Sailing De Novo: 2021

We're now well into October, which means hiking and sailing in the cold and rain. But it also means good winds, open anchorages, empty trails, and cozy evenings inside with movies and wool socks. Shoulder season sailing is rad.

North of Atl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound

Our last post ended with the day of fifty tacks down Jervis Inlet. We anchored in Green Bay in Agamemnon Channel just before dark and left again early the next morning. Environment Canada forecasted a gale warning in the Strait of Georgia over the next couple days, so it was imperative to wait out weather somewhere secure. Once in Pender Harbour, we tucked into the public dock at salalus / Madeira Park. So deep in the harbor, we were unaffected by the storm.

After the rains cleared, we sailed south to the Thormandy Islands and anchored just south of Surrey Islands for the night. This small nook offered us full protection from the intense southerly blowing outside.

Rains and occasional blows at Madeira Park Public Dock

Quirky Madeira

Atl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound

Next, we explored Plumper Cove on Keats Island, an excellent hiking spot and another secure anchorage.

And then our new favorite area in this area: Chá7elkwnech / Gambier Island. Gambier is something special. Without any central road service, general store, or other service or utility, inhabitants are truly self-sufficient. Although the island was once known as a central logging and mining hub, it's now a refuge from the outside world. The Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and Gambier Island Conservancy have worked jointly to protect the wilderness and maintain the endless trails throughout the island. We stayed here for several days, anchoring first at the head of Port Graves and then again after leaving Gambier to meet family in Gibsons, returning and anchoring in Halkett Bay for another few days. We couldn't stay away.

Gibsons: quaint, lovely, beautiful. After nearly nineteen months with the border closed, we finally got to spend time with Dave's sister Cailin and her fiancé Anthony here...in person! Thanks Cailin for showing us around town, taking us on hikes, and helping us provision around town!

Plumper Cove on Keats

Cute community of Plumper Cove

Smooth, secure Port Graves

Wildheart Lookout on Gambier

Burt's Bluff on Gambier

Remnants of a logging bridge over Centre Creek

A friend we made while filtering water

Dave bravely cleaning the hull in October...while I safely stayed inside the heated cabin

This guy :)

Halkett Bay

View from Mt. Artaban, looking south

Inside a capsule attached to the highest point of the island; for all hikers to enjoy.
We're thinking a communal shot glass was a better idea before covid?

On and off rains at anchor

Cliff Gilfer Park, Gibsons

Cailin and Dave in Gibsons

Heading Home

I don't know how we pulled ourselves away from Gambier, but somehow we found ourselves in North Vancouver for a couple nights before finally clearing customs at Point Roberts. Goodbye British Columbia. Goodbye endless inlets through snow covered peaks. (And a 80% vaccination rate and universal healthcare, etc.). We miss you already, Canada.

But it was nice coming home. We visited some of our favorite seaside towns en route to Olympia and reconnected with friends and family in Seattle. We're now tucked into a new slip at Swantown Marina, and I had an emotional reunion with our cat. Thank you, Mom, for always watching Uma while we sail. 💗

First Narrows Bridge

North Vancouver

Mosquito Creek, North Vancouver

20+ knots on the nose yet only making 3 knots in this opposing current. Getting from North Vancouver to Point Roberts before customs closed at 5 would be challenging!

Dave fully feeling the challenge. So close! Full throttle motorsailing into headwinds!

And we made it, with moments to spare. The sky cleared up...

and stayed clear...

practically all...

the way home...

to Olympia.

We're now turning our attention southbound to Mexico. ¡Dios mio! ¡Navegamos hacia el sur!

Stay tuned!

This area is a gem. It encompasses the district around Powell River and Texada Island (qathet, meaning "working together" in Tla'amin Nation Comox) to most of Howe Sound (Atl'ka7tsem, meaning "padding north" in Squamish) and each mountainous inlet and cozy town in between. Despite its proximity to Vancouver, it retains a natural, wild feeling thanks to the joint efforts between First Nations communities and the government to preserve the land. We love it here.

Note: We're now trying to add more Indigenous place names to our posts because local First Nations communities have worked hard to preserve or reestablish them. Language is powerful, and its use can either include or exclude people. Dave's sister Cailin, a UBC graduate student, studies Indigenous languages and helps us patiently pronounce the names. We're not very far along, so we sound like a couple of white fools...which is not new.

Si' yi yen to the Tla'amin Nation / Texada Island

Anchored in Marble Cove

At high tide, rowing to shore through the windy, narrow mudflats at the head of the bay.

The most pleasant surprise ever! Walking on old, abandoned logging roads, all of a sudden, we stumbled on gnome homes! What?! Did we somehow enter a fairyland realm?

Just a few of the several gnome homes we saw on our hike:

Where did this wonderland come from?! Who made these?! Who maintains them after storms? In a somewhat infrequently traveled place, who else gets to see them? After a cursory web search produced no origin story, I'm pretty convinced actual gnomes built them.

Another enchanting find in Marble Bay

Harmony Islands

Heading into xenichen / Jervis Inlet

Freil Waterfall

Filtering water

cha'tlich / Sechelt

The rapids into Sechelt are called Skoomkumchuck Narrows. In Chinook Jargon, skookum = strong, powerful; chuk = water. Unlike other rapids in BC, the water is always moving and the term "slack" is relative. It's difficult but not impossible to enter, as long as you use your engine and time it with the calmest slack of the day.

Once through, the inlet locals call the "inland sea" winds down through endless mountains and branches off into other equally tempting inlets before ending in Sechelt, a town we chose to anchor near for several days.

Narrows Inlet

Storm Bay

Anchored in Sechelt's Porpoise Bay for several days, enjoying the public showers, laundromat, and farmer's market. We loved it here.

Squint REAL hard and you can see Novi

How we provision in towns

Suivoolot (meaning "sunny and warm" in she shashishalhem) / Princess Louisa Inlet

We couldn't go to the Sunshine Coast without traveling up Jervis Inlet to Princess Louisa Inlet. It would be sacrilegious. One of our favorite places on the BC coast, Princess Louisa competes with fjords much further north. Winds barrel down the cliff rocks, so on most days, one can sail Jervis' full 40 miles.

Malibu Rapids, the gateway to Princess Louisa Inlet

Once inside Malibu Rapids, the peaks rise dramatically, harps start playing, and you realize you are no longer simply cruising along, but bringing the one ring to the elves at Rivendell. It's important, and you cannot fail.

Chatterbox Falls

A bewildered denise for scale

Then the rains started. The falls sprayed sideways all the next day.

Dave, collecting some of that sideways water to drink

Our more efficient rainwater collection system: water runs off low spots on our bimini into
collapsible buckets...

And we scoop it out quart by quart and pour it into a filter above our tanks; we collected several gallons in just a couple hours.

We're not sure we agree with the "sunny and warm" description.

Thanks to James F. MacDonald, the inlet (except for the children's camp at the head) remains undeveloped, unlogged, and protected. He bought land here in 1927 and devoted his life to ensuring it remained protected and accessible to all.

He remarked, “It is Yosemite Valley, the fjords of Norway and many other places all wrought into the background of our conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest.”

Additionally, in the 1920s and 1930s, M. "Capi" Wylie Blanchet, an engine mechanic, boater, and badass single mother would often take her children in their 25 ft. boat up here. They would normally be alone, except for MacDonald, the occasional members of the shíshálh Nation, and several black bears.

Blanchet believed the falls were alive and wrote about her deep respect for them in her book, The Curve of Time: "That waterfall can laugh and talk, sing and lull you to sleep. But it can also moan and sob, fill you with awful apprehensions of you don't know what."