Index

Return to Canada
Sidney, BC.
Over to Vancouver
Desolation!
Into the Wilderness
Engine Troubles
Southward bound
Civilization again

Return to Canada

We had a great Christmas and New Year back in England, meeting up with all the family on both sides, and visiting friends as well. We bought an old banger just before Christmas and drove it 5,000 miles without mishap, but isn’t the cost of petrol high! It went up by ten percent in the three months we were there.

After Christmas, Ruth, our tenant in our Dover apartment, let us stay in our flat while she house-sat for another couple who were on their yacht in Spain. To keep ourselves occupied during the last month of our stay, we helped Ruth completely redecorate her mother’s former flat and move her in. Left without her furniture we were back to living with a bed and the plastic garden table and chairs. It was just like when we first moved in, before we had bought any furniture. So now the flat is empty and we are waiting for the agency to find us new tenants. It had been very good for us having Ruth rent our flat, but wonderful to see her so excited about moving into what would become her own home.

We were very grateful for the help given by Ruth and Barry, and for their company and that of other members of White Cliffs Motorboat and Yacht Club. They are a great group and gave us a lovely send off when we left.

Most of our energies during our time in England were spent sorting out Andrew’s health. He had been feeling unwell during the last month or so in Canada, and had lost a good deal of weight, but had put off seeing a doctor until we returned in December. It turned out to be Graves Disease, an overactive thyroid gland with eye complications, at a very acute state by the time we got back. Then in January he started to lose his sight. The NHS rushed into overdrive. There was a constant round of appointments with various specialists and endless blood tests. By the time we were booked to fly back in mid February the thyroid was pretty much under control and treatment would not need to be reviewed for a year; but the problem with the eyes, although relieved by steroids, was not stabilised. The doctors recommended that he should stay at least another month in England. Changing our return flight tickets proved very stressful, requiring several long phone calls to the USA before we eventually managed to secure new tickets at a reasonable additional cost. How we wished we'd taken out travel insurance - we've never needed it before. Having bought rather than rented a car proved a blessing though.

Things then calmed down and we both managed to get our blood pressures back to normal. Andrew put on much of the weight he had lost, while I managed to lose some and toned up in the nearby gym. Our new departure date was 27th March. It was a real bonus to be able to sell the car to Jason, my daughter Nicola’s other half, on our last day and have him drive us to Heathrow. It was the day the new terminal 5 opened for business but fortunately our flight had not yet been transferred there as the new terminal was in chaos. Our travel went very smoothly, though the journey of 23 hours stopping in Toronto was wearying.

N.B. You may be wondering why the usual pic of yours truly at the top has been replaced by that of a fishing-boat figurehead. Andrew says the figurehead, which we spotted in the Chicago Institute of Art, has exactly my expression on peering out from Sentinel first thing of a cold March morning here. Try clicking on the button beneath, and the truth will be revealed!

Sidney, BC.

We arrived back in Port Sidney Marina in the middle of the night wondering what we would find after neglecting poor Sentinel for three months. To our relief we found her dry and warm with only one area of mould on the side of the bed under the window which had not been closed properly. The only remaining damp was in a jumper in the locker under the window, which seemed to have saved the other clothing from harm. Our next pleasant surprise was the engine starting first turn and all the electrics were working. A new transmission which had been organised when we left was brought and fitted promptly a couple of days later, and the main sail was retrieved from the repairers on Wednesday. So we are now fully mobile again. Tony and Nancy, who live on Moondancer just up the dock, had been very good friends in keeping an eye on Sentinel and emailing us. They plan to sail south towards Mexico later this year, around the same time we plan to go.

We do feel at home in Sidney, a pretty and prosperous town north of Victoria. The weather is very much the same as in England. On a sunny afternoon in April it feels warm enough not to need a jacket, but there is still a chill in the wind and at night the temperature drops dramatically. We are feeling the cold more on the boat than we did in England because the sea temperature is so much colder, and Sentinel is only insulated above the water line. A hot water bottle is very welcome at night.

Its a gentler tempo of life. Daffodils and tulips are in bloom all down the spotlessly clean high street, people nod to one another as they pass ("How're you doing?" "Mustn't grumble!"). Cars pull up to let pedestrians cross the streets, and we have never heard a horn. The supermarkets stock crumpets, Oxford marmalade and tripe. No sullen youths hanging around aimlessly in groups, by six o'clock everyone has gone home for tea and the town is empty. We had a really fun evening at the Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club’s “British Pub Night”, eating bangers and mash with mushy peas, quaffing Pale Ale (wine for me) and singing lots of wartime favourites round the old piano. We also enjoyed going to the local dramatic society’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s "Patience". In all, it's little England just the way we've always imagined it!

As the wheels move slowly sorting out a specialist who can monitor Andrew's health here, probably in Vancouver as there is not one in Sidney or Victoria, Andrew has made some repairs to the boat, and I have made a new spray hood. Tony took us and our propane bottles with him to a garage and we got both our American and an old European bottle filled. We are booked into Port Sidney Marina until 15th April, and then hope we can move back to Anacortes in the USA before sailing into Vancouver. The US Bank decided to close our US bank account whilst in England as a result of new money-laundering laws prohibiting non-residents from holding a US account, and sent us a cheque for the balance in US dollars. So we need to visit their branch in Anacortes to cash the cheque. It will be inconvenient to lose this account, even though it had caused us nothing but trouble since opening, as there is increasing reluctance in the USA to accept a foreign credit card for some purchases.

