Hot Springs Cove is a bit of a landmark on the West Coast. Natural hot springs, owned by the province, reached by hiking 2k on a wooden boardwalk through old growth rainforest. Better yet, they are only reached by personal pleasure craft, water taxi or…

By popular demand, here is the anchor chain marking system that we use on Bella Star.  If you ask 10 people what marking system they use, you’ll probably get 10 different answers.  We wanted something visual, simple and void of complicated …

Just caught this at the end of a Bellingham Herald story about a local boat building business: Nordic Tugs announced last week it will temporarily close its Burlington manufacturing plant on Tuesday, