Fri Jun 10 2022
Thursday I spent a bit of time calling around for fuel prices, determining that Port McNeill way up on the North end of Vancouver Island was cheaper than the local stuff in Nanaimo, so Friday morning we got going early, with the objective of getting to Campbell River in time to evaluate the feasibility of passing safely through Seymour Narrows, a potentially exciting bit of water. About half way up the Georgia Straight our cruising friends Steven and Louise Dews managed to convince us to cross over to the mainland side and moor on a pontoon at the Lund marina rather than carrying on. We had collected a new pair of glasses for Steven prior to departing Port Townsend, delivered after Steven and Louise had departed for Canada on their beautiful custom schooner SY Wolfhound. Steven is a renowned marine artist and apparently being able to see well helps him produce more marketable paintings. Louise is a jeweler, but her new glasses didn’t arrive in time. Couldn’t be helped.
Anyway, we found ourselves tempted by the offer of fresh shrimp for dinner and a night on the pontoon, courtesy the fine crew of Wolfhound. Lund turned out to be an agreeable place, with a good pub just near the marina where a nice selection of craft beer was offered. There wasn’t much to the settlement otherwise as Isabel and I discovered on our Saturday walk, but it’s just next to Desolation Sound and gets extremely busy in the Summer cruising months. We had considered leaving Saturday morning after just one night but the forecast didn’t look favorable for crossing the Georgia Straight East to West with a sharp chop on the beam. Sunday looked good so we blasted off early and got to Seymour Narrows in time to pass through with about 4 knots on the stern. It was a bit sporty at times with some major swirlies along the length, forcing me to hand steer stop-to-stop at times to try and keep the bow pointed towards the intended destination. Seems like Isabel might have gone below to cower in fear for a couple minutes, as I advised her that voicing her concerns just then might provide a distraction that I simply didn’t need. In any case we got through it in about 10 minutes and soldiered on towards our anchorage for the night, Small Inlet in Kanish Bay on Quadra Island. It was a pretty place and a nice secure stop for the night after a fairly long and sometimes rather trying day.
One of the interesting things we learned along the way was that the tidal flow swaps ends at some point along bodies of water that can fill or empty out at either end. The Georgia Straight is a large body of water that has that characteristic, and it turns out that Savary Island just a bit South of Lund is about where one can draw an East-West line through the water. In this area the water does appear a bit choppy, and to the North or South the tide runs in opposite directions, meeting in that choppy area. We knew this had to happen somewhere of course, but our first encounter with one of these zones was rather interesting. It wouldn’t be our last.
When we departed Small Inlet on the 16th it was during a time of extra large Spring tides, and the Johnstone Straight was chock a block with debris, often logs the size of telephone poles. Seems they float up onto the shoreline and stay put during decreasing tidal displacements, then float off and clog the waterways during the big Spring tide events. The autopilot got the day off as we maneuvered carefully around and and sometimes through large debris fields, occasionally even reducing throttle to idle and transmission to neutral to avoid a hard impact with sticks or logs we couldn’t avoid. The last section of the straight we passed through that day, between Sayward and Port Neville had apparently been extremely rough that morning due to a strong wind over the tidal flow, exhibiting 3 meter standing waves. No thank you, but by the time we arrived it had settled down with the tide and wind moving together. We soon arrived at Port Neville where our pal Stu Wild is building a small resort on 10 acres of wild woodland, having already installed 2 excellent moorings out front of the property. Stu had been at Sayward with his work crew, having taken them into town for provisioning and showers, and he arrived in his small work boat shortly after us. Isabel felt concerned about the mooring’s distance from land and we dithered around about anchoring up the inlet a bit, but finally we decided to take the mooring for a few hours and see how it worked out. We launched the dinghy and went ashore, where Stu and his crew welcomed us warmly and we observed the men clearing and burning brush while one ran a loader and grader to create the home sites and a helipad site while occasionally feeding the fire with the larger stumps and such.
Stu is the helicopter pilot flying a brand new 13 million dollar helicopter on a brand new gazillion dollar mega yacht. He spent 25 or so years flying heli-ski, fire suppression, seismic equipment and crews, you name it all over the world. He paid his dues and he’s earned a great gig now. After developing a kite surfing resort at La Ventana on the Mexican Baja he’s decided to build a retreat by the tiny settlement of Port Neville. He reckons he can fly high dollar city dwellers from Vancouver to the retreat in about 30 minutes, and it would seem there are folks down there who will pay obscene amounts of money to escape to a yoga retreat or other equally relaxing activity just for the weekend. Stu is a man of action and we’re convinced he’ll succeed wildly at this just like his place in La Ventana, where when we visited in 2017 it was just a single small home with plans for a bunch of casitas.
After cooking dinner for his crew that evening, Stu dinghy’d out for a visit. It was after Isabel’s bedtime, so the pair of us enjoyed quite an intimate conversation about what had gone right and wrong in our lives, our successes and failures and future plans. People with whom I share those thoughts and they reciprocate - that’s where I find my closest friends.
You meet the most amazing people when out cruising.
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