Over to Vancouver

It had taken a long time, but Andrew eventually got an appointment with a top consultant in Vancouver for 29th April. So it was time to leave Sidney. We met Richard again, who was the first person we met when we arrived at Sidney last year, and also had a very pleasant evening with new friends Neal and Debbie who contacted us after reading my Yachting Monthly piece on the Amazon. They used to live in Sandwich in Kent. It turned out that Debbie’s father had sailed from Vancouver to Australia and back twenty years ago, and they kindly gave us all his old charts of the Pacific, which will be invaluable when we cross.

Waving goodbye to Nancy and Tony from Moondancer we left Port Sidney on Thursday 24th April. It was a lovely sail across the Haro Straight to San Juan Island in the USA, with a brisk wind to bowl us nicely along. US customs there issued our new one-year cruising permit for the States. The next morning we left early for Anacortes but with no wind, we motored all the way. The bank cashed the cheque on our closed account with no trouble, not even bothering to check my ID!

Fisherman's Wharf, Vancouver.

Saturday was another sunny day but without wind, so we motored to Point Roberts, our last stop in the USA. A gale was forecast for the next day, but once again we had to motor all the way to Vancouver. By late morning the drizzle set in and it just got wetter as the day wore on. As we passed the mouth of the Frazer River we spotted a great many seals and could hear their barks. In Vancouver we entered False Creek, right in the centre of the city, where we got a slip in Fisherman’s Wharf, next to Granville Island. We were surrounded by fishing boats, but the price is reasonable and there was even free wifi. It was also close for Andrew to walk to the hospital, where after umming and ahhing for two hours the consultant declared his progress satisfactory.

In Vancouver we have explored Granville Island and its wonderful fresh-food market, then walked to the nearby Maritime Museum which houses the St Roch, a ship designed for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to patrol around the northern coast of Canada and its Arctic islands. Back in 1942 she became only the second ship ever to sail through the notorious North-West Passage. We have visited the famous classical Chinese garden of Dr Sun Yat-Sen, in downtown Chinatown, and the Capilano suspension footbridge in the rainforest to the north of Vancouver. We took Andrew's cousin Penny's daughter Louise and husband Larry out for a meal on Granville Island. They had won a luxury cruise to Alaska in a raffle and were excited about leaving shortly. Then we took ourselves off on a four-day coach tour of some of the best places in the Rockies, which is related elsewhere. We met Penny again when she visited Vancouver to see off Louise and Larry, and all went to the Science Museum, which turned out to be very much geared to children, but still had a few things to amuse us. One memorable boozy evening was spent in company with Thor, the guy living on the fishing boat moored next to us. It's no longer a real fishing-boat, prettified it gets hired out as a prop in film sets from time to time. An artist in metalwork, he has had some interesting commissions locally. A day was spent replacing our VHF aerial cable which had become rotten up the mast, and then we were ready to set off northwards hoping summer would continue.

Desolation!

The first day out of Vancouver we only ventured a little way north and anchored off Gambia Island in the Howe Sound. During the night the wind turned around and blew straight in on us and continued to blow strongly into the sound making our attempt at exiting a very wet experience. We had made only four miles after motor-sailing several hours and so decided to anchor in a sheltered spot off Keats island, just inside the sound, following behind a yacht named Loch Fyne, also seeking shelter. The next morning could not have been more different. The sea was smooth and the sun shone, even though the air still had an icy sting. We had a wonderful day’s sailing northwards to Pender Harbour. We turned into the anchorage and saw another yacht sporting a red ensign, Integrity II, and there was an English couple on board. This was the first English yacht we had seen since New York. It poured with rain all the next day so we all stayed put and spent much of the day together going over charts and books and stories. They had a lovely wood-burning stove.

Having been told that the Princess Louisa Inlet should not be missed, we set out early the next morning in the rain, (brave or foolhardy?) to start the forty mile motor along the Agamemnon Channel, Prince of Wales Reach, and the Princess Royal Reach to arrive at the short stretch of rapids leading to the Princess Louisa Inlet at slack water. The further we went the higher and steeper were the mountains. The rain stopped and gradually the clouds lifted. The scenery was stunning. We returned to Pender after a couple of days as we knew we could stock up on LPG, diesel, petrol, water, and food, and visit the Post Office.

At midday we started raising the anchor and the windlass stopped working. It took quite a while and a lot of energy winding it up with the windlass handle, but then we had a good sail, mostly goose-winged, all the way to Lund, arriving after seven in the evening. Here we tied to the inside of the breakwater, the only place for visitors, behind Loch Fyne again. We immediately started taking our windlass apart. A yacht behind us had purchased a bag of prawns fresh off the boat when it had come in. They had more than a dozen too many and gave them to us; making a delicious late dinner, quickly cooked in garlic butter. The next day we stayed put, doing the laundry, getting the windlass to work and getting some paint back on the motor’s casing. Having repainted Nellie we now spent a couple of hours putting a new piece of split hose around her top edge by way of a bumper.

