the gallant fox - inside passage

Continued from here.

Jason:

What are the can't miss spots in the Inside Passage?

Gallant Fox:

Here are the spots I liked the best that are in the Gulf Islands, going north. Look 'em up in the Douglass guide or Northwest Boat Travel - I personally would avoid the Dreamspeaker guides as we found they're full of errors & very expensive books.

Gulf Islands: Bedewll Harbour, Montague Harbour, Ganges (best provisioning, shops, restaurants, events)

Nanaimo has a great chandlery - Harbour Chandler - close to the municipal dock. It's an OK stop if you need it, & once there it's fun to roam around town & finding a great meal is easy - but it's gotten pretty crowded out in the anchorage with permanent residents & abandoned boats - almost no room for transients any more.

Desolation Sound: Squirrel Cove (store & restaurant are a dinghy ride away from the anchorage), Prideaux Haven, Gorge Harbour (fuel, dock, store, onshore hike to Whaletown).

Quadra Island: Rebecca Spit = one of my all-time favorite places (excellent anchorage, tidepooling, & hiking on the spit - good place to spend a few days), fuel dock, restaurants & supermarket in Heriot Bay, the town across from the spit)

Octopus Islands - also a good place to spend a few days - we really enjoyed our time here, too

Port Neville, along Johnstone Strait - good place to get off the Strait if the weather kicks up - go ashore at the public dock & say hi to Lorna if you end up there - she ay still be there & show you around her family's old homestead.

Kwatsi Bay - great for practice with deep water, steep-to anchoring (unless you find a spot on the dock at the resort in there) but gorgeous waterfalls everywhere

Windsong Resort in Echo Bay - check out the pictographs, pay for some time in the bathtub/shower, hike over the 2500-year-old shell midden past the school. If you have to pay for tying up to a dock with no shore power or water, this one's worth it for all there is to see on shore.

Mamalilaculla - an abandoned Native village fast disappearing into the forest, but worth anchoring in the little cove northwest of the ruins.

Turnbull Cove - excellent all-weather anchorage; lots of fishing & dinghy trips including a set of awesome tidal rapids nearby; hiking; on your way thru the narrows heading toward Turnbull you even pass a pictograph set halfway up the cliff face on your port side. Hella cool. Turnbull was one of my all-time favorite spots in the Broughtons.

Lady's Boot Cove - need the Douglass guide to find this one - I can't recall which island it's on. : \

Port McNeill - you'll be ready to tie up at the dock here - the water's the best for miles around, the fuel's good, plus there's lots of restaurants, laundromats, stores, galleries & supermarkets on shore. Everybody stops here & it's all very enoyable.

Think you'd go farther than Port McNeill? Port Hardy is the next provisioning/fuel stop -- & after that, we turned left & rounded Cape Scott instead of pushing further north. But ask around - there's bound to be other folks at Shilshole who've continued north...