Chronicle 5 Shearwater to Grenville Channel

Greywolf tied up at Shearwater on Monday, July 26.  Shearwater Resort and Marina actually is a resort and has a marina: there is a wide variation in the use of that term north of the Gulf Islands in BC. Situated at the neck of the hourglass of routes up and down the Inside Passage, most boats pass through here.  If you’ve followed the blog in the past, you’ve been here, too.

This lovely new-to-Shearwater hotel was formerly a sports fishing lodge built on a barge…that became unseaworthy.  Bummer.  I’m sure the resort was able to get it at a good price.  After blasting a Large Hole in the side of Denny Island and waiting for a very high tide, tugs shoved the barge into the hole, and rock was piled in front of it.  We would have loved to have seen that.  ‘Having difficulty imagining the logistics.  Yes, that is why the world has engineers.

Doug and Allie and I decided to go on an “explore" to the ferry dock in the small bay directly beyond the marina  We walked for about an hour.  We’re not very fast, but we covered more than a few blocks and never got to the ferry landing.  I asked at the store:  “Oh. You can’t get to the ferry from here.”  That is not entirely true, of course.  But getting to the dock by road does involve driving over most of Denny Island.   Not walking down the road for an hour.

We did find where old machines come to die.

Our first (an hopefully only) incident  requiring Yacht Repair In Remote Places occurred Tuesday morning.  We had decided to spend one more day at Shearwater since friends from Eagle Harbor Yacht Club were scheduled to arrive with the ten-boat “Waggoner Flotilla” mid-day. We were glad we stayed.

We have a “wing engine”, a 28 hp Yanmar that sits over to the port side of the engine room.  He has his own little propeller and fuel tank. In the event that his big brother, Mr Lugger, needs a rest, a.k.a. quits, Yanmar will take over.  He’s not fast, but he can push Greywolf’s 60,000 pounds through the water in a more or less forward direction. Doug routinely runs Yanmar for an hour to exercise his parts.  On Tuesday morning, when the exercise hour was almost up, we heard an unusual sound.  Doug shut down Yanmar and opened the engine room door:  salt water and exhaust were merrily spraying around and floating about. They are not generally allowed in the engine room.  A weld on the exhaust system had let go.  Yanmar’s exhaust system had been rebuilt somewhere in the South Seas by the first owner and the time had come to rebuild it again.  

Yanmar’s exhaust system with the broken welded fitting removed.
Even I know that ya’ can’t run an engine with gaping, or even small, holes.

Shearwater is the only place between Port McNeill and Prince Rupert that has the capacity to haul a boat out of the water and provide a mechanic. Greywolf did not need to be hauled out, but she did need mechanic or a welder.  Or both.  Shearwater’s mechanic was not available to even look at Yanmar until Monday.  We’d go to Prince Rupert without a back-up means of propulsion.  We let Mr Lugger know that his buddy was feeling poorly (he knew there was a problem since he had been showered with salt water) and he needed to solider on to Ketchikan without a back-up.  
Got it! I’m your man.

This cenotaph* commemorates the WWII service of residents of Shearwater and nearby Bella Bella.  The Stranraer flying boat was based at Bella Bella. The carving at the left is eagle/raven.

*Cenotaph:  a special structure or statue that is built to remind people of a person 

or group of people whose remains are elsewhere.  I don’t remember seeing 

that word before, but there a many things I don’t remember...

The model, with its17 foot wingspan, is 

a weathervane.

Last year, when the end of the large shop (a former WWII Canadian Air Force hanger) needed to be replaced, the resort owner commissioned a 120 X 22 foot mural depicting seventeen people who had a impact on the growth and development of Shearwater, including the original manager of the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost and the owner’s father.  I couldn’t get a good photo of the mural from the parking lot, so Allie and I climbed a hill and peeked between the trees.  I preferred the tree limbs to the utility poles and wires.

Ivory Island in Milbank Sound. No dragons. We
encountered dragons here on our first trip. 
 Very scary.

It would be difficult to explain to the insurance company 
why you didn’t see this, eh?

Not too hard to tell where it came from....

Heading north from Bottleneck Inlet, May 30

We finally started seeing waterfalls...

Anchored in Lowe Inlet, we enjoyed the sight and sound of  Verney Falls.

Island Crown

Boat traffic in 45 mile long Grenville Channel, 
“The Ditch”.  

Our first two hours in The Ditch on May 31st were against the current on a 14 foot tidal exchange 

with a 25 knot headwind.   

That’s just the way it goes some days.

The Seven J’s (I think that is her name) was not
 bothered by the current or the wind.

 Allie in the cat bird seat on the lookout for marine mammals.

Next stop:  Prince Rupert and Alaska

Chronicle 4 Rounding Cape Caution and Travels Beyond

As we followed this fishing boat out of Port McNeill’s harbor on May 23rd,  Doug leaned out the pilot house door and asked me, “How much did you pay that skipper to put down his poles?” 

I was busy putting away lines and fenders and hadn’t noticed that the skipper on the fishing boat had indeed put down out his poles. (No, they’re not down in the photo...)