We continued into Desolation Sound and found it lived up to its name as we approached, with low-level cloud and rain obscuring our view. The wind hit us from different directions in great gusts that made sailing an exciting experience A tug that was very slowly towing a huge collection of logs, actually gave way to us as we crossed the waterway to stop in Refuge Cove for lunch. After the next shower, we thrashed to windward for the afternoon before entering the peaceful Melanie Cove of Prideaux Haven. While enjoying the peace and beauty of this cove the following morning, Ken arrived in his dinghy. Dragons Taill was anchored in Laura’s Cove around the headland. So we joined them in the afternoon, when the windlass was put back in service, and had a pleasant time together. It rained again at night, but the sun cleared away the misty clouds in the morning.

We traversed much of the labyrinth of waterways of Desolation Sound, some six miles wide, some only a hundred feet, and some only to be tackled on slack water. On each side were moss covered rocky mountains with light and dark fir trees, beech and birch, and the red trunks of the arbutus trees, growing wherever they could get a toe hold. We found many cosy anchorages and walked many miles of trails through the rain forests, some not in the intended direction. Although everything on the islands was covered in thick green moss, we encountered few boggy patches on our walks. The hardest parts of the trail were climbing over, under or round fallen trees. We went to Campbell River on 27th May, where Andrew got a bus to Vancouver for his appointment with the eye specialist.

Into The Wilderness

Campbell River is the last town of any size when heading north and the marina at Discovery Harbour was close to all the shopping we required, the large food store and chandlers being the most visited. As Andrew had to get his blood tests done several days before his appointment, we decided to stay in the marina for more than a week and make some much needed rust repairs. This entailed removing the bilge outlet skin fitting from the side of the hull and the diesel filling pipe from the tank to give access inside the hull. This went remarkably smoothly apart from attempting to pour a diesel additive into the tank forgetting that with the filler disconnected it merely poured all over the engine compartment. We also unbolted the steering binnacle from the cockpit floor, hanging it from the boom, in order to derust and paint the entire cockpit. The guard rails were removed from the port side and most of the rusty spots down the port side deck were ground and repainted. The final coat of paint was put on the cockpit while Andrew was travelling to Vancouver with a gale doing its best to blow the tarpaulin to pieces over my head and the threat of rain on the wet paint. It rained most of the night but at least the wind had died down by then.

It was not all work though. We got in touch with some old friends of Andrew’s cousin Penny. Jim and Jan lived on the outskirts of Campbell River and invited us over for a delicious lunch and afternoon of chatting. Jan and Penny used work at the same hospital when their children were young. The next day Jim took us round about to see the rapids at Seymour Narrows, which we would be traversing later, and a walk around Elk Falls Park. Another day they took us south on a scenic route to Courtney via a visit to Jim’s yacht and other places of interest, ending back at their place for a pizza and much needed English tea. They knew so much about the area they would make perfect tour guides. We are very grateful to them.

We now had six weeks to go north and back to Vancouver for Andrew's next specialist appointment. The boat was put back together, stocked up and ready to go, but the weather decided to turn cold and wet. The morning of 5th June we left Campbell River with the wind gusting from the south and the rain temporarily abated. We were taking the last of the ebb towards Seymour Narrows and making 7 knots under reefed genoa. There was a high spring tide and ten to twenty minutes of slack between ebb and flow. The idea was to go through the narrows just before slack and get to Browns Bay marina two miles north of the narrows before the current prohibited further progress north. We arrived too early and hung about warming ourselves with a hot cup of soup. The rain was pelting down again and a small freighter went through the Narrows early, so decided to follow their route.

In the middle of the narrows there had been a twin peaked rock, Ripple Rock, just hidden below the surface that had taken many ships and lives. Boats have been swamped and sunk, in fact a hundred people have died here, which is understandable during the height of the current.So eventually in 1958 it was blown up. It took two years to tunnel underground to the base of the rocks, then vertically, filling the vertical shafts with explosives. Ships now don’t hit anything but even deep down the rock still creates turbulence. Overfalls appear and disappear, there are many whirlpools, but they had little effect on Sentinel. We passed one whirlpool with a hole in the centre about a foot in diameter.

At the far end of the narrows we tied up in Browns Bay marina where there was a daytime restaurant, a small store, a few homes around the bay and a motor home park. The Internet provider had gone down and there was no mobile phone access, but it was quite cheap. We put on the heaters and shut ourselves in against the awful weather outside. Sentinel does not have a heating system, so unless we can hook an electric heater to marina shore power we would stay cold at night. We had not expected this to be a real problem in June, even when we reached Alaska, but the exceptional weather was making life difficult. We heard later that was the coldest June day ever recorded in Vancouver. As we prepared to leave the next morning I found it hard to believe I was wearing my full depth of winter clothing and it was June! Just what has happened to summer?

Again we went out into strong north flowing water and this time, strong northwesterly winds. It did not rain and occasionally the sun came out. Progress was quite fast until early afternoon when the current changed direction and we reached another narrow stretch of water with an island in the middle. Current Passage went north of the island and Race Passage went to the south. We chose the south. Our speed over the ground dropped from 7 knots to just over 1. Again there were upwellings, overfalls and whirlpools. I watched a fishing boat appear from Current Pass and head across the other side near a place called Kelsey Bay, and then continue up the middle of the channel. I wondered if the current was any weaker over near the bay and very slowly made my way across. There was a little less wind there and our speed gradually increased to 3 knots going somewhere near the right direction. Then the wind started to blow at force 7 against us. Before long we were headbashing at 4 knots through the choppy waters, spray everywhere, until after an hour or so we reached the shelter of Neville Bay. As we turned into the bay we spotted a small run-down dock, and there was Frank with whom we had spent a pleasant evening in Octopus Bay over a week earlier.

