Music Fest at Shoal Bay (Sat August 22)

We have now participated in the annual music fest at Shoal Bay—a gathering of boaters, friends and “neighbors” (all arriving by boat—the only way to get here) to celebrate the ending of summer. The roasted pig and corn was provided by our host Mark Macdonald, accompanied by boater donations of salmon, cod and generous side dishes, along with a variety of desserts, and of course ample booze to keep everyone afloat. Three sets of musicians entertained us, and jamming went on until around midnight (yours truly having retired around 9, but sound carries on the water).

We’re on our way south now, heading for Desolation Sound today (the Octopus Islands). Weather permitting, we’ll stop on Wednesday to see our friend Ralph Clasby on Hernando Island. Thursday we’ll cross over to the east side of Vancouver Island, stopping at Deep Bay and Schooner Cove, where we’ll rendezvous with another boating friend, Barbara Bunting. Back in the San Juans around a week from today (next Sunday).

Quiet Sunset

We spent last night in one of my favorite anchorages—Viner Sound. It was so quiet you could hear the fish jumping. I snagged three more crab, and we enjoyed a very peaceful evening. After an overcast day, we were treated to enough clearing that we had a beautiful sunset—shared here if I can get it to upload. We’re on our way south. We’ll go through the Johnstone Straits tomorrow, and by Thursday, be back in Shoal Bay.

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

Sometimes you have to improvise a bit to make things work. My Mac computer was having trouble picking up the internet signal at Shawl Bay, but worked just fine if I went to the end of the dock to get a straight shot at their antenna. Unfortunately, the outdoor light made it difficult to see the screen—so here’s my solution. Hides the view but I can see the screen!

Shawl Bay Marina

We’re back at the funkiest marina in the Broughtons—homey Shawl Bay, where they serve pancakes in the morning. Pictured behind the Tamarisk is the covered float where we’ll convene for cocktails and meet the other boats. Great stories and helpful boat advice to be had for being friendly. We’re lucky—we landed here on the night they’re providing a seafood chowder as the center of a potluck dinner. Fresh homemade bread, and cinnamon buns too. And supposedly there are shrimp in the bay outside the marina. We’ve set the pot and we’ll see tomorrow.

Lagoon Cove

Here’s a picture of things we do on a rainy day on the boat. We’ll fire up the diesel stove to warm ourselves, then tuck in with books or do indoor projects. And since the diesel stove provides an oven, I have whipped up a favorite boat dessert, toffee bars, which you see sitting proudly in the middle of the table cooling down, waiting for consumption.

We came up the Johnstone Strait yesterday, rather than today as planned, because as we began to approach the strait the weather reports indicate calm weather. So we first decided to go partway up the strait to Port Neville (about halfway up the passage we have to make), since we had a favoring current until 3pm. However, once we were in the strait, it continued flat calm, so we did the only thing you should do when you discover the strait is calm—go for it! By the end of our passage there was a little wind—perhaps 10 knots—and a heavily overcast day that was threatening to rain, but didn’t until right after we finished anchoring. Rather nice timing!

We overnighted in a small bay called Burial Cove, along with a few wandering logs and an ugly two-story boathouse that showed up after we’d anchored and then was moved again in the morning. We were waiting for a favorable current to go through Chatham Channel, a narrow pathway leading into the waterways of the Broughton Island area where we’ll poke about for the next week and a half. This morning we came through the Channel and are now tied up at Lagoon Cove.

I’ve set my crab pots in my favorite spot in Lagoon Cove, using prawn heads for bait. At Lagoon, there’s a tradition of a 5 o’clock cocktail hour with everyone contributing hors d’oeuvres and Bill, the marina owner, putting out a bucket or so of freshly caught prawns each day. Overall shrimping is scarce this year for private parties—it was a particularly good year for the commercial guys so they let them have an extra couple of weeks and now there seems to be nothing left. But somehow Bill always manages. Fortunately, that means he has lots of prawn heads left over, which make excellent crab bait.

Shoal Bay

From Dent Island it was a short 8 mile ride on a favorable current to one of our favorite spots, Shoal Bay. The view from this bay is easily remembered, as we look across the channel at Phillips Arm at a beautiful array of mountains. We always enjoy keeping company with Mark xxxx, whose cheery personality and unending projects to improve the property make this a special place to stop and catch up as well as meet other boaters over a drink at the little “cottage/pub” he runs. Mark always manages to attract an interesting crew of volunteers to help him on his place, in return for food and a place to sleep.

It rained in the morning of our second day here, and then was somewhat misty and cloudy the rest of the day—weather that’s badly needed as they’ve had no rain for over a month. Not only is the vegetation quite dry, the water supply on these islands is very low. So the weather was extremely welcome.

This picture is taken from deck of the pub, showing the dock with Phillips Arm in the mist. Tamarisk (our boat) is at the end of the dock on the right, with the black forestay.

Tonight we ate the oysters I picked at Pender Harbor, fried in bread crumbs, together with a salad of fresh greens from the garden that Mark keeps for both his use and to refresh supplies on passing boats. I was able to get a cucumber, a couple of squashes, some great-smelling dill, snap peas, parsley and nice tender lettuce leaves. I also picked some kale, which I put in a soup for lunch. We’ve dumped our garbage in the compost pile, put bottles and beer cans in his recycling, and gifted a large batch of miscellaneous paper to his burn barrel. We’re ready to move on.

