It rained hard all night and into the morning at Kwatsi Bay. Everything was SOAKED! Visibility was reduced by the rain and accompanying fog. Fortunately the rain slowed down and the fog lifted to about 150 feet as the morning wore on, so we felt okay about leaving.

The Internet was not available this morning due to volume. Kwatsi Bay Marina offers WiFi service, but there is a usage limit, and once the limit is reached, the server is down for 24 hours. So that’s what we experienced this morning. Guess there were a lot of people using the Internet yesterday.

We left Kwatsi Bay around 1100, and all the other boats at the dock left within minutes of each other. However, we encountered a boat on its way in as we left, so the dock won’t be empty very long. We topped up our water tank, and chatted with Anca in the store as she checked us out. Russell and Max helped us get away from the dock, and we made our way north in Tribune Channel. It was rather rough motoring into a 15-knot northwest wind, but the chop was reduced as we left Tribune Channel and entered Penphrase Passage. From there on, it was an easy passage. Mickey and Rosie are getting more comfortable with the motion and noise, and they moved around more in the cabin today while we were underway.

As we approached Claydon Bay, we encountered numerous floats from crab pots, and they looked like commercial floats. What a surprise to find even more floats in the Claydon Bay anchorage! There was only one boat here when we arrived, but they hoisted their anchor and left shortly after we anchored, and we have the entire anchorage to ourselves. In past years, we have usually seen, on average, about 8 or more boats anchored in Claydon Bay. Don’t know if it’s because of the crab pot floats or just not many people coming this way today. It’s still early in the season.

We are anchored in about 30 feet at mid-tide, with good mud holding and lots of room to swing. Still cloudy, but at least it’s not raining. Expected to put out our crab pot here, but there are way too many commercial pots already covering the area.

We encountered more whirlpools in Green Point Rapids than we remember from past trips. The way to get through this area where there are two rapids to transit and no good place to stop in between, is to go through Green Point Rapids about an hour early and Whirlpool Rapids about an hour late. We were lucky this morning and, other than the whirlpools as we left Green Point behind, we were just about on time for Whirlpool Rapids and had a very easy time transiting them.

As we left Whirlpool Rapids, rather than turning in to Forward Harbor, we decided to take advantage of what appeared to be a relatively calm Johnstone Strait, and headed out Sunderlund Channel. The Straits were good to us, and about two hours later, we turned off Johnstone Strait at the Broken Group and headed down Havannah Channel.

We usually proceed directly through Chatham Channel, but today it was flowing about 6 knots against us about the time we wanted to go through. So, we decided to stop before the channel and tried a new anchorage. We turned in to Matilpi, an anchorage between the mainland and a small Indian Island. It is marked by a lovely shell beach and is written up in our reference books as a quiet anchorage with good holding and protection from most winds. Two fish boats came in after we anchored and rafted together behind us.

Still raining today, with high temps around 58 and a few sunbreaks (very few!). We hope this weather will improve soon!

Early this morning, we watched the tide go out at our anchorage at Matilpi. Low tide was around 8 AM, and the water dropped 14 feet from the high tide yesterday when we anchored. It is a small anchorage, and we found ourselves VERY close to the shore, but our depth sounders still showed over 30 feet. Got us going early!

We left to catch the slack current in Chatham Channel, which was less than two miles away. Easy transit, as we carefully watched the range markers. As we exited the channel, we entered Knight Inlet and found ourselves motoring into a 15 knot NW wind that was kicking up a few waves. As we turned to enter Tribune Channel, we took advantage of the cell phone coverage in that area to call Kwatsi Bay Marina to make sure we could find moorage.

Tribune Channel is a gorgeous fjord, lined with majestic snow-capped mountains. It is one of our favorite places. It was disappointing today, however, because the cloud cover hid the tops of the mountains. Still a nice ride though.

As we entered Kwatsi Bay, the mountains shielded us from the wind, and the water became calm. We found only two other boats here. Max, the marina owner, greeted us and told us where to side tie. Anca and Russell are in Port McNeill this week. Max told us about a lot of weather damage they sustained this past winter. It’s been a long, hard winter all over the west coast, and BC is no exception.

Max arranged a happy hour at 5 PM and the crews from Phoenix, Safari, and Easy Goin’ gathered and told sea stories. The sun actually came out in the evening and we can almost see the top of Mt. Read, the snow-capped mountain just west of Kwatsi Bay.

We decided to stay a second day at Kwatsi Bay to catch our breath and so that Jim could work on our Internet router. We’ve had it for a while and have been using it propped up on a settee (which has been a bit of a nuisance), so this is a nice quiet place where we can take care of mounting it to a bulkhead in a forward cabin hanging locker.

Alice had some time this afternoon to bake bread, so we got out the bread machine and it just produced a fresh loaf of light whole-wheat bread. Smells wonderful! Today has also been a good opportunity to clean up the boat…both inside and outside.

The sun actually broke through the clouds for a while this afternoon and we saw the thermometer hit 70…but it feels a little cooler in the wind. Some fog this morning, but otherwise quiet here at the dock.

