Hi Everyone!
We Left Campbell River on Friday, July 22nd with much more benign conditions than on our arrival. We waited until Noon to leave so we would not have a strong head current right outside the harbour. The current in Discovery Passage can exceed our boat speed!
We motored over to Manson's landing on Cortes Island to see if we could see if the farmer's market was still in progress, but we later found out that it's held a mile inland. There was also no space at the government dock for us to tie up, so we continued on to Gorge Harbour.
The entrance to the harbour is a narrow gorge (thus it's name), with petroglyphs on the northern most rock wall. As hard as we looked, we couldn't make them out. There's a really nice anchorage inside the harbour with a nice resort and restaurant. We anchored out as the bay was lovely.
On our way to drop the anchor, who should we see, but Dave and Debbie on Megabyte, the Maxim powerboat. They were on the Baja Haha with us and also on Dockwise. Dave took some of the pictures of Dockwise underway you'll find on our website as he traveled along on the voyage. We had a great chat with them that afternoon catching up on what they've been up to, good spots to go, catch crab, etc.
As soon as they unloaded from Dockwise in Vancouver, they provisioned and took off heading North, thinking they might try for Alaska this year. All the unseasonable bad weather that hit BC this year thwarted their plans. They were holed up most of the time in anchorages in the Broughtons and Fjord Land (North of the Broughtons) with tons of rain and gale force winds. So they changed their plans and are now headed back South.
Now that the weather has finally turned nice, we're headed part of the way that way. At least to the Broughtons.
Also, while in Gorge, we went for a nice 4 mile (round trip) hike to Whaletown, the next anchorage up. Nice walk, but not much there. There was one very small grocery/bait/boat supply shop, a library that is only open two hours a week on Friday afternoons and a few houses. It's main claim to fame is that the ferry stops there. We stopped along the way and had an Espresso at the only cafe on the island with a machine.
On our way back, we stopped for Halibut burgers at the restaurant before heading back to Raptor Dance.
This morning, we left Gorge and headed the 14 miles to Von Donop Inlet, long narrow twisty inlet (about 4 miles long). We're anchored in a little cove at the head end with trees all around and lots of wildlife (Otters, Seals, Eagles, Geese - no bears yet).
We set our crab trap as soon as we got here and 3 hours later, we had our first 4 Dungeness Crabs! They were all undersized though so we threw them back and reset the trap. Oh well, Fajitas for dinner today instead of crab.
That's the latest from here!
Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary
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