Pierre’s Echo Bay – Riveted

Echo Bay to Port Harvey | BC

Laura Domela — Sun, 18 Sep 2016 02:43:11 +0000

We arrived at Echo Bay early in the day yesterday (since we got out of Booker Lagoon by 7:30am). It was rainy all day.

Dawnbreaker arrived later on (still pouring rain). Luckily, they had these fancy umbrellas onboard:

Thomas and Urban, above…doing the umbrella spinning thing for drama. Not pictured, Lars at the helm, being serious (but probably not really).

It rained all night. But hey, that means nice freshwater wash down for Airship, so it’s okay.

We slept in this morning (after a not-that-late-but-still-kinda-late evening hanging with the Dawnbreaker crew). After dinner last night, Thomas, Lars, and Urban brought over a homemade apple pie (and a bottle of wine) and we got out the pint of vanilla bean ice cream we brought from home (and still hadn’t eaten yet! How did THAT happen?) … fun conversation, stories, dessert, wine, espresso…

It was great catching up with Pierre, as always. He’s making some expansions and improvements to the store and the restaurant, and he’s got a new, darling cabin for rent (plus suites in the lodge) so if you don’t have a boat but want to come to Echo Bay, there are options!

We wandered around a bit this morning chatting with the other boaters (there were 7 boats at Pierre’s last night…that’s a lot for this time of year!)…and then made breakfast before heading out. (Our default breakfast is…breakfast tacos. Today’s were the last of the chorizo scrambled with some eggs, sliced avocado, homemade salsa, a dash of habanero hot sauce in flour tortillas…yum!) We left around 10am and headed over to see George and Gail at Port Harvey. The rain came and went, but it was a beautiful cruise:

We went around the west side of Gilford Island through Cramer Passage and Retreat Passage to Knight Inlet (bottom of Gilford Island) and then through Chatham Channel to get to Port Harvey. We were timed to hit Chatham Channel at max flood, so the current would be going with us, but at potentially 7 knots. We read up on Chatham Channel, and nothing sounded too dangerous (no whirlpools or eddies or overfalls), and it’s a smooth-bottomed channel, so the flow is laminar which is just fast, but not turbulent. We went through with no issues at all. We had 4.5 knots of current with us at the narrowest/fastest part, but that’s it. Nothing weird or nail-biting or anything.

We dropped our crab pots just west of Range Island on our way into the dock at Port Harvey and then caught up with George and Gail here for a bit. The rebuild of the store and restaurant are coming along nicely, and should be fabulous and better-than-ever for next season!

George said they’d seen a big grizzly on shore near their house next to the apple tree for the past two days, so to keep an eye out. We did, and then there he was!

George waited while I took a few photos before he fired his rifle to scare the bear away.

Now, we’re just hanging out on Airship (one other boat here tonight, the Jacari Maru, a Puget Trawler) and about to make dinner. We aren’t sure of our plans for tomorrow yet. Maybe Shoal Bay, and then the Octopus Islands…and then maybe Heriot Bay or Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island (in the spirit of trying to also go some places we haven’t been before). I could explore like this indefinitely.

Airship to Alaska | Day 8 | Echo Bay to Port McNeill, BC

Laura Domela — Sun, 15 May 2016 15:48:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

We got up fairly early this morning at Echo Bay, chatted with Pierre a bit more while he showed us some of the work he'd done recently on the rental cabins. We pulled away around 7:30am, saying goodbye until September, when we stop on the way south again. Calm water, gray sky, and a pretty chill cruise over to Port McNeill. I didn't take any photos, but we did see one humpback tail as it dove…so that's two humpbacks now with no proof.

We're staying at the North Island Marina, where we stayed on the way up last May. (Hey look at that! On Day 8 last year we were in the same spot!) We walked up to the IGA and re-uppped on some groceries, and then up to the private liquor store (the BC liquor stores aren't open on Sundays) to get a couple more bottles of wine.

Our plan is to cross Cape Caution in the morning. The weather is looking good…but we'll keep watching the forecasts tonight and then make the call in the morning after the 4am update.

This is what the 24 hour surface observation forecast looks like (pretty sweet, is what that looks like…that high pressure system hanging out there with the far apart isobars means mild conditions):

And here are the conditions at the West Sea Otter buoy for the past 24 hours (posting just before 4pm PST).

Today's route from Echo Bay (on the right) to Port McNeill (on the left) — (26.4 miles, 3 hours 47 minutes). I'm trying a new map capture from Navionics…it's super annoying you can't change the track color from yellow to something else that doesn't totally blend into the map data though:

Airship to Alaska | Day 7 | Port Harvey to Echo Bay BC

Laura Domela — Sat, 14 May 2016 19:28:59 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

We slept in at Port Harvey this morning…had some coffee, pulled the crab traps (two too small Red Rock crabs) and chatted with George a bit more before leaving the dock and heading toward Echo Bay to see Pierre. It's still early in the season, so it's fairly quiet here at Echo Bay…four boats or so. We chatted with Pierre for a bit before he had to go rearrange the neighborhood. He'd previously moved a new house into the floating community across from the resort, so he had to untie the whole thing from the rock. When we came in, the neighborhood was encroaching on the resort…so he headed over there with his boat (and a powerful outboard) to push it back (with his boat!) where it belonged, and then re-attach it to the chain/line to the shore.

Pierre is so badass. I think Kevin's dad (had he lived in a remote spot like the Broughtons or in SE Alaska) would have been like Pierre. How cool would it be to just rearrange your neighborhood on a moment's notice huh? Guy next door painted his house an ugly color? Move him down to the end of the dock. Simple!