Neville Bay is a mostly abandoned settlement of about a dozen houses, but the post office is still open and run by Lorna whose family first settled here a hundred years ago. We looked over her old family home, once the general store, which she is trying to maintain as a museum, though she now lives in a small cabin formerly used as a school-house. Apart from her, there are just a few summer homes. While on the dock, a family of otters visited us. There was said to be a black bear on the dock earlier, but we did not see it.

The following morning the low misty cloud slowly lifted. The engine oil needed topping up, then the rest of the day we motored north to the Indian village of Alert Bay. The waters slowly flattened out and the wind died down, so that when the sun shone we got too hot. It was quite a pleasant day. We looked for the orca whales at a spot where they are supposed to be numerous, but it is a bit too early in the year for them and we only saw a few dolphins. Hopefully we will see the whales on our return south.

Alert Bay is a good place to visit if interested in the history of the First Nations. The U’mista Cultural Centre, opened in 1980, houses the potlatch collection of native items which were confiscated by the Canadian authorities in 1921 when potlatches were outlawed. Such is the sensitivity still surrounding these events that we had difficulty understanding the exact circumstances. Potlatches were occasions for intertribal meetings and celebrations among the native peoples, at which many gift items would be exchanged. Tribesmen wore elaborate masks and headdresses, and carried coppers, as stories were told in song and dance. These coppers were sheets of copper made into particular shapes and represented wealth. Their value increased every time they changed hands, until they could represent the equivalent of hundreds of blankets. It seems that by the early 20th century the ex-colonial authorities regarded the potlatches as occasions for debauchery and complained they could last for months, so determined to suppress them. The artefacts were eventually handed over by agreement as bail for those arrested for holding a potlatch, and most were transferred to various Canadian museums. However, their loss continued to be felt as a tremendous cultural and financial blow by the Kwakwaka'wakw people, and by the 1970's the tribes were able to press for their return, which was eventually agreed on condition they were kept on display. So the U'mista Cultural Centre at Alert Bay is a treasure house of their artifacts which can still be used again for ceremonies. Incidentally, U’mista means a returning of something taken, in Kwakwaka'wakw language.

We found just enough room to tie up at the government dock which was near a food store, a liquor store, had electricity and free wifi connection, and was cheap. The yacht behind us was chartered by two Australian couples as part of an extended holiday in Canada. The owner was also on board as skipper and head chef and bottle washer. There seem to be a lot of Australians holidaying in Canada. They seemed disconsolate that summer weather in British Columbia was much worse than winter weather in Australia.

As soon as we had had lunch we ventured north again, headed for a small bay on an outlying island called God’s Pocket. At the head of the tiny bay with a few run-down looking cabins was a short pontoon leaving little room to anchor. As we wondered what to do a man came down and moved one of his boats for us to tie up. Bill seemed very friendly and told us he was there with his wife, brother and father, and if we wanted we could join them with a drink and watch a film. We were invited into their cabin where they had just started a film. We drank the tins of cider we had brought and the wife went to sleep, and the brothers wandered off. So we left too and talked to Bill. He came on board and showed us on the chart a safe anchorage if we needed it the next day if there was a gale. He then suggested that we could anchor just a little further out of the bay, or if we stayed put he would have to charge us for the mooring. Andrew coughed up 30 dollars, quite extortionate given there were no facilities of any kind.

The weather forecast was not good. Gale force winds from the northwest were forecast for Monday afternoon, rising to storm force with a second low following quickly behind the first. The safest option seemed to retreat eight miles back to Port Hardy, a small town at the northern end of Vancouver Island. We left God’s Pocket in the rain and made across to Port Hardy to be told there were absolutely no spaces available in the marina, even though we could see plenty. It seemed obvious that with bad weather forecast few more yachts would arrive, so a little later we telephoned the marina to see if they had any cancellations. We were added as number seven to the yachts on the waiting list. Nevertheless, late in the afternoon, they telephoned back and offered us space. Power included, so warm at last!

We stayed two nights. Two other yachts left first thing in the morning and were back before midday as it was too stormy going north. We got a few jobs done, including the laundry, topping up propane gas and water, and a little more food shopping, all set for an early getaway on 11th June. We left Port Hardy at seven thirty, more than an hour after the two other yachts and met up with them again at the end of the day. It was cold and grey and my stomach was a little unsettled. We passed God’s Pocket again and then we met the swell, the wind and the waves of the open sea. It was a year almost to the day that Sentinel had last been out in open sea, when we rounded Sandy Hook approaching New York.

By midday we were rounding Cape Caution, then Egg Island. There were a lot of rocks with waves breaking over them. Then I saw some huge water spouts from whales, unfortunately too far away for a good view and I only saw the odd black back or black fin. The sun cleared the clouds away and I shed a couple of jackets. Later the wind was strong enough for us to get the sails up and enjoy a brisk sail for a couple of hours until we were again in the shelter behind islands. The wind shifted to a course straight down the waterway against us and we motored into our sheltered anchorage behind Green Island. I dropped the crab pot. There were the two yachts that had left Port Hardy with us and we thought to drop anchor nearby and socialise, but they didn't seem very welcoming so we moved away.

