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| 2009 CRUISE REPORT, WEEK FIVE
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July 1, 2009.
The good news is that we are snugged safely at anchor in beautiful little Claydon Bay, surrounded by dense evergreen forest, and towered over by steep mountains. The bad news is that a week has gone by and we haven’t made a goddam bit of progress. We’re back in the Broughtons, where we were a week ago. The wind won’t quit and we can’t get north.
My lament is a bit of an exaggeration. We’ve accomplished quite a lot this past week, and if we’re going to be pinned down by weather, the Broughtons is an awfully nice place for it to be. Last week’s report was written over in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island, where we had gone to shop, do laundry, refuel, and fill the water tanks for the next leg around Cape Caution and beyond. We had left the Broughtons on the mainland side two days earlier than planned, because we didn’t want to be stuck here with food and water running low. It meant that we wouldn’t see Jennis Bay and Sullivan Bay as planned. We would have to make those stops on our way south.
To a point, the plan worked. While the storm stormed, we shopped and did chores in Port McNeill, visited with customers, and got the boat ready for the next week. Except that the winds around Cape Caution wouldn’t let up. The Waggoner says one of the several guidelines for rounding Cape Caution is that the West Sea Otter buoy reports combined wind waves and swell height of one meter or less. This morning, West Sea Otter reported 4.6 meters.
Anyway, three days ago we were finished in Port McNeill, and conditions for crossing back to the Broughtons were ideal. But first we wanted to stop at the charming marina and village at Sointula on Malcolm Island, not far from Port McNeill. We tied up around 1130 and visited with Lorraine Williams, the harbor manager. She told us the short dock closest to shore, the dock with the net-drying floats at the end, is scheduled to be extended this fall and winter and power added, to make room for more visitor boats. It seems that everywhere we go, nothing stays the same. We keep butting up against change.
Lorraine also told us the Co-op grocery store in the village has a new manager, Tasha Nelson. She said Tasha is doing a great job, and that everyone on Malcolm Island is so pleased. We didn’t realize the store had problems before, but it seemed smart to go meet Tasha.
We found Tasha unpacking a box of canned goods and putting them on a shelf. She’s a handsome young woman with shoulder length blondish hair and a lovely smile. She broke away long enough to tell us that she had been on the job only seven weeks, but was enjoying it. When I asked how long she had lived on Malcolm Island, she said she was fifth generation. I didn’t keep count of the “greats,” but her great-great-whatever grandmother was the second white woman to live there, part of the original Finnish utopian cooperative experiment – an effort that, like utopias elsewhere in life, failed. The Co-op is the surviving remnant of that experiment. It will celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary this fall, the oldest continuously operating store in British Columbia, the second-oldest in all of Canada.
Tasha suggested that if we’d not yet had lunch, we should hurry to see Dan Hillert, the meatcutter, and order up one of his sandwiches, with the meat stacked so thick it is hard to eat. Dan makes sandwiches between 12:00 and 1:00, and we had 15 minutes. There was no time to waste.
Dan Hillert is not your usual meat cutter. He is the embodiment of the word, “enthusiasm,” as we discovered when we asked if there was still time for a sandwich. “You bet!” he boomed, rushing over to meet us. “I just sold the last of the roast beef, but (still booming) you can have turkey or ham. One sandwich for the two of you, and soup – mushroom or chicken noodle? I’ll bring them up to the landing. Deb’s up there. She’ll give you all the gossip.”
Thus we were introduced to Lunch on the Landing at the Sointula Co-op store. The landing was up one flight of stairs, halfway to the second floor. It held tables with chairs, two pots of organic coffee, containers with plastic knives, forks and soup spoons, and Deb, finishing her lunch. Deb is Debbie Wiggins, Dan Hillert’s wife. She runs the visitor information office on Malcolm Island, and has recently set up the Harmony Gardens Gallery at 165 Kaleva Road, a short distance beyond the village. There she displays her own glass art and Dan’s photographs. Yes, Dan is a photographer. He just self-published a book titled Imagine an Island, photos that capture Malcolm Island. It’s very good. We bought a copy. Dan signed it.
Somehow in the last paragraph I overlooked our lunch. Dan brought it up, an impossibly thick turkey sandwich on hearty brown bread set on a bed of fresh lettuce and tomato slices. Marilynn had mushroom soup and I had chicken noodle, both of them hot and good, and almost too much for sedentary boaters. As we feasted, Dan boomed away downstairs. Customers came and went, cheerful as they loaded their shopping carts. In fact, nearly everyone we saw during our stop at Sointula seemed cheerful. Maybe it’s the organic coffee.
Tasha told us she’s introducing delivery to the marina. Since the store is at least a mile from the docks, it’s a good service. Deliveries are at 1:00 p.m. for now, subject to change according to demand.
If we had left earlier that day, perhaps we could have turned north and made it around Cape Caution. Our crossing of Queen Charlotte Strait from Malcolm Island to Wells Passage on the mainland side was in flat water. But the hour was growing late and we didn’t want to risk being exposed with night upon us. We got across shortly after 1700, exactly in time for slack water at Stuart Narrows at the entry to Drury Inlet, where Jennis Bay is located.
The marina at Jennis Bay is a family enterprise, Tom and Allyson Allo, their son Orion (10) and daughter Charlie Marie (8). Also the dog Bravo, who took on a wolf last summer and lost. Bravo would have been killed except for human interference. He is fine now, but with one eye gone. They call Bravo the one-eyed pirate dog. Aaargh!