Kevin took the drone up and I shot some photos (tripod in the sky!!). Here we are!

And here's the neighborhood (rearranged):

And an overall shot of the whole place:

Love this place! We'll stop back by on our way south in September.

Here's today's route (33.7 nautical miles, 4 hours 44 minutes):

Tomorrow we'll head across early to Port McNeil to reprovision and wait for a good time to cross Cape Caution. Today would have been perfect! Waves .6 meters at 14 seconds. That's about a foot and a half waves with 14 seconds between them. SO. CHILL. Hope it lasts!

Kwatsi Bay, BC

Laura Domela — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 00:21:21 +0000

We left Sullivan Bay yesterday morning and headed to Kwatsi Bay. We made a stop at Pierre's at Echo Bay because we wanted say hi to Pierre. I have a funny story about this, but I'll tell you at the end of the post, so the Kwatsi Bay photos can stay together.

Kwatsi Bay is lovely. We pulled into the bay and there were no other boats on the dock. We called Max, the owner, and of course he said there was plenty of room. He met us at the dock and helped us get settled, as another boat was entering the bay and heading for the dock as well.

We all chatted for a bit and Max asked if we'd like to do a happy hour up on the dock at 5pm. Most of the places in The Broughtons are closed and not doing anything social now that it's the end of the season, so it was kinda cool that he offered to host a little get together. (Also, Kwatsi Bay is open year round…if you wanna come up for some winter cruising!)

Pretty soon, a third boat entered the bay…so now there were three!

There's no power at Kwatsi, but there are showers, and there's internet that (so far) seems to be working REALLY WELL. That's quite a change! The place has a great feel to it — a cool little store with some books, locally made arts and crafts things, and a few logo wear items.

Some details I noticed while walking around…the way this plank walkway crosses the water and goes into this opening:

New wood and old wood together:

I'll just cut this later (this is totally what I'd do):

The place feels rustic, but in a good and creative way, and Max is charming and has some great stories to tell. He was great to chat with and it was fun to get to know the other boaters a bit.

Happy hour was up under the covered patio on the last floating dock:

Huge jellyfish (about 18 inches across):

Here's our track from today, Sullivan Bay to Echo Bay to Kwatsi Bay (about 29 nautical miles):

If it's nice in the morning we may go exploring in the dinghy before heading out because the bay is beautiful (and tonight it's raining).

Okay, back to Pierre's. When we were there in May, he'd just installed a hot tub. Since then, there have been more improvements, like these swinging chairs around a wood burning fire right next to the hot tub, with a view over the marina:

While we were standing up on the porch at the office/store I looked down to see Echo, Pierre's dog (a labradoodle, I think), chewing on a slipper. How funny! I have those same slippers. Wait, that couldn't be my slipper! Could it? No, because my slippers are in the little nook in our stateroom on our boat, which is down at the dock.

Heh.

Wait. Could it be my slipper? No way.

Pierre didn't seem so certain, and Echo wasn't fessing to anything. When we got down to the boat, yes the doors were open, but there were no dog prints or any telltale signs that Echo had boarded the boat in our absence. Yet, when I went into the stateroom and looked in the nook on my side of the bed where my slippers live, there was only one slipper. Oh, Echo!!

Echo was pretty stealthy to come down to the dock, get on the boat, grab one of my slippers, then head back off the boat and up the dock and ramp up to the front porch of the store where he decided to start a little chew fest. Oh well…it's time for a new pair of slippers anyway.

(I did not take a photo of Echo chewing my slipper. I should have. I need to get better at documenting the little things.)

Tomorrow our plan is to head for Port Harvey. We aren't sure if George will still be making cinnamon rolls for breakfast or pizza for dinner, but whatever. I guess we'll take our chances. :)

Day 8 – Pierre’s Echo Bay to Port McNeill

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 May 2015 21:14:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 8

We said goodbye to Pierre this morning at 8am and headed for Port McNeill. The waters were calm, the sky was gray, and it was a beautiful foggy/misty cruise over to the North Island Marina.

This is our last stop before crossing Cape Caution (unless we duck into the Walker Group for weather, but the forecast looks good for tomorrow so far, with seas about a meter with a 6 second period. Check the West Sea Otter buoy here.)

The plan is to listen to the 4am weather and make the Go/No Go call, and if Go, then leave at 5am. It'll be a 60 mile day to Fury Cove, where we'll be anchoring and potlucking on the beach (weather permitting). AIS (see the "Where's Airship? button in the right column) hasn't been picking us up for a couple days, but don't worry…we're doing just fine and eventually it'll connect back up with us.

Today has been mainly about doing a few chores: a trip to the grocery store, liquor store, laundry, fuel, topping off water, doing a little boat maintenance, napping…stuff like that. We'll be meeting at 6pm up at Gus's Pub for dinner, and then I think we'll all be heading early to bed. This is a perfect place to re-provision because everything is in walking distance, and the marina hosts are SUPER nice and very helpful. Each dock has its own fuel line, so you can fuel right from your spot. Pretty sweet!

Also, there are eagles fishing RIGHT next to and over our boat, so here are some more eagle photos:

This one's my favorite:

And here's today's track (25.88 nautical miles, 3 hours 35 minutes):

Day 7 – Quadcopter Video of Pierre’s Echo Bay

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 May 2015 03:40:00 +0000

Kevin made another quadcopter video! Hope you like it, Pierre!