We’ll move to Forward Harbor tomorrow, a small bay at the south end of the Johnstone Strait, and hope to head up the Strait on Monday, weather permitting.

Dent Island Lodge

For years I’ve been intrigued by Dent Island Lodge, situated on the edge of the Dent Rapids. It gets a good writeup in the Waggoner Cruising Guide—one of the cruising bibles we use to find our way through the various harbors and passages. Privately owned but open to well-heeled boaters, it controls access by having various expensive moorage. It’s restaurant prices match the moorage, so we’ve always passed it by. But this year we decided to splurge and find out what was there.

It’s a lovely setting, as you can see from the picture of Phil and me at lunch on the deck with the marina in the background. While it is a small island removed from the actual Dent Rapids, the lodge has its own small set of rapids separating it from that small island, so it puts on a show throughout the day with boiling water in between the slack tides. The lodge has an outdoor bar (which wasn’t operating the day we were there) right alongside these rapids, and also an outdoor hot tub next to them. The hot tub WAS operating so we used it after dinner. Our dinners (at a fixed price of $90 for a four-course meal, sans wine) was disappointing. The clams in curry sauce appetizer was excellent, the entrée was overcooked (our medium rare steak was medium, the grilled prawns were mushy, and the ratatouille vegetables were both mushy and fairly tasteless. The dinner was nearly redeemed by two delicious desserts, but overall it was not what you’d expect given the price.

We enjoyed our splurge, but have now satisfied our curiousity and won’t repeat the visit.

Pender Harbor to Evans Bay

In Lund we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Barbara and Warren Chapman, Phil’s former clients, who 40 years ago bought property surrounding a small bay just south of Lund. We ended up staying two nights at the Lund marina, in order to get our dinghy motor fixed, and as a result were lucky enough to share dinner both nights with the Chapmans and Barbara’s niece and family from Tennessee. The bounty of the sea provided our last night’s dinner, which you see pictured here—an outstanding preparation of Oysters Rockefeller. Shots are of the guest cabin (with the deck) and the main house (with the tall, slender windows) I'll do in a separate post.

On Wednesday August 5th we motored and then sailed for the first time on our way to Evans Bay on Read Island. We had thought we’d tie to the dock of a friend’s cabin in a small bay off Evans, but discovered that he’s sold it. So we anchored in nearby Bird’s Cove, setting our first shrimp pot of the season in a place that had provided nice hauls three years ago. Not this year—one lonely shrimp in the trap when we pulled it. Really disappointing after pulling up 400 feet of line by hand!

Anacortes to Pender Harbor

We spent two days hooked to the dock at Parker, enjoying the hospitality of our hosts Herb & Karen Berry. They have created a wonderful maze of trails on their property, which connect to trails on adjacent properties, so there’s lots of walking in the woods to enjoy. The cool woods were also the place to be on two very hot days, with temperatures in the 90’s—weather we are totally unused to in the northwest. Imagine doing your computer work in the woods. The picture shows Phil doing just that, making use of a kindly neighbor’s internet connection.

On Wednesday, the Berrys left for a two-day sailing cruise and serendipitously our boating friends Anne Kilkenny and Jon Navieux, whose Wise Island cabin is a short dinghy ride away from Parker, noticed our boat and invited us for cocktails and dinner.

Thursday we moved to Ganges Harbor to stock up on the fresh fruits, vegetables and wine you can’t bring across the border, plus get Canadian cash and miscellaneous items we forgot to bring along like the card reader for my camera so I can now share pictures as I go. I also popped into the local thrift store to purchase a couple more halter tops. My supply of them is quite small and with this hot weather, they’re the only thing I’m wearing. Dropped my first crab pot of the season and came up with one female—a disappointing start. But that lone crab had eaten hardly any of my delicious salmon head so back into the freezer it went for another try.

Friday we spent a long day motoring to get up to Pender Harbor. There was a little bit of wind (maybe 10 knots) and better yet, a favoring current, so we motorsailed, arriving about 4:30 pm after an early 6:30 am start. We tied to the side of our friends’ boat (Jack & Judy Charlton) on Mary Islet, the small island they own in the middle of Pender Harbor. Unfortunately they’re not there, so we’re hoping to connect with them on our way back down. Instead we’ve joined in BC Day celebrations and a wooden boat show we found in the harbor. Tomorrow we’ll move to Lund for a night or two, visiting other friends and hoping to get our leaking dinghy outboard motor fixed, so we’re not limited to rowing distances. That’s always the fun of sailing—discovering and fixing problems, while enjoying stupendous scenery!

Off to Northern Waters

Phil and I launched the boat this morning, after she had endured a winter "on the hard." Two days of run-around prep, and we're almost ready to leave. We'll head to Parker Island in Canada in the morning, and from there proceed slowly north. Probably a stop in Silva Bay and then across the straits to Pender Harbor. I'll post when I find internet access.

As usual I am discovering all the things I left behind, one of which is the attachment to download pictures from my camera. So unless I can find a replacement, these posts will be verbal, without pictures. To make up for it, I've posted a picture of apast trip when Tamarisk (our boat) was tied to the dock. Our visit tomorrow will look just the same as this one.

I'm delighted to be on the boat, headed for my favorite cruising grounds. My whole body relaxes when the boat hits the water--and my mind follows soon behind. We'll be gone for almost six weeks, and glad to get out of the heat we're experiencing in the northwest. Whoever thought we'd complain about sun and warmth!!