Heading South

Heriot Bay

After Gorge Harbour, we went to Rebecca Spit, at Quadra Island, and spent a peaceful afternoon at anchor. For the evening, we headed to a marina, and an evening meal at the local Heriot Bay Inn. It rained for a short time, but the wind was minimal, which was a nice change. From there, we headed for Campbell River, which is about halfway up Vancouver Island. In Campbell River, we rented a car and drove up to Port Hardy to see what we were missing. We found that driving in a car was boring after spending several weeks on a boat! Boats go much slower, but the scenery is always spectacular, and there are always navigational challenges to keep our attention. While we enjoyed the change, we were happy to head back to the boat at the end of the day.

From Campbell River, it was time to head south. On our trip up, we traveled up the west coast of the mainland after leaving Nanaimo. For the trip down, we decided to explore the east coast of Vancouver Island, and stayed several nights in Comox. After Comox, it was time for a night in crowded Nanaimo. We were afraid that the rest of the trip would continue to be filled with crowds of boats and people. Fortunately, we picked Silva Bay for our next stop. Silva Bay, which is on the east side of Gabriola Island, was beautiful, calm, and seemed a world apart from busy city life.

Our challenge after leaving Silva Bay was to head through Active Pass, which is another "gateway" in the Gulf Islands. Once again, the guidebooks offered many warnings about currents and ferry traffic. We entered just before slack, and found it to be a fairly easy passage. We were helped by our AIS, which picks up signals transmitted from commercial vessels, including ferries. These signals show up on our chart plotter, and tell us the position, heading, name, and speed of each vessel. We have found this to be much more useful than radar, which only shows a blob on the screen, and does not see around corners. Therefore, as we entered the channel, we were able to "watch" any nearby ferries on our chart plotter, even if they were around the corner and not visible.

Even with charts, it can be hard to see the rocks at high tide!


Our final night in Canada was spent anchored at Pender Island. We've discovered that if we plan carefully, we can find uncrowded anchorages, even at the high season for visiting boats. People tend to visit specific favorite places, and the masses leave places such as Port Browning at Pender Island alone.

Finally, it was time to clear customs at Roche Harbor, or "Bug Bay", as we call it. We found this to be a completely different experience than our reentry to the US two years ago, as our customs agent was much less concerned about petty details. Roche Harbor was filled with weekending US boaters, which are a different breed than the boaters that explore the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound. Although the facilities are beautiful, we find that we never meet anyone at the marina, and feel somewhat alien to the other boaters. There are several beautiful bays nearby - next time we'll anchor out there instead of visiting Roche Harbor.

We took Mosquito Pass as we left Roche Harbor. It was fairly narrow, but well marked. The guide books warn that it is somewhat tricky, but after transiting much narrower unmarked entrances up north, it was nice and easy.

We reached Port Angeles that afternoon. The wind was light, so we were unable to sail for long, but our trip was fast as we had current with us for the entire way. We decided to head home for a few days before heading to Neah Bay and out to the ocean. We've learned that we don't like waiting on the boat for a good weather window--it wastes too much time.

As we were about to head out of town on Thursday, we had a phone call from Donna DeMeyer, my dad's cousin's daughter. (I just call her my cousin!) She and John, her husband, were returning from Barkely Sound, and would reach Port Angeles late that afternoon. What a coincidence! We know a number of people and boats up north, but they seem to be the boat we consistently cross paths with. It was too good of a chance to miss, so we decided to wait to see them in before heading home that evening.

We are now at home, and have decided that there is a reasonable weather window on Tuesday. We'll head back to Port Angeles tomorrow (Sunday), and travel to Neah Bay on Monday. Assuming that the forecast holds, we will head out onto the ocean on Tuesday, and probably reach Westport late Tuesday night. Alternatively, we may decide to head straight through to Astoria.