departing that anchorage, with the morning fog swirling around them. Katinka is owned by Finn Wollebek, Brown Sugar by Rowland “Row” Brown. They cruise together and plan to go north of Cape Caution again this year. Both men have lost their wives, but neither was ready to give up boating. Finn Wollebek is 76. Row Brown is 85.
Our final stop in Desolation Sound was at small and rustic Toba Wildernest, with its sublime view of the Coast Range mountains to the east. At sunset the mountains glow. Unlike resorts that offer a wide range of amenities, Toba Wildernest offers little but the fact that it’s there, surrounded by beauty. Kyle and Andrea Hunter and their little daughter Rowan are the owners. Rowan is three and one-half years old now, fully mobile, and bright as can be. She immediately adopted Marilynn as a grandma. They had foot races together, and kicked the soccer ball, and walked hand in hand to see things. Andrea and Rowan came down to see us off the next day (Kyle had left early in the speedboat to bring back groceries from Campbell River), and as we were untying the lines Rowan looked at Marilynn with her big brown eyes and pleaded, “I don’t want you to go.” We almost didn’t.
Earlier, I mentioned the waterfalls in Toba Inlet. At least two of them drop directly into the sea. We had time to see only the smaller of the two, located on the west side about three miles from the mouth of the inlet. The larger waterfall is a few miles farther along, beyond the bend at Brem Bay and on the south side. The falls we saw were a wide, white torrent that fell from far up the sheer mountain. Perhaps 100 feet from the surface, the falls hit a rock outcropping, separating them from the cliffside below. Our better depth sounder is at the lower station so I helmed from there, and Marilynn took her camera to the upper station. Slowly, I nosed the boat toward the crashing white water. The depth sounder said very deep. Closer. Still very deep. Closer yet. Depths coming up, but still greater than 100 feet. We moved into the mist. Depth 100 feet-plus. Heavy mist, some water on the foredeck. Rock wall very close. Into reverse and back away.
Heroic Marilynn came down the ladder from the upper station with wonderful pictures.v
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