Doug and I have an on-going “discussion” about when to put down our stabilizing poles.  It is a continuation of our when-to reef-the-mainsail discussions from sailboat days.  He did deploy the poles, but the wind and seas did not build and the actual stabilizers or “fish” never saw the water that day.

The weather was actually more pleasant than it looks in the photo.
 No, it really was.

Allie’s beach at Port Alexander had years of driftwood and plastic garbage piled up.

 

Doug and Allie both liked the float.

Tide Pool Critters

Allie loves to try to pick up shells underwater, but her opposing thumb doesn’t work too well and she has yet to figure out how to hold her breath to grab the shell with her teeth .  She paws and scrapes in the water until the shell is on the beach (and it’s usually just a little piece of a shell) and then she trots proudly around with it.  There are 1,327,583 pieces of shell on the beach the same size.   She goes for the ones in 6-8 inches of water.  Some Poodles are very smart.  Some are very silly.

'Looked like an invasive species to us.  Do you know what it is?

Doug tossed this stick for Allie.  She chased it, and then decided that she’d eat it rather than bring it back to be thrown again.  He tried to trade it in for another chase-stick, but she’s have nothing to do with a replacement. Since Allie didn’t want to cease eating Stick, Doug tossed Stick far out into the water.

Waiting for Stick to come back.

If only I could start the motor.  Maybe the oars...

Doug found the beginning of a trail.

The trail was well marked with water bottles. Mosquitoes had also found the trail.  We decided not to join them.  And the bear bells were on the boat.  Where they always are when we go ashore.

But see how well prepared I am with my 
life jacket on?  

Never go hiking without it.

There IS something to be said for getting up at 
O' Dark Hundred. A host of birdies were  
greeting the day by singingsingingsinging.  
We were quietly drinking our coffee and getting ready for a long day.

Early morning board meeting

Chart plotter:  we’re the big blue triangle.  We have two cruise ships on our port.  They’ll be in Ketchikan before us.  The Linda B is a fishing boat; we followed her tack for a few hours.   I don’t remember what the other boat, Vector, is.

Cape Caution is top right.  The first of the two marks on the line going out from it is the 2 1/2 mile mark.  The ocean floor starts to shallow up there; you generally have smoother swells if you stay in the deeper water.

The readout at the bottom right is our AIS system identifying  us to vessels  that have a receiving unit and identifying all vessels that have an AIS sending unit to us .  A nice piece of insurance. If you have good eyesight, you can see that reads Length 45’, Beam 16'.  Close. Some boats don’t have any information there.  Some have numbers that make no sense:  Length 65', Beam 51'. I assume that means “none of your business”.

Feeding the fish outside the Dawson's Landing Store

Our long day ended about 5:30 when we tied up Greywolf at Dawson’s Landing. The General Store opened in the ’20’s  to serve the 18 Rivers Inlet canneries that operated in this area.  Sports fishing resorts now dot the shores. The store still looks the same as when we first visited in 2007, stocked with an amazing variety of merchandise. 

Rob Bachan, the proprietor, gave us prawns!

Later in the season, Rob and Nola, his wife, will rent the cabins to fishermen.  The General Store is in the background, below.

I didn’t see a rental sign, but I imagine this covered 

moorage is available.

Doug and I appreciate  the spirit of the 

past that we encounter in what we call 

“the fally-down places” on the BC coast. 
There aren’t many left.  The people 
who keep them going are 
important.

 Beautiful country.  Once hard-working    boats. 

When we visited in 2011, Allie got to romp on the docks with Fanny, Rob and Nola’s German Shepard.  Fanny (or her replacement?) had just returned from the vet in Port Hardy; she cut her foot on something playing Chase The Stick and was temporarily out of commission.  Allie had her eye on this lovely cat on the M/V "4th of July", an equally lovely Grand Banks, as a playmate or.....  ’Twas not to be.

From Dawson’s Landing, Greywolf, spend the next night anchored in Kwakume Inlet. 
 Doug and I gave the anchorage high ratings.   
Allie gave it a rating of  0 on a scale of 1-3.  No beach--no points.

Allies rating of increased to 1 when she spotted 

The Seals.  They were so far away, we thought they were a rock.  

They were ON a rock. Dogzz know the difference. 

Barking commenced.

When we went to bed, we were still the only boat in the inlet. Doug joked about not needing to turn on the anchor light.  “Who would come in here in the dark?”  Of course, he did turn on the light.

The answer to Doug’s question was “Island Roamer”. 

When we got up in the morning, we had company.  A serious inflatable separated itself from the sailboat and sped across the inlet, stopping near the shore. Its sole occupant, with a camera with a lens the size of Allie, was intent on photographing…what?  I got the binoculars. A wolf.  By the time I traded in the binoculars for a camera, Wolf was gone.

The skipper stopped by Greywolf to chat and show me his photos of the wolf. He thanked Greywolf for inviting the wolf down to the water’s edge 

Next stop:  Shearwater.