It was cold, grey and raining in the morning. At ten thirty we braved the elements, brought up the anchor, retrieved the empty crab pot, and again resolutely headed north. At least this time the winds were behind us and we averaged seven and a half knots under motor. It didn’t seem worth putting up the genoa and going slower. The rain was forecast to turn to showers in the afternoon but it just kept on raining, alternating between lightly and heavily. The oilskins did their job and we kept dry inside of them, but it got colder and colder. We changed watch every hour and when off watch and not preparing food, I was huddled under a blanket to get warm. The last couple of miles to Shearwater Marina, near Bella Bella, were into the biting wind and rain. I was freezing. I radioed the marina to be told they were full, but we could raft up against someone’s motorboat. We did this but then found out they were maxed out on electricity, presumably by all the motor yachts there, and many of the large ones were running generators as well. So without power and the noise of generators, we decided to anchor just off the breakwater.

Even though the cold drove us to bed early, we still rose late. The warmest place is in bed. We started to raise the anchor but the clutch on the windlass kept slipping and we had to pull it in by hand. We filled up with fuel at Shearwater and then motored the few miles to Bella Bella public dock to get a few more fresh food items and had lunch on board. The sun was really raising the clouds by then and we could see the tops of some of the mountains. Our afternoon trip of some fifteen miles was pleasant for a change, and we anchored in a very peaceful cove surrounded by low level islands and rocks. We took the windlass clutch apart to find we'd last reassembled it slightly wrongly. The fault now seemed to be cured. It was a lovely evening with the birds singing, some small fish jumping, and a few jobs completed on the boat.

The following day was also pleasant with hardly any rain, a little sunshine and light northwesterly winds. We decided to take a detour up a channel that entered an area called Fjordland. Here the granite rocks had sheer vertical surfaces in places, and some were like the largest boulders you had ever seen, smooth rounded with snow on the top and nothing growing on them. Just a little way into this tributary was a fast-flowing waterfall down to water level. We could motor right up into its spray. The shape of the waterfall calls to mind some sort of figure, some say a shaman, others a priestess all in white. What do you think? From there we made our way along Sheep Passage and into a small inlet called Goat Cove for the night. Two more days would see us to Prince Rupert, the most northerly town on the British Columbia coast, and directly beyond lies Alaska.

Kynoch Falls

Engine Troubles

By nine in the morning we ready to make the trip up the long Princess Royal Channel. The engine fired up and then almost immediately cut and refused to start again. The starter motor was turning over the engine but it just wouldn’t fire. For the first time in the sixteen years we have had Sentinel we could not think of anything else we could try to get the engine to start. It was midday. There was a breeze out on the waterway but nothing in the cove. We were miles from anywhere, no-one around, out of range even of a phone connection. The chart showed a tiny native village a dozen miles away. We inflated the dinghy and attached the outboard, then strapped it firmly to the side of Sentinel near the stern. With no power to spare for the windlass, Andrew raised the anchor by hand and I sat in the dinghy ready to start it up and get us out of the cove. This worked better than expected. In calm waters the tiny outboard was moving the ten ton yacht at nearly 2½ knots. By two o’clock we were out on the main waterway, raised the sails and began sailing south down a narrow channel towards the village, into a contrary wind, of course. The wind was light and faltering, the tide turned against us and by nine that evening we had made just ten miles to a small anchorage called Mary Cove.

In the morning we repeated the procedure with the dinghy out of Mary Cove, and then sailed and pushed Sentinel to the village, Klemtu, where we tied up on the fuel dock. We hadn't much hope of finding a qualified mechanic in such an out the way place, but the fuel dock attendant said there was a guy called Grant who might be able to help. Grant arrived early that evening and spent the best part of two hours going over the fuel system. His first conclusion was what we suspected, some kind of failure in the injector pump we had bought in Anacortes. This was bad news. The village had just a once-weekly ferry service, so it might take three weeks to get the pump sent out to where it could be fixed and returned. At least Grant rigged a shore power cable we could use, and we recharged our batteries overnight that had been flattened by repeated attempts to crank the engine.

When we woke in the morning it was raining sheets, and did so the entire day. Grant arrived at nine and after a cup of coffee decided that before dismantling the injector pump he would to have another go at bleeding any air out of the system. He opened and closed first this bolt and that, pumping fuel through by hand, finally working up to the injectors themselves, and with the batteries now fully charged and cranking the starter motor hard, suddenly to everyone's surprise the engine roared into life. So there we were with a working engine and still not sure why it had failed. Had it been a little bit of dirt in the pump which we had now cleared, or had an airlock got in somewhere? Grant suggested we look at the lift pump as it did not seem to work very well. We took it off during the morning, got out the service kit for it which we have carried around since we bought Sentinel, and took it over to where Grant lived. He gave us a huge bag of prawns he had been given which were in his freezer. There were 112 large prawns in all, half of which we ate cooked in garlic butter for dinner that night. They were delicious and we were all prawned out.

