A Different Johnstone Strait, New Gunkholes, and Nostalgia: 7-11 May

Off-grid sailing has its advantages but pokes the guilty button of having not posted a thing since Port McNeill. I am trying to catch up during our morning in Lund, BC.

Johnstone Strait can be formidable to the point of dissuading any save the intrepid Row2AK competitors that take what Mother Nature hands them in a 700 mile grind from Victoria to Ketchikan. That was not our fortune a few days ago when we clocked our longest leg of the trip thus far. Planning to stop mid-way at Kelsey Bay, we were blessed mid-afternoon by the coupling of following winds, following seas, and fair skies that pushed us at times over 8 knots. What’s another 35 miles when you’re cruising at that rate?!

JohnstoneStrait.MOV

This extra time underway with following wind afforded us the opportunity to further dial in our preventer line configuration (the line that holds the boom forward and prevents a potentially deadly uncontrolled jibe) and practice using our new whisker pole.

We stayed at Thurston Bay Marine Park just up the Nodales Channel – a new one for us – before revisiting the Okisollo Channel the next morning. The lower and upper rapids there were benign as was our second passage this trip through the Hole in the Wall west to east. We entered Lewis Channel and took advantage of being ahead of schedule to beat into the wind for a couple of hours. This netted us an underwhelming 3.4 nautical miles … 1.7kts … before we visited Teakerne Arm on West Redonda Island and Cassel Lake Falls before retiring to Squirrel Cove and calmer water for the night.

A video of Cassel Lake Falls descending into Teakerne Arm

Seventeen years ago, Jane and I visited Desolation Sound for the first time and discovered just how warm the waters become mid-summer. While just reaching 65F on this visit, the waters in this part of British Columbia are quite comfortably above the low 50’s of Puget Sound to the south and Queen Charlotte Strait to the north.

No, we didn’t go swimming this time, but we were fortunate enough to find the very spot on Scobell Island where we had moored long ago, dropped the hook there and rigged a stern tie as before.

A 360-video of our anchorage on Scobell Island

A Bald Eagle had watched over us in 2009. Perhaps this is an offspring…?

Ah! A fresh oyster! It was hugely satisfying to discover that among what appeared to be a mortuary of dead big oysters that there were ample numbers of live ones.

Spending a second day, we tackled what we thought would be a straightforward two mile hike out of Melanie Cove past three fresh water lakes, to salt water at Tenedos Bay. Despite a beautiful setting, we found trail conditions difficult, made it only as far as the near end of the third lake in an hour and three quarters, a quarter-mile shy of Tenedos Bay, and turned around.

A video of the stream flowing from Lake #2 to Unwin Lake

We find it pleasurable these days to find things as they were. Such is the case of Lund, BC. To describe it as a bedroom community of Powell River is an overstatement, but Nancy’s Bakery and the Boardwalk Restaurant are still here just as they were in 2009 serving pastries and fish and chips every bit as delicious as we remember!

Nancy’s Bakery right, Boardwalk Restaurant left

Today we will continue our southerly track home. First stop, Deep Bay Marina which we visited on 28 April north-bound; then Silva Bay near Gabriella Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands; then Montague Harbor that we’ve visited numerous times adjacent Galliano Island; then Friday Harbor to check back into the United States and watch a play staring a friend of ours, Jean Wilson; and last, a 70 nautical mile trudge back to Bainbridge Island. The forecast for the last two days is looking quite good for both following seas and following winds!