July 15, 2013 ~ Pender Harbour to Prideaux Haven

We heard the loons again this morning, calling back and forth from either side of the boat.  The only thing that seemed to quiet them down was me turning on the video camera so I could record them.  Although we had a long trip planned for today, we had a fairly lazy morning admiring our surroundings.

We finally hoisted anchor and got going just after 11:00, with our planned destination Galley Bay, just behind Sara Point, where Desolation Sound first comes into view.  But first we had to transit the long stretch up Malispina Strait, the passageway along the east side of Texada Island.  Texada is one very long island.

Once we were out in the strait, we encountered about a 3 foot chop, with the wind head on.  We had started out from Pender with the windshield wide open, but this was a pretty cool blast, and soon we had some salt spray as well.  Although the ride was fairly smooth, much better than crossing Georgia Strait, the salt spray was much more, reaching up to and over the bridge to the point that I had to use the wipers from time to time.  This went on for about 2 hours, and as we were approaching Grief Point, where I thought it might get worse as we cleared the point, we considered the option of heading for Westview instead of continuing.  But instead, the seas calmed down and it was smooth cruising from that point northward.  We continued on past Westview and Powell River, passing Harwood and Savory Islands on our way towards Lund.  Beyond Lund it gets really scenic as we enter Thulin Passage, which runs between the Copeland Islands and the mainland.  To our port we could see the snow capped peaks along Vancouver Island on the other side of Georgia Strait, and to starboard we saw the mountain tops on the mainland.

Erin takes photos as we travel Thulin Passage

An early view of Desolation Sound from Sara Point

Desolation Sound from the helm

A short distance beyond Thulin Passage is Sara Point, where the grandeur of Desolation Sound reveals itself, with the crown jewel being Mount Crawshay.  Galley Bay is open to this entire panorama, but alas, when we arrived there we found a sailboat anchored in our favorite spot, back behind a large rock.  We went in anyway and circled around.  I think we could have squeezed in but decided to instead check out some alternatives.  We continued on into the heart of the Desolation Sound area, passing through the narrow passageway inside of Otter Island.  There are a few anchorage spots here as well, and while I’ve always seen boats here stern tied to shore, this time there was one boat anchored out in the middle of the passageway as well.  We weren’t really planning on an anchorage there anyway, it’s just a scenic bypass, and as a bonus avoids Sky Pilot Rock, which is situated on the other side of Otter Island.

Although we had cruised for nearly 6 hours at close to 1500 rpm without a peep from the temperature alarm, after slowing to idle a couple times I noticed the needle on the panel gauge heading up towards 200 degrees, and soon the alarm beeped a couple times as well.  I headed down to the galley, opened the steps into the engine room and took a look at the mechanical temperature gauge there.  It was still at 180 degrees.  That new gauge has earned its keep. Looks like we have an intermittent gauge/alarm issue with our panel, not a cooling problem with the engine.  This is a much easier problem to contend with.

Although we arrived at Galley Bay around 5:30 or so, as expected, we had putted around for another hour or so before arriving at Prideaux Haven, which is probably the main and most popular anchorage up here.  But, it has several coves and arms to it, so we poked in to look around.  Although there were quite a few boats, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as we might expect, especially since it was now nearly 7 o’clock in the evening.  In the past we’ve gone down the narrow channel towards Laura Cove and anchored there in the shallows, stern-tying to shore.  But, we were hot and tired by now and didn’t want to mess with that, so instead turned towards the west, where an arm goes all the way through to Eveleigh Anchorage on the outside – all the way through if you’re in a dinghy at high tide, that is.  We set our anchor in about 45 feet of water, with just a sailboat between us and the shoal passage.  To our east we have a view of not only the anchorage, but the surrounding hills and Mount Crawshay.  One of these days we’ll get a wifi connection strong enough to post a few more pictures.

It was about 80 degrees when we arrived, and another advantage of our position here on the west side of the bay is we get the early shade, which we appreciated very much.  After  a light dinner of a tortilla roll-up, I prepared a bucket of warm, soapy water and cleaned the salt off our windows.  I’m glad I didn’t do it at Pender – we had a lot more salt collected today.