The walk over to Grant gave us an excuse to look around. Klemtu is a rough little fishing village of no more than 500 people, nearly all First Nations (Indians). There was a sign saying that it had the longest boardwalk in North America and was in the Guinness Book of Records. We couldn't find a trace of this. Although the village was run down with no more than a track for its only road, there was evidence of a good deal of past government subsidy. This included a large community hall, two schools, museum and a joint police and fire station. Grant had a large shed half filled with the town's old, small fire engine that he was doing up. He told us the fire station had replaced it with a much grander new engine, but it was so big it took them half an hour to get it out of the tiny station onto the muddy track, and when it was snowy they couldn’t get it out at all. In the last year four houses had burnt down (three were arson) and each time they hadn't been able to get the new engine out of the shed in time! We took our dripping selves into the village store. In pride of place on a stand near the checkout were sets of oilskins for Barbie. Where else would that be a top seller?

Grant duly returned next morning with the refurbished lift pump and refitted it. It was still raining. We cleaned up and decided to visit Alexandra Inlet to the north as we had heard it was pretty. The engine ran all right but after a while I could smell diesel and went to have a look at the engine. There was a lot of diesel leaking from the injector pump, burning as it hit the hot engine. Andrew tightened everything up but was unable to stop the leak and decided it was better to return to Klemtu because if we anchored for the night, air might get into the pump and we might not be able to start the engine in the morning. If fuel could escape, air could get in when the engine cooled down.

On our way back we saw a whale quite close to, going our way. First we saw the fountain when it blew, leaving a mist in the air for half a minute. Then we saw a hugely long black back with a comparatively small black dorsal fin, and then it lifted its tail out the water to show us. The flukes had a V-shaped notch and so it would have been a Humpback. How nice of it to come along and cheer us up. Back at Klemptu we tied up back in our old place, still able to use the power cable, and walked across town to find Grant. He had just got news of a suicide in his family and was pretty distraught. It didn't look as if he would be much further help.

In the morning we tracked down the exact spot where the leak was originating under one of the bolts on the injector pump together with its washer. We couldn't stop the flow by retightening, so very gingerly we removed them, then dropped them and lost them down the bilge, retrieved them after a good deal of searching from two different places, cleaned and smothered them in gasket goo and screwed the bolt back up tight, hoping the goo would stop the leak but not get inside the pump and cause another blockage. How relieved we were to find the engine still worked and it had now stopped leaking.

Southward bound

We had lost so much time by now, and we were so fed up with the continued bad weather that we decided to abandon the trip north and to return south again. We had reached to within about 120 miles of Alaska. It is one of the few times we have failed to make an intended destination. But at least I'm glad we got as far as we did and experienced the remoteness, the native villages, wildlife and scenery in "seven shades of grey" as the locals described it in the rain.

That afternoon I spotted a seal close to shore and then saw a grizzly bear on the narrow band of rocks between the dense forest and the water. It had just killed a deer which we saw it pick up and carry off into the forest. A bald headed eagle was watching from a nearby tree and ravens were also ready to pick up any scraps. It was hard to believe we were watching this in reality and not as a wildlife documentary.

Grizzly Bear

That evening yet another gale was forecast, and we anchored in a snug little bay called Oliver Cove. By this time we had heard so many gale forecasts, few of which amounted to much in the shelter of the islands, that we did not take the precautions we might have anywhere else, such as laying out two anchors or putting out shore lines. There was another small yacht in the cove and we spent a pleasant couple of hours over drinks with them before they got back into their ‘his and hers’ kayaks and paddled back to their yacht. We reminisced about Holland, where Mar had grown up, and Ron shared his experiences in Belem on the Amazon. They had seen a black bear around the anchorage not long before we arrived, but we did not see it even though Andrew had rowed ashore and scrambled about through the forest. It rained torrentially that night but despite the forecast the wind was scarcely strong enough to turn our wind generator.

When we came up on deck in the morning, we found a plastic bag with a note from Mar and Ron thanking us for the previous evening and enclosing a piece of smoked salmon. It was far too generous of them but made an excellent dinner that night. The sky was overcast and it was raining lightly with no wind. It didn’t look like much was going to change so we set off. The wind got up a bit, generally into our faces, and then would die away again, but for a few spells we sailed a while. We arrived at the marina in the remote settlement of Ocean Falls around 7 pm, and met up with a couple of boats we had seen in Klemtu. One said they had caught a crab over the other side of the bay so I motored the dinghy eventually finding a shallow enough spot for my 20 meter line, and dropped the crab pot. Back on board we found a free wifi connection and caught up on our emails as the rain poured down outside. It was Midsummer Night's Eve.

"Seven shades of grey", along the Mathieson Channel.

Ocean Falls is a ghost town. At one time, when the town had a major paper mill, five thousand people lived here, but today there are just 45 permanent residents. The government ordered the town to be razed when it was abandoned in 1980, and most was but some houses, offices and factories remain empty and rotting. It is still in decline. The hydroelectric plant still works, but the dam looks in dangerously poor repair. The bridge across collapsed into the river earlier this year. We saw some recent tiled ruins fallen down a cliff into the river, the only recognisable feature being an incongruous sign “Depth 8 feet” – later we identified this in a faded photograph from the 1920’s of an “Olympic swimming bath built at Ocean Falls, the finest in Canada”. The ‘large and well-stocked’ store where I had hoped to get bread and some other fresh food, is now only open for a couple of hours three days a week, and so badly supplied that even the local residents don’t use it. It was interesting wandering around the deserted buildings, filled with junk abandoned thirty years ago. The 400 room hotel is gutted, the old fire station held nothing but an old boat, there was no sign of the smart looking school or hospital we’d seen in photos, the glass frontage of the liquor store was intact but inside were nothing but ancient empties, and the broken-down bus parked by the ferry dock still bore a faded sign ‘Not in Service’.

