2010 Adventures

The 2010 boating adventure is off and running. Jeff and a friend got a head start and headed north on the Patriot a few days before Ian and Vikki. They had a slightly rough ride in the Strait of Georgia headed to Nanaimo. The weather turned a bit for the worse and they holed up in Nanaimo for an extra day before heading north another full day up to Gorge Harbor on Cortes Island.

Vikki and Ian drove up a few days later and took the ferry to Nanaimo, then drove north to Campbell River, took the ferry to Quadra Island and zoomed across the island to catch the Cortes Ferry and were at Gorge Harbor by bedtime. Jeff’s friend headed back to Seattle and we spent a lazy day getting reacquainted this lovely harbor.

Gorge Harbor is a fun bay that is totally enclosed by the surrounding island. The only way in and out is a steep sided channel about 200 feet across. The Gorge Harbor Resort is a comfortable place to hang out for a couple days, with a store, showers, laundry and a wonderful restaurant (Pad Thai and Fish and Chips to die for).

Tuesday we pulled up our anchor and headed east to Prideaux Haven in Desolation Sound. We avoided it last year as it is known as much for it beauty as it crowds of boats. However, since Gorge Harbor had such light traffic we decided to give it a shot. We had a smooth ride over on a sunny day and found very few boats in the harbor. Prideaux Haven is series of small coves off the mainland with scattered little islands all around. The mainland sides of the harbor are very steep and but the little islands are a bit easier to explore. We were tucked into Melanie Cove. Prideaux Haven coves are a couple of the sites in the book “A Curve in Time.”  To historical characters (Phil and Mike) had cabins in these coves. We took a walk along one of the trails that connects these two cabins, but we never found them. The forest along the walk is an amazingly dense cedar forest. The trees were huge and we had trouble visualizing the fruit orchards described in the book. Eighty years of growth has returned the sites to rain forest.

The water this time of year is much clearer than last August and we spent Wednesday morning poking along the shoreline in our kayaks (in the rain) looking at the amazing array of fish, seastars, nudibranchs, jellies and other invertebrates at low tide. The birds are light, but black oyster catchers, glacous winged gulls, marbled murrelett, redbreasted merganser, spotted plover, raven, pileated woodpecker, varied thrush, robin, towhee, raven, bald eagle, were all present and accounted for. Tomorrow we may hang out one more day or head north-ish and challenge ourselves with Gillard Passage and Dent Narrows just to get our blood moving.

Patriot at Prideaux Haven

View from stern of Patriot

Ian in Prideaux Haven

View of channel at Prideaux Haven

Ian's glee

Ian and Jeff at Manson's Landing (near Gorge Harbor)

Vikki kicking back