Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

On May 20th, (Monday) we wanted to catch an ebb tide, so we got up at 04:45 and headed out of Forward Harbour. Our journey down Sunderland Channel and through Johnstone Strait was uneventful this time. The forecast had been for SE winds and we had been hoping to do some sailing, but the winds never materialized, and we had calm weather the whole trip. There were a LOT of logs in Johnstone Strait, so we had to keep a very good lookout, and we were happy it was calm for spotting them.   We saw a whale along the shore, which we think was either a Minke or Fin whale. It came up to breathe a couple of times, and then did a nice big dive showing us its tail fin before disappearing.   When we were coming through the currents of Blackney Passage we saw splashing in the distance. With camera and binoculars in hand, I went up on the foredeck and could tell that it was dolphins. Next thing we knew they were headed our way and then playing at our bow. Up, splash, down, across to the oth...

On May 16th (Thursday), we did some chores around the boat in the morning as we watched the clouds around the mountains break, and the sun slowly start to poke its way through. We had planned out our next move, which had us leaving a bit after 14:00 to go through Green Point rapids a bit before slack tide. We raised anchor and headed out, reassured that our timing was good since another sailboat was a bit ahead of us, and a fishing boat a bit behind us.  There was definitely still turbulence, and we passed several whirlpools, and many boils and upwellings. We saw some dolphins in the rapids.  We had basically two options after Green Point. One was to turn up Wellbore Channel and go through Whirlpool Rapids, however, our timing would have us there with an increasing current of over 5 knots which was not a very appealing option since we had seen what rapids could be like with 1-2 knots of current. The other option was to go down into Johnstone Strait and go through Current Pass...

On Friday (May 10th) we were up early to catch the tide, and to time the slack current at Hole In the Wall passage. We headed out and enjoyed a beautiful morning. We saw a pod of Orca whales and later some Dolphins. Hole In the Wall passage was uneventful since we were there at slack tide, although there was definitely still some upwellings and turbulence.  We then motored to the Octopus Islands off the northern part of Quadra Island, and anchored at the head of Waiatt Bay. We had the whole area to ourselves!   Since we had gotten an early morning start we were anchored well before noon, and so we made some lunch before heading out to do a hike. It was a beautiful, hot sunny day, about 25 degrees and no wind. We hiked across to an inlet on the other side of the island called Small Inlet, and saw a family of geese. We then went up a beautiful trail through the forest, past a lovely little stream where we also saw a frog, and then up to Newton Lake. We headed to the only ...

On Tuesday (May 7th) we went for a 10 km hike, round-trip, from our anchorage to the small village of Squirrel Cove. The town consisted of one general store, a craft store, and a restaurant that was closed for the day. Luckily we had brought our own lunch, and had a picnic on the beach. After lunch we went to the General store and bought some ice cream, which we wrapped in a jacket and backpack, and took with us to roughly half the way back before sitting on a lovely wooden bench in a sunny patch in the middle of a beautiful forest to eat our pistachio ice cream!  When we got back to our anchorage we went for a lovely paddle. It was quite low tide which exposed the very muddy areas along the shore. There were some people with their speed boat beached high and dry digging for clams. It got us thinking, and after checking to make sure there was no red-tide closures we grabbed a bucket and a shovel and went digging; yes, we have a shovel on our sailboat, doesn't everyone? :) There we...

Its a beautiful day to be sailing up Lewis Channel! We are heading to a new anchorage on Cortes island, into Von Donop Inlet. We started out with no wind, but eventually got to put our sails up. The wind is of course coming from the direction we want to go in, but we are having fun sailing and tacking. So far we are finding the wind forecasts for up here to be not very accurate. Probably because it is for such a big area and with all the islands there are so many micro climates. Winds are finally in our sails. Heading up Lewis Channel on the Northeast side of Cortes Island. A lovely day to be sailing!

Today was another beautiful day. Sunny and warm and calm in our anchorage, even though the wind has been steadily increasing all day, and they are forecasting winds up to 25knots. We spent some very nice time exploring the island. There are so many Arbutus trees here, each one so different, different stages of bark, shedding bark, or silky smooth. They are such beautiful trees. There are so many lovely mossy, grassy, flower covered rocky areas around the island as well, and we enjoyed listening to the wind in the trees and watching some of the little birds chasing bugs. The air on the island was warm and smelled like summer!!  We pulled up our traps and were rewarded, after Jason pulled up 300' of weighted, lead line, with 42 prawns. Yay!!  So exciting!!  Right now we are making a white sauce, prawn pasta for dinner with coconut milk and evaporated milk as the base. Its going to be so delicious!! Jason had to pull up 300 feet of weighted, lead line to get...

On May 2nd we came up past Powell River and Lund to the Copeland Islands. We were here on our trip up to Desolation Sound in 2017, and it is a very beautiful spot. We saw dolphins while just coming up in between the Copelands and the mainland, and then saw some again from our anchorage. They were just cruising by. It is such a peaceful spot here. There is only one other boat here and it is a lovely calm anchorage, at least with the wind we have been having. Today (May 3rd) we took our tender over to Savary Island. The tide was fully out when we got there, and since it was out over long sand flats we could not just leave our tender and go exploring, so we went and tied up to the dingy dock and then went walking along the beautiful sandy beach. The majority of the island coastline is soft sand with large sand bars at low tide. We found a huge driftwood tree to have our lunch on in the sun before making our way back.   Around the public dock there were thousands of l...

On our first day (April 30th) there was very little wind, so we motored to our first anchorage of Smuggler Cove, north of Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast.  We went kayaking for an hour and a half and saw two super cute martins. One came scampering along the shore not more than twenty feet away, and then a second one came out of the bush and ran out onto a rock in the water. He stood there and looked at us, and then jumped back onto the shore. I thought we had scared him and he would go into the bush, but instead he came running right along the shore where the other one had just ran. They ran along the rocks jumping from one to the next and then right up a steep rock covered in moss. They are so cute!!! I can't believe I left the boat without my big camera. We also saw a pair of what I think were Pileated Woodpeckers. They had the large red head crest. They are beautiful birds. Also lots of eagles and ravens here, and just a general peacefulness. It is beautiful.  Wh...

Sheya and Jason left Vancouver on a bright and sunny morning on April 30, 2019. Here are a few pictures that her dad and I took as Sheya and Jason motored out from under the Lion's Gate Bridge, and waved good-bye. (If you want to see a bigger version of the picture, just click on the photo.) The Red Witch leaving Vancouver and coming under the Lion's Gate Bridge. Sheya on deck waving good bye. Water traffic can get pretty busy in and around Vancouver.