Ocean Falls is one of the rainiest places in Canada, with 175 inches per year (compare rainy Plymouth, England, with 45). The town sign says “Home of the Rain People”. On the plus side, it is in an exceptionally beautiful location, backed by unbelievably high sheer granite mountains. The overgrown part of the town site was a riot of colourful wild flowers. Among the dereliction, here and there are houses perfectly maintained, and one church appeared still in use. There was a nice little marina, run by a volunteer, where internet had recently been installed. The town is only accessible by water but the ferry service does still visit once a week throughout the year. Until the dam fails there is no shortage of power. If you fancied getting away from it all, love communing with nature and don’t mind the wet, you could find this the ideal spot. You can buy a large house here ‘in good condition’ for £15,000. (Interested? Try the town website.) For us though I think it is time to continue heading south.

Before we left though, disaster with the crabbing! In the first spot I tried, the bait had not been touched so I dragged the crab pot to another place. In the morning we took the yacht over to winch it up, but the pot was stuck fast on the bottom and the line broke. Is this the end of my ineffectual attempts at crabbing? There was a seal close by where I put the pot down and again in the morning. One of the milk container floats had been bitten leaving several holes in it. What a pity he couldn’t bring up my crab pot for me.

Midsummer’s Day marked a turning point in the weather. What a surprise it was to wake up to a sunny Sunday. Not only that, but it stayed sunny all day. It did rain after that, but never again for days without a break, and it was generally much warmer. And very occasionally the wind was in our favour, enough for us to have a much longed-for sail.

However the next morning’s weather forecast was, as usual, still predicting a south-east gale, so heading out south around Cape Caution, the only part of the journey actually in the open Pacific, did not seem a good idea. Mid morning I suddenly saw the spume of a whale directly ahead of us, followed by a large black hump and then it disappeared for about twenty minutes. I next saw it almost beside us. Several times it just surfaced, first showing the top of its head as it spouted, then along the top of its back and its tiny dorsal fin. Then it arched up its back higher out of the water, followed by its tail and it dove down again, not reappearing again for some time when it was making its way across the channel for someone else to spot him.

We spent much of this day detouring some ten miles up Rivers Inlet to Dawson’s Landing where there was meant to be a small store, as we wanted to buy some fresh food having failed to do so in Ocean Falls. The store though had no fresh milk until delivery day. As prices were high, we only bought coffee and a frozen loaf. The amphibious mailplane came in with some post for the post office while we were there. It looked like a wounded duck floundering in the water. Instead of the usual two floats underneath it has a single float on the underside and a small float on each wing tip. One of these was raised which tipped the plane well over on one side so it could moor alongside at the dock.

As usual the forecast gale did not materialise and we felt rather frustrated having made such a long detour for nothing, but by seven we reached a pleasant anchorage just north of Cape Caution in Smith Inlet. We sat in the cockpit enjoying our scotch and gingers with only a bald eagle for company, and later made a ‘chuck-it-in’ stew from tins.

Porridge for breakfast, made with water and evaporated milk on the top, meant we could keep the remaining fresh milk for tea and coffee. The milk had kept fresh for six days, but we have had the fridge working throughout because we have been motoring so much, keeping the batteries topped up. The morning weather forecast actually dropped all gale warnings! It rained a bit off Cape Caution but once round, there was enough wind on the beam for us to have a really fast sail. We followed along the mainland coast, dotted with many small islets until we reached Blunden Harbour.

First sighting of orcas today. In the early afternoon I spotted some black fins between us and the shore. They were tall, not like the humpback’s fin. There was only a slight spume but nothing else could be seen. Later on I saw another whale, though probably not an orca. It is exciting sailing with the whales. We reached Blunden Harbour, behind Robinson Island, about fifteen miles from Broughton Island, at six and anchored off a beach where there had been a native village until 1930. There were many small Indian villages in the region that were abandoned around this time, as their traditional way of life finally collapsed. Our pilot guide said there were some interesting remains, but when we explored there is hardly anything left to see, apart from signs of recent excavation. Already it has become the stuff of archeologists, ancient history. It was a beautiful spot though.

There was a real bite to the wind next morning, but we managed to sail on and off until we reached the maze of islands and waterways of the Broughton Marine National Park. As we approached, the sun came out with a vengeance and it got so hot we were stripping off layers. We decided to take a more or less direct route through to Echo Bay on the other side. This meant taking some very narrow passages through. By keeping the long streams of thick weed between us and the shore, we crept through without any problems, and seemed to be a lot deeper than our chart indicated. It was a lovely area for pottering about exploring, yet surprisingly there was nobody else around.

Civilization again

All that was to change when we reached our next destination, Echo Bay. In this bay and surrounding area were many floating homes where people have lived for a hundred years. There is a small school at the head of Echo Bay. There are two marinas in the bay, the southern one being a resort with hotel, store, post office, Internet, laundry, and the other usual marina services. So, back to civilization, we were welcomed and helped to moor. The store did have a fair amount of stock, and at last we could buy fresh milk, frozen meat and bread. There was butter and eggs but no cheese or cooked meats, and no vegetables except apples. Delivery day as always is in another couple of days. It is as well that we still have plenty of tinned food.

