Smokey skies
August 13th
Douglas Bay to Sydney Bay
Departed 11:20 60 degrees
cloudy
Having two days in Douglas Bay was a wonderful escape from
the long days of cruising. I have to admit that I was feeling a bit weary from
having to slog our way through heavy fog for days. The stillness of Douglas Bay
calmed me and David’s all the better for it!
We felt “recharged” as we left after a leisurely morning
timing our crossing of Whirlpool Rapids today at slack tide. This is our first
rapids in a series of rapids ahead of us over the next three days. There will
be short hops between rapids. Shorter cruising days suits me just fine.
Yep, there were whirlpools in Whirlpool Rapids but they were
manageable. It was hard to believe that it was slack tide. There was no
slacking on the part of the whirling water. Don’t even want to think what it
would be like at maximum flood! David said there could be currents flowing up
to 7 knots.
The Belle cruised through Wellbore Channel to Chancellor
Channel past fish farms and stripped forests from logging. We entered
Loughborough Inlet and tried out a new anchorage in Sydney Bay. There was what
we thought was fog masking the mountains, but when David put down his window,
he said, “Oh, no, that’s smoke. Smell it?”
We have heard different accounts as to the number of fires burning now
in BC from 600 to thousands. We were told
that 165 fires were lit by the lightning storm we witnessed in Cutter Cove.
Visibility has drastically been affected.
Book exchanges are found at most marinas
Met a couple at the dock when we were cruising the bay in
our dinghy. They have a “one-off” (not factory built) boat designed by Captain
Robert Beebe, one of the founders of the Nordhaven powerboats which are built
to cross the oceans. Abbie and Jim are from Rio Vista, California and moor
their boat in Bremerton, Washington. We were invited aboard their boat, Compass
Rose, and chatted for quite some time and were invited back for a barbecued
ling cod dinner. Jim has a honey of a
spot where he hooks huge ling cod. However, he did not divulge where this cod
“gold mine” was.
David walking past the Compass Rose
Another couple on a sailboat at the dock, Julie and Dennis,
were hailed to join us for appetizers at the picnic table on the dock. They
were from the Tacoma area. Abbie shared a little about their recent trip
circumnavigating Vancouver Island, a trip David and I had considered doing. She
described it as a “storm run” and not a pleasant or relaxing trip. We crossed
that idea off our list.
On our first trip to Desolation Sound we cruised into Beaver
Inlet which is just on the other side of the point from Sydney Bay. We had read
that the most protected anchorage would be found in Edna Cove. When we got
there, we found a float home taking up the entire cove. We were a bit
disgruntled that someone would stick a float home blocking the best anchoring
spot around. As I remember correctly, we anchored near Edna Cove but did not
have good protection from the wind so didn’t get much sleep.
What we didn’t expect to hear was that Abbie and Jim owned
that float and lived there for 10 years!
They remembered seeing us in the inlet. They got tired of all the
blasting being done by the logging companies to construct their roads and all
the noise from their machinery. They were also annoyed by curious boaters that
would cruise close to their dock and peer into their windows.
The dock in Sydney Bay is owned by a gentleman named Dane.
He is selling the dock, house, out buildings, boathouse, and logging rights for
most of the bay property for a mere 4 ½ million dollars. It is a beauty of a
spot.
Heron on the logs
No comments:
Post a Comment