columbia cove

We have a spinnaker! And it works! Woohoo! After East Cove, we headed around the dreaded Brooks Peninsula. Once again, the weather was in our favor and Brooks was pretty calm. Once we rounded the southern end of the peninsula, we popped the chute and were finally sailing downwind! I make it sound like this was a 10 second affair, but it took us about 30 minutes to unravel ourselves from the mess of lines and figure out how the damn thing worked. Having a sock adds about 14 more lines than I'm used to and it took some doing to figure it all out. Fortunately, the dousing went smoother than the raising and we pulled right into Columbia Cove on the south side of Brooks.

We spent another layover day here. There was a trail to a fabulous beach, so we took the frisbee and headed over. The wildlife is great here - bear on the beach, sea otters in the cove and bald eagles flying around constantly. This was the first time in 4 anchorages we didn't have the place to ourselves - there were 5 other boats at one point - it's starting to get crowded!


Lazily motor sailing around Cape Cook on the Brooks Peninsula - also known as the Cape of Storms. We're happy to have a respite in the storms.


As close as we wanted to come to Solander Island. That's not the most hospitable place on earth.


Untangling the spaghetti lines for our asymmetrical spinnaker (or "drifter").


Hoisting our drifter for the first time.


Our drifter!


Christy is never as happy as when she's trimming a spinnaker.


Kayaking in Columbia Cove.




Walking the trail over to the beach at shed #4.


This beach was straight out of Mexico - awesome.


We finally got the hammock strung in the rigging. Thanks for the hammock, Nanette! It is a sunny day slice of heaven!

50°08.329'N 127°41.493'W

quatsino sound

Had a great sail from Sea Otter Cove to Quatsino Sound. The prevailing wind on the west coast is from north to south, so we've been looking forward to some downwind sailing down the coast. But now? the wind was out of the south, so once again, upwind we went! We saw our first humpback whale on the way and are looking forward to seeing more. We laid over in East Cove, a great little spot in Quatsino Sound, to do some maintenance on the boat.


s/v Happy Camper on a close reach.


8 knots, baby!


Christy working the foredeck.




Coming into Quatsino Sound.


Anchored in East Cove.

50°29.830'N 127°50.251'W

sea otter cove

There are two areas on the west side of Vancouver Island that we can be quite hairy; today was the first of those...Cape Scott. We made another 4am start from Bull Harbour so we could hit Cape Scott at about slack tide. First up, though, was getting around Nawitti Bar. Some people go over it - we decided to take the sneak route around it. Well worth it. We could see waves crashing on the bar and were quite happy not to be in the middle of that. We rounded Cape Scott with some chop, but the wind was reasonable and we were happy to have found such a good weather window in such a short time. Once around the Cape, we ducked in to the first protected anchorage of Sea Otter Cove. Were there any otters in Sea Otter Cove? No. Apparently it was named for an old ship. We picked up one of the 4 mooring balls in the cove, though it would have been easier to anchor because these are not your typical mooring balls - they are hurricane strength. Good for holding, hard to pick up. But after a fair bit of drama, we were settled and spent a relaxing night.


The mighty Cape Scott.


s/v Happy Camper rounding the cape.


The entrance to Sea Otter Cove was narrow, shallow, and covered in kelp. High pucker factor.


Some celebratory champagne after we made it around.


Scotty from s/v Happy Camper and Jason looking over charts for what's next.


Christy serving up some celebratory peach cobbler.

50°40.676'N 128°21.074'W

bull harbor

After a 4am start from Beaver Harbour, we hit dead calm in what had been the devil-that-made-christy-puke just 4 days before. We made great time to Bull Harbour which is the traditional waiting spot for boats waiting for a good weather window to cross the Nawitti Bar and Cape Scott, both of which can be pretty brutal. We spent the majority of our time in Bull Harbour catching up on naps from the 4am departure and the aniticipation of the same departure time the next day. I did find some time to make yogurt (my first time) which, I'm happy to report, turned out quite well! I'm getting to be quite a goddess in the galley lately, if I do say so myself :)

Bull Harbour is the northernmost spot that we will hit on this trip - great, but heading south for warmer weather is starting to sound fabulous!


Entering Bull Harbor in the fog.

50°54.998'N 127°56.207'W

beaver harbor

What a difference 6 miles makes. We backtracked from Port Hardy by about that to get to Beaver Harbour and it was well worth it. We found a great little spot (Patrician Cove) that we had all to ourselves and had an excellent trail just inside. We stayed three nights waiting for a beefy northwesterly to calm down a bit. S/V Happy Camper joined us for the the last one. We hiked the Tex Lion trail twice down to the beach (the 2nd time with Kelli, Scottie and the bocce set). We had a great time playing bocce on the beach before hiking back and hitting the hay early so we could start north at 4am. Yes. We're on vacation and got up at 4am. I know, very sad.


s/v Happy Camper coming over to join the fun in Beaver Harbor.


Hiking the Tex Lyon trail (awesome, by the way) towards Fort Rupert.


Traversing the ropes of the Tex Lyon trail.


Scotty from s/v Happy Camper making a winning bocce throw.


Kelly from s/v Happy Camper can do a one handed cartwheel without spilling her drink. Methinks this has one her more than one bar bet.


Hello World through the trees.

50°43.460'N 127°25.053'W