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| 2009 CRUISE REPORT, WEEK FOUR
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June 25, 2009.
We’re tied safely in Port McNeill near the north end of Vancouver Island, where it’s been blowing a gale since early morning (I’m beginning this report mid-morning). The gale warning chased us out of the Broughtons yesterday, two days ahead of schedule. We crossed Queen Charlotte Strait from Wells Passage in flat water, but we wouldn’t want to be out there now. The barometer is falling like a rock. An hour or so ago it read 1002 milibars. I just tapped the barometer, and the needle dropped to 1000.5. The rain has stopped and for the moment the wind has eased. Clouds are rushing by above us, however, and they look dark and threatening to the south. It’s not over yet. More is coming.
We would have been safe back in the Broughtons. We could have anchored in any of several good coves, or tied up at one of the marinas. But we’re trying to keep to a schedule, and if the winds were to continue longer than the two days we’ve saved, we would lose valuable provisioning and laundry time. Here in Port McNeill we can wash clothes and buy food for the long trip north while the storm rages, and with luck we’ll have a chance to get around Cape Caution when the weather breaks. Unmade visits in the Broughtons can be accomplished on our way south. If the wind persists too long we may have to give up plans for getting all the way to Prince Rupert. The Broughtons might see us sooner than we expect.
That’s cruising in the Pacific Northwest. We make plans and outline objectives, but events can change everything. I just heard that a man – an extremely experienced boater – fell between his boat and the dock, and had to be taken by float plane to the hospital in Port McNeill. I don’t know anything further.
Port McNeill (or Port Hardy, 20 miles farther up-island) are about as far north as many boaters ever go. In truth, they are about as far as a person needs to go to see just about everything that needs to be seen. Of course, those who stop here are denied bragging rights about going around Cape Caution. And they can’t speak casually about picnicking at West Beach on Calvert Island, or anchoring in the Spider Group, or exploring the collapsing buildings at Namu, or the ghost city of Ocean Falls, or Sir Alexander Mackenzie Rock, or Shearwater and Bella Bella, or Fiordland, or – you get the idea. There’s so much.
You get to the Broughtons one of two ways: the shorter but more exposed route in Johnstone Strait north from Campbell River, through Seymour Narrows, through either Race Passage or Current Passage and past Kelsey Bay, or the slower route in the more protected waters of Cordero Channel. Seymour Narrows in the first part of the shorter route needn’t be a problem. Just wait for slack water and go through. The difficulty comes afterward, beginning at Chatham Point. Other stations might be reporting light winds, but the Chatham Point Lighthouse will note 25-knot winds out in Johnstone Strait. This wind can continue through Race Passage and Current Passage, and past Kelsey Bay. Race Passage and Current Passage are separated by Helmcken Island. Helmcken Island restricts both channels, so the current runs more swiftly in them. When an ebb current opposes a fresh westerly wind in Johnstone Strait, the resulting seas are frightening. Locals from up-island use this route, but we avoid it.
The slower route through Cordero Channel has its own set of problems, namely several sets of tidal current rapids. The task is to calculate the times of slack water at each of the rapids, then go through in the one hour to two hour window around slack, when the rapids aren’t running too hard. Most northbound boats run the Yuculta (pronounced “YEW-cla-taw”) Rapids, Gillard Pass and Dent Rapids one day, and Greene Point Rapids and Whirlpool Rapids the next.
Some boats will spend the night (or perhaps a tide, depending on timing) at the Stuart Island docks and store at Big Bay. Some boats will go to the elegant and credit card threatening Dent Island Lodge for a night or two before continuing north. This year, we were blessed with small “neap” tides, around the time of half moon. We got to Stuart Island almost an hour before slack in the Yucultas, and left for Dent Island before the new current had a chance to build. If we had been there during large “spring” tides (full moon or no moon) our window of opportunity would have been so short that we would have waited at Stuart Island for a 6-hour tidal cycle before continuing to Dent Island Lodge for the night. This sounds more complicated than it is in practice. When you work the problem, the alternatives are obvious.
The docks at Stuart Island are in excellent condition, with room for quite a few boats. The store, gift shop and liquor store, operated by Cathy Minor, are well stocked. A new cabin is on the property. The cabin came from the place next door, which wanted it gone. An excavator picked the cabin up, carried it to its new home, and set it down. Like most on the coast, this cabin was built on skids, so it can be moved readily. Entire structures are moved from land to floats, where they become float houses, then back to land, sometimes a hundred miles away. Part of local lore is knowing where buildings came from.
