No lazy days in Port McNeill for us. We truly enjoyed sunny evenings socializing with fellow boaters, making new friends, and – to our surprise meeting “old’ friends who were just in the neighbourhood.
We played tourists for a few days, exploring the historic community of Alert Bay, charming Telegraph Cove with its famous boardwalk, and Port Hardy, the last major community on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.
With a little help we managed to get our dinghy engine serviced (yes, again), provisioned, and got Fortitude X ship- and ourselves shaped for the next chapter of the journey. Well stocked with local wines, plenty of well wishes and advise, we left the safe harbour of Port McNeill to motor up Queen Charlotte Strait and Goletas Channel for our next anchorage in Bull Harbour on Hope Island. We spent Canada Day, joined by two more boats, monitoring the weather and calculating slack to determine our departure time for the next day.
It was a misty and somewhat cool July 2nd when the three sailing vessels headed for the bar in the early morning hours. I was full of excitement, having been warned about Nahwitti Bar and Cape Scott as they have been described as formidable barriers, especially approaching them for the first time. I know we were well prepared and I decided to subscribe to Don Watmough’s attitude to not approach these two waypoints as barriers, but rather as gateways to the majesty of this magnificent coastline.
Eleven hours, twelve humpback whales (one breaching), and 59.1 NM later we dropped anchor in Browning Inlet. That arrival beer never tasted so good. It was an exhilarating but overall uneventful sail that left us tired but happy by the end of the day. With gale warnings still in effect, we are now enjoying our time discovering Quatsino Sound, the first of the five major sounds that cut deep into Vancouver Island’s west coast, and even managed to receive our second vaccination dose in the friendly town of Port Alice.
We are heading for Julian Cove next, hoping for favourable winds to go around Cape Cook and Clerke Point on Brooks Peninsula. Being located 6 NM out from the prevailing Vancouver Island coast line, winds often strike Cape Cook before any other part of the west coast.
Good thing we are not in a rush!