The docks had been full the night before, but when we arrived only one other boat was tied up, the beautiful 1967 Ed Monk, Sr.-designed 52-foot Monk-McQueen Anchor, owned by Jim Robey. Jim spends a good part of the summer hanging out at Kwatsi Bay, but for this night he had taken Anchor almost the entire length of the Broughtons to Jennis Bay, to challenge Charlie Marie to a game of Tiddly Winks. Also, I like the think, to treat the guests he had on board to the majesty of the scenery of the Broughtons.
We had a big, family-style potluck dinner in one of the floating cabins, sheltered from the rain that decided to fall. Allyson cooked some chicken on the barbecue, the guests from Anchor brought a casserole, and Marilynn made a large tossed salad. It was a fine time. Something good happens when a bunch of semi-strangers, including kids, sit down at a long table for a meal that all had contributed to.
This past year Tom and Allyson moved two aging float cabins in. One is a crew quarters with bedrooms, bunks, kitchen and bathroom; the other is a shop. Neither was quite ready for use, but both will be by fall. Life on the coast consists of adapting, making do, figuring out how to make enough to survive. They hope to have work crews staying in the fully-equipped cabin this winter. Allyson will cook.
Yesterday we went over to Sullivan Bay. What a change from two years ago, even from last year. Sullivan Bay has a “sub-division” of substantial float homes. Last summer a group of the float home owners bought the entire facility from longtime owners Pat Finnerty and Lynn Whitehead. New docks have been built and the power upgraded. The marina buildings have been repainted or soon will be. It’s a huge improvement. Managers Chris Scheveers and Debbie Holt now have a year of experience and rebuilding behind them, and are fully in charge. After confirming our landing instructions as we approached, Chris radioed, “Welcome to Sullivan Bay.” It was a nice touch.
Marilynn and I had an excellent dinner in the restaurant. Our waitress was 24-year-old Heather Clark, who’s there for the summer. She said that although she will be working straight through the season without a day off, it is an exciting place to be. With nowhere to spend money, she will leave with a nice bundle that would send her traveling for several months.
The cook – he says he’s not a chef, despite his considerable experience – was 33-year-old Mike Eagles. Mike takes his cooking and kitchen management seriously. He wears a white chef’s tunic and one of those floppy white hats that chefs wear. An important part of a meal is presentation, and an important part of being the cook is looking like it. He told us his wife and two kids were home in Comox. Twice during the summer season they’ll come up to Sullivan Bay for a week. Tips are split 50-50 between the service staff and the kitchen. If good help is wanted at these places, we need to support them with generous tips.
Two days later. The wind won’t let up. Yesterday morning we set out in fog (love the electronic navigation program; love the radar) for Queen Charlotte Strait and an attempt to go north. We exited Wells Passage into rippled water. Maybe, just maybe, progress would be possible.
But that dark line ahead, it looked like wind. We motored on. The dark line got closer. It had little white spots in it. It had a lot of little white spots. The seas changed from ripples to chop, then to chop on top of rollers. The little white spots became substantial whitecaps. Spray on the front windows. Wipers running periodically. Wipers running continuously. Bigger seas. Time to turn back, which we did in the first flat spot.
Given the forecast for the next few days, we ran almost the entire length of the Broughtons to overnight at Kwatsi Bay. We had bypassed Kwatsi Bay earlier in the month, because Anca and the two kids were still living in Port McNeill, for school. They would be back in Kwatsi Bay now, however, so we could see the whole family – Anca and Max, Marieke and Russell. We first met Marieke when she was five. Two-year-old Russell was taking a nap that afternoon. Now Marieke is 16, a beautiful young woman. Russell is 13, beanpole thin and taller every day, changed from the little boy of a year ago.
The docks are pretty close to full. Jim Robey, Anchor, is here, and made his usual brownies for potluck last night. Jim has solved the potluck problem by staying with brownies. Ghirardelli brand from Costco is the best, he says. The boat behind us is a blue-hulled American 41 Tug, owned by Bucky and Christy Wood, from Birmingham, Alabama. Bucky is a retired cardiac surgeon. The boat is named Undoc’d. Bucky came back this morning with his first bucket of prawns. “I don’t want to admit what those prawns cost us,” Christy said when she saw them.
It’s that way with all sport fishing. You don’t measure the cost per pound, you measure the satisfaction and the happiness.
We got to know Capt. Dave and Carol Miner on their Nordhavn 43, Navigator. Dave is a tugboat skipper, oceans and Inside Passage. When I told Dave how I admired the skills of tugboat skippers and crews, he said they make their share of mistakes, too. He said that part of the ongoing learning process is getting together after a maneuver to talk about what went right, and why, and what could be improved. Running the Nordhavn is very different from running a tugboat. “I miss having tires all around the sides,” he said. “B.F. Goodrich is my friend.”
I should list the others, but it would go on and on and for sure I’d miss someone. Christy Wood, from Undoc’d, summed it up when she said that the friendships formed with people they would otherwise never meet are one of the greatest rewards of cruising.
Dave Miner is moving Navigator to the other side of the dock in a little while. All the guys will be on hand to take lines, fend off, and offer suggestions. The pressure will be on, Captain, the pressure will be on. And there’s no B.F. Goodrich.v
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