Dent Island is definitely on the high-end side, but worth it if you have the budget. Our supper was perfect. The staff was just what you’d want a staff to be. The setting is beautiful. They have a new boat this year, an aluminum jet boat with rows of seats. It will be used for hauling, and also for excursions, such as a one-day trip to the head of Bute Inlet, with side trips up rivers.
Earlier, General Manager Justin Farr took four people from another boat and Marilynn and me for a get-acquainted run. Justin has been guiding in the area since 1989, and knows every passage, every nook, every rock, and the behavior of every rapids. The jet boat, with its two powerful engines, does more than turn on a dime – it can thread its own needle. One of the highlights of the trip wasn’t the high-speed antics of the boat, however. It was sitting almost unmoving just outside a fast tidal stream, and seeing about 100 bald eagles perched in trees, then swooping down to pick dead hake from the water’s surface. The hake die on flood tides only, when the current activity forces them from the bottom. Their air bladders expand and kill the hake as they are carried to the surface. For the eagles the table is set.
A few miles past Dent Rapids, Mark MacDonald has the Shoal Bay Pub and government dock going strong. Mark’s vegetable garden was lush, and he planned to bring chickens in as soon as he could get away (the marten got the last batch of chickens). The docks and long wharf leading out from land sport much new wood on them. Mark and Fisheries and Oceans seem to getting on famously. Although Mark works on the docks without end, he doesn’t “manage” them. Boats already tied up re-shuffle themselves to fit another boat in. Everyone take lines and helps with landings. Mark collects the moorage up at the pub, 52.5 cents a foot. “Moorage is fifty cents and GST is five percent,” he says, “so I take boat length to the nearest even foot, times fifty-two point-five.” It’s the only place we know of that charges moorage by the half-cent.
That’s Mark, and it’s only the beginning. If you’re up-tight you’ll either not like the place or you’ll finally relax. We think Shoal Bay is a treat.
Burp! We had Doris Kuppers’ luscious German cooking for lunch at Cordero Lodge, and later , around the corner, we had Blind Channel’s excellent supper. At Blind Channel we also bought a loaf of Jennifer Richter’s fabulous bread. The highlight of our stay at Blind Channel, though, was 83-year-old Edgar Richter coming to the restaurant to be photographed with his new great-grandson Jonah, the fourth generation of Richters at Blind Channel.
Earlier, I said that when you work the problem of the tidal rapids, the alternatives become obvious. The question for the following morning was when to leave the dock to get through Greene Point Rapids and on to Whirlpool Rapids. I calculated the time of slack at Greene Point, subtracted an hour because with neap tides the flow wouldn’t be all that strong, and decided we should leave the dock at 0615. Between 0600 and 0630 the next morning, everyone who was going was under way. We left at 0610. Greene Point was a no-brainer, and we hit Whirlpool Rapids exactly at slack, our best call yet.
Lorna Chesluk is still at Port Neville, although with her new grandchild in Campbell River she’s dividing her time between the two. Last year she bought a condominium in Campbell River. Lorna’s family has been at Port Neville since the 1890s. If you want to meet her, I think you’d better do it soon.
There’s a new marina getting going in Port Harvey, just after you get off Johnstone Strait at Havannah Channel. George and Gail Cambridge are the owners. Docks are in, and power is coming. Wireless internet was not running when we were there, but George said it would be operational by the next day. They have Telus (Verizon) cell phone coverage. On a barge, a well-stocked store with a small café upstairs was close to being open. The barge was built in 1944, and it’s not real sound. George wrapped a diaper made of heavy rubber around it to keep it afloat. He said that when the barge becomes too far gone he’ll skid the store and café ashore.
We think George and Gail are the right people, with the right ideas, in the right place, at the right time. Call on VHF 66A.
I bought a camcorder this spring. The reason was the Lagoon Cove Marina For Sale ad that I saw in Pacific Yachting. Year after year, Bill and Jean Barber have been packing them in at Lagoon Cove, partly to hear Bill’s outrageous bear stories at the 5:00 p.m. happy hour gatherings. The tale about teaching a bear to water ski makes me laugh so hard that tears come down my cheeks.