Max is planning a potluck on the dock at 6 PM. Easy Goin’ left this morning, leaving Phoenix and Safari at the dock. This afternoon, an American Tug and five sailboats have arrived. So far there are eight boats at the dock  for tonight.

Started the day with continental breakfast at Dent Island Lodge. Had to wait until the afternoon slack at Dent Rapids before we could continue, so we read and did odd jobs around the boat until shortly after 1500 when we left. It rained hard all night and continued to rain on and off (mostly on) all day. We thought it was drying out an hour or so before we were going to leave so we wiped down the boat…however by the time we left, the rain had started again.

It was raining hard as we transited Dent Rapids and we were monitoring our course by radar. Thought that we must have taken a wrong turn and were in Alaska! Thankfully the fog cleared as we approached Shoal Bay. No other boats there, so we side-tied on the west side of the dock, looking out Phillips Arm to the snow-capped mountains of mainland BC, still shrouded in clouds, but spectacular none the less. It rained some more as we tied up, but finally cleared by 1900 so we were able to walk up to the pub and talk to Mark MacDonald (the owner). He is in the process of building a new house, further back on the property. He said he’d rather separate his living quarters from the pub, which sounds like a good idea to us.

Three more boats came in after us, so there are now a total of four.

There is WiFi here, but it doesn’t reach our boat, so we need to take our laptop to the pub in order to get a good signal. The shed where he previously had recycling bins has been torn down.

From here we will make our way to the Broughtons via Johnstone Strait, and don’t expect to have access to Wi-Fi for several days.

We did find some good fish and chips last night…went to the Blackfin Pub, a short walk from the marina, and enjoyed a rather nice dinner. We also bought some prawns from a local fish boat…they were asking $5 a pound, and even though we hope to get some of our own as we get further north, we couldn’t resist. They were so fresh that a few were still kicking!

We started our day at Comox by taking our laptop to the marina manager’s office when it opened at 0900. I worked on some banking business while Jim walked up to the Blue Heron Bookstore to buy Canadian Chart #3527, Baynes Sound, which provides more detail about this area, especially for crossing the bar to get back out to Georgia Strait. We have all the BC electronic charts, but always feel better to have the actual paper chart that covers where we are, and since we’ve never been in this area before, we didn’t have this detailed chart.

We left Comox at 1000 under sunny skies and a 10-15 knot NW wind. Waves were 1-2 feet, with a few breaking, as we made our way across the bar and turned toward Cortes Island in Desolation Sound. We pounded for a while, taking a bit of saltwater over the bow, but the conditions improved as we got into deeper water and it became an easy trip the rest of the way to Desolation Sound. We anchored in Squirrel Cove about 1500. As the day progressed, clouds from the west overtook the sun, and we even had some light rain around 1900. Didn’t last long, however. Nice and quiet in the anchorage…only a dozen or so boats here. A good night to watch some DVDs.

Tomorrow Jim plans to tackle replacing the engine starter, so we’ll plan to stay a second night in Squirrel Cove.

We spent a second night in Squirrel Cove so that Jim would have today to replace our engine starter. The job took 3 to 4 hours, with most of the time just getting wiring and other stuff out of the way and getting the bolts out that held the old starter in place. Thankfully the replacement starter works and Jim was able to finish the work today. The old starter will come back to Anacortes with us to be refurbished and become our new spare. Our thanks to Whatcom Electric for their technical assistance on the phone.

It was sunny and a little breezy all day. All but one other boat left the anchorage, and only two more came it. Very quiet, which is nice. We saw a few eagles early this morning and a couple of loons swimming nearby, but no baby geese this time.

We plan to head further north tomorrow.

We left Squirrel Cove in the sun, but it became cloudy as the day progressed. We decided to go through the slack around 1500 at the rapids, so didn’t leave Squirrel Cove until after 1100, allowing plenty of time to deal with potential unfavorable currents and so we could take our time. This trip we found the current running with us in Lewis Channel, and we were WAY early for the slack at Yuculta and Gillard. So we ended up idling and even drifting for a while…along with several other boats also waiting to transit the rapids. In previous years, we have been confused about the currents in Lewis Channel, as they always seemed to run opposite of the predictions. Based on what we observed today, it appears that the current in Lewis Channel DOES run opposite of the predicted current in the other main channels in the area.

There was only one other boat at the dock at Dent Island when we arrived, and only one other boat came in. It is early in the season and places are still relatively slow.

Dinner at the lodge was wonderful, as usual. We had our choice of several appetizers and main courses. For appetizers, Jim had seared scallops over risotto, and I had spot prawns over a mixture of wild rice and sliced apple. For dinner, Jim had the crab (a WHOLE crab) and I had salmon. Both meals were served with a selection of local vegetables. We found room for a bit of dessert…Jim had crème brulee and I had a chocolate volcano cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Certainly a meal to remember.

This is certainly not roughing it! But it is a great way to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. Back to cruising tomorrow.