The new owners of this marina had moved in just two months prior to our arrival, and were doing it up. The owner’s ‘lodge’ had been towed there from a couple of bays away, and was looking very smart. Pierre, the owner, had just got the water working and allowed me to use the laundry facilities. “It is going to be a jewel of a place”, he said, and maybe it would. The bay with a sheer rock face on the northern shore, creating the echo for which it is named, was a pretty spot.

Summer had not entirely arrived. It rained most of the night and the morning, though without any wind it seemed quite warm. The rain stopped and we left Echo Bay around noon. Driving around the islands shrouded in low clouds, it was misty damp. Gradually the wind got up, blowing icy cold from the southeast when it could reach us between the islands. The rocky islets had short, vertical sides going down deep into the water making them look like they had been cut out with a pastry cutter, and then had a competition to see how many trees could be got on top. We found an anchorage for a late lunch and then motored through Blackfish Passage and down Johnstone Strait to Robson Bight to whale watch. These are places said to be favoured by the orcas, and everyone said we would be sure to see them. On our way north we were too early in the year, so this was surely going to be spectacular. In Blackfish Passage we saw another humpback whale, but from then on there was no sign whatever of a black fin or a spume. They just did not want to come out to play in their favourite spots - perhaps the weather was too cold?

Going southeast down Johnstone Strait the cruise liner Veendam passed us slowly. I wondered if Simon was on board and if he saw us. Simon is our friend Ruth’s son, who has been training as a cadet officer on board the Veendam. There seemed to be someone in a yellow life jacket standing on the end of the ship’s bridge watching us.

The next day we left Johnstone Strait and turned into Cordero Channel, where there are rapids that we could take at slack water around six in the evening and then anchor behind some islets just beyond. That afternoon the weather hurned sunny and hot. I spent a while in the evening rowing around the anchorage with the bottomfish hook and line. There were little fish jumping all over the place. But there were also quite a number of seals. Sometimes one of the seals would jump and splash the water, probably as a warning. It seemed that two seals in particular closely monitored my movements, so if I had managed to catch a fish, I expect they would have tried to get it off my line before I could.

What a surprise it was to find it still sunny when we woke up, and warmer outside the boat that in. We could have happily had breakfast in the cockpit. Not only that, but there was not a cloud in the sky all day. The views were so much better in the sunshine. Instead of greys, there were the snow-topped mountains against the blue sky, the lower mountains covered in a variety of green pine trees, some sheer rocks, and the water either an emerald green, or beautiful blue. We traversed a set of three rapids just after midday at the slack period, with many boats coming the other way as the peak holiday season gets under way. Sunday was another great summer’s day where I could wear shorts and sandals all day from the time I got up till I went back to bed. When offshore from the village at Squirrel Cove I got a signal on my mobile phone for the first time in nearly a month. I confirmed there would be room for us at Discovery Harbour at Campbell River for that night, and then phoned Jim and Jan and arranged to meet them for dinner at a restaurant at the harbour. After dinner, they drove us to a place by the shore where there had been the annual chainsaw wood carving competition. The final carvings were spectacular. Some had a vanished finish, some had paint, and others were just plain wood. There were several bears and eagles, and a very life-like pile of books, along with people and various creatures, real and mythical. The carvings are auctioned for charities and then left dotted about town until they rot. It is a popular annual event.

The consensus of opinion is that summer has now arrived and will last until September. Records are now being broken due to it being hotter than usual. Monday, the last day in June, soon hotted up so that we were glad to get out on the water. It was quite hazy but not a breath of wind all day. As we motored down stream from Campbell River with the current, we touched 11.2 knots over the ground. We bought a new fishing reel and tried it out when we were nearer our destination, but still caught nothing.

We anchored in Sturt Bay, near the northern end of Texado Island, opposite Powell River. It was perfectly calm until we went to bed, and then the wind suddenly blew up from the south-east and the swell poured right into the harbour. We were close to the rocks, so with the motion of the boat Andrew kept anchor-watch for a while. In the morning we were the only yacht left anchored there. Even we moved early and motored slowly into the wind and waves, trying not to make too much spray. We decided to make for Pender Harbour, sixteen miles into the weather, and later against the current. It took us four hours to the harbour entrance but trying to sail against the current would have been impossible. The harbour was well sheltered and the sun was warm. After we anchored, more and more boats arrived filling every available space. This was Canada Day, July 1st, and we thought, something special will happen like fireworks on American Independence Day. But no, not even any patriotic display of flags. There was the usual large Union Jack flying on the island in the centre of the bay, several yachts were flying the old defaced red ensign flag of Canada before full independence. Around six o’clock it went quite quiet - I think it was dinnertime. After drinking our G&T’s, we rowed over to the pub, but nothing was happening there either so we saved our money and went back to the yacht for dinner.

A couple more days saw us back in Vancouver. It was almost like returning home after a two-month holiday, coming into Fisherman’s Wharf again. Here we were to meet up with Andrew’s sister, Helen and her husband Des, on a holiday to the West Coast and who would be bringing us out one or two things from England.