Notes and still photos can’t possibly capture Bill and his story-telling, so I determined to do it with the camcorder. The night we were there, Bill told the water-ski yarn. I sat nearby, holding the camcorder with its external, fuzzy-covered shotgun microphone, to catch every word, every gesture, every change of expression. When Bill got to the water ski part I couldn’t control myself. Once again tears came down my cheeks. In an effort to stabilize the camera I had clamped my elbows to my sides, and also to my highly-developed tummy muscles (which require larger pants sizes). The laughing bounced my tummy, which bounced the camera. Later I was told that others at happy hour were laughing as much at me and my bouncing camera as at Bill and his water-skiing bear. I know my efforts are home-movie quality, but I recorded the story, the whole thing, from beginning to end.
The same is true of Billy Proctor. Billy is not just a legend on the coast, he is a treasure. His museum of rocks, arrow heads, Chinese opium bottles and other artifacts (including a meteorite) from his 70-plus years of living, fishing, trapping and logging on the coast is something that can’t be duplicated. His manner is down-home and self-deprecating, but beneath the surface are a powerful intellect and a rare ability to communicate.
Billy let me use the camcorder to record his conversations with several visitors, as he explained where things came from, what they meant, how they were used, and how he found them. One of these conversations was with two remarkable women, Colleen Shantz, from Saltspring Island, and Lydia McKenzie, from Sarasota, Florida. They are friends, and when their husbands aren’t around they comb the beaches and backwoods, looking for artifacts. Both were wearing necklaces made of trading beads they had found.
Colleen and Lydia brought a collection of rocks for Billy’s evaluation. Billy said they were common leaverite. I had never heard of leaverite, so I asked what it was. Leaverite, Billy explained, means “Leave ’er right where you found it.”
We had met Colleen and Lydia earlier at Pierre’s at Echo Bay, and they had guided us along the “trail” that now leads from Echo Bay to Billy’s place. I put the word “trail” in quotes, because it was more than our aging selves were expecting. The trail is narrow and rough. And steep in places. At one point we pulled ourselves up hand over hand by a thick rope. To get back down we used a second rope, one for each hand, and sort of rappelled down the steep slope. The ladies, of course, just danced along. Marilynn and I didn’t dance or anything like it, but we made it. If you have trouble walking, don’t even think about taking the trail. If you’re past your prime but still able, you’ll make it, but you’ll be challenged.
Let’s wrap things up with the pig roast at Pierre’s at Echo Bay. Pierre’s has to be one of the bright spots on this part of the coast. A year ago Pierre and Tove (pronounced “Tova”) Landry became partners with Jerome and Lucy Rose to buy the Echo Bay marina and store from Bob and Nancy Richter (no relation to the Richter family at Blind Channel). Bob Richter’s health was declining, and Nancy had cancer. Echo Bay was slipping badly.
New investment and new energy have changed everything. Pierre moved his lodge and moorings down from Scott Cove, a short distance away. Within weeks new docks were built and the store revitalized. Pierre’s Saturday night pig roasts moved to the spacious concrete float that holds the store.
Jerome and Lucy Rose’s home is in Oregon, but they’re spending summers at Echo Bay. The Rose’s daughter Meg, only age 12, has changed from a girl last year to a poised and confident young lady this year. If you take Pierre and Tove and Jerome and Lucy and daughter Meg, you have a total of five hosts, all committed to their guests.
We didn’t know the year’s first pig roast was scheduled the night we arrived. We thought the pig roasts began in July. A short distance away, we radioed Pierre’s on VHF 66A to arrange moorage. Lucy answered. “Yes, we have space, she said. “Are you coming for the pig roast?”
“You bet!”
So at last we experienced a Pierre’s pig roast. The Naiad Explorer brought 40 Rotarians from Port McNeill for an annual dinner. Wives from the moored boats brought up side dishes and salads, and for this particular event the marina provided other side dishes and a cake for dessert. The pig was brought forth from the huge barbecue, and Pierre served up ample – and delicious – portions. With something like 85 people on hand, Pierre numbered each table, then drew lots to see which table went first. Our table was last. Since I was taking pictures, I was one of the very last to go through the line, and had more on my plate than I needed. Those boat wives can cook!
I see I’m more than 2,500 words into this report. That’s enough. Come cruising. Every day is a new experience. v
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