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WAGGONER RESEARCH CRUISE REPORT, ONE WEEK OUT
by Bob Hale
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SILVA BAY, JUNE 9--A 985mb low is a significant low pressure area, and a 985mb low is lying stalled about 200 miles west of the Queen Charlotte Islands just now. Here in the southern coastal waters of British Columbia, fresh southerly winds are trying to fill that low. The Strait of Georgia is unfriendly to pleasure boats, especially the non-sailing kind that don’t like a capful of wind.
We’re anchored in Silva Bay for the night, along with a couple dozen others. A hundred feet of chain is out in 20 feet of water. We’ve been swinging in the 25-knot gusts all afternoon and not budging. The set will hold. We hope the wind will quiet down by tomorrow, so we can cross the strait to Pender Harbour.
Marilynn and I have been out a week, and wherever we’ve stopped anxious marina owners have asked if boats will be coming cruising this summer. Fuel is expensive and the Canadian dollar is worth almost as much as the U.S. dollar. The days of the 25 percent currency exchange discount are memories.
Let me tell you about the cruise so far. In the little town of Chemainus last night, we took in a sold-out performance of Anything Goes, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, at the Chemainus Theater. The performers sang, they danced, and they played the instruments in the orchestra. They were amazing. They got a standing ovation, and we wished they could have gone on and on.
As we left the theater we chatted briefly with a couple getting into their beautiful little sports car, not one you often see. It was a perfectly restored MG TC, 1947, sassy lines, 19-inch wire wheels with skinny tires, smiles guaranteed wherever it goes.
The houses in Chemainus are old and quaint and charming. They’re well cared for, with ample gardens. One afternoon a year ago, a man tending his roses snipped a lovely blossom and gave it to Marilynn. She still talks about it. We walked past the house on the way back to the boat last night, but it was after 10 and the man wasn’t out.
Chemainus has new concrete docks this year, with 40-foot slips on the inside and side-tie moorage on the outside for larger boats. Harmen Bootsma, the dock manager, is as gracious and helpful as ever.
Before we went over to Chemainus, Marilynn had her traditional ice cream indulgence at Telegraph Harbour Marina. Usually she has a hard ice cream milkshake, but this time she chose a brownie sundae—large scoop of vanilla ice cream over a hot brownie, chocolate sauce, tiny chocolate chips, chopped nuts. We were shocked when we saw how big it was, but when it comes to ice cream and chocolate Marilynn has great reserves. She ate it all.
We didn’t spend nearly enough time in the village of Cowichan Bay a few days ago. Cowichan Bay is funky without setting out to be funky, meaning it’s genuine. The locals, many of whom appear to be living on old wooden boats anchored off the village docks, row around in real rowboats. The rowboats have sweet lines, and they glide with each pull of the oars. They aren’t at all like our RIB dinghy, which has to be pried through the water.
The buildings in Cowichan Bay are on the water side of the one street through town. The other side of the street is rock mountainside. The fish market has a baby grand piano in the corner, the cheese shop has some cheeses they make themselves, and the ice cream shop puts a jelly bean in the bottom of the cone so melting ice cream won’t drip onto your shoe. It seems like there’s a hundred shops crammed in, on, and under the old buildings in Cowichan Bay, not one of them a franchise. Cowichan Bay is on another planet, and it’s just a short hop from Sidney.
We anchored out our first night of this trip. We had wanted to make Hope Island marine park, inside Deception Pass, but darkness would have been upon us. Waggoner correspondents James and Jennifer Hamilton recommend Crescent Harbor as a good anchorage, so we tried it. Crescent Harbor is at the mouth of Penn Cove, on the east side of Whidbey Island. It’s a big bay and open to the south, but it’s protected from northerlies and from westerlies off the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Since an afternoon westerly had been blowing, it would be a good choice. We motored in until the depth sounder showed 30 feet. A hundred feet of chain went down and the anchor set solidly (better than in Silva Bay). The few gentle waves from outside died away when the westerly died, and we had a wonderful sunset before turning in.
We stopped at Port Browning Marina in the Gulf Islands for less than two hours, but it was enough time to walk 15 minutes to the Driftwood Centre to check out the beautiful grocery store there. We stopped at a small van that had a canvas awning in front to protect an assemblage of unusual tools. They turned out to be knife-sharpening tools, and the owners were at the Driftwood Centre for just a week before returning home to Miners Bay on nearby Mayne Island. We wished we’d brought our kitchen cutlery from home.
In seven nights we’ve been on the hook twice, on a park buoy once, and at marinas five times. We’ve rowed along walls at high tide and examined what wind and waves, given enough time, can do to solid rock. We’ve seen things and met people we could not have anticipated, and we couldn’t have done it without the boat. I don’t think the marina owners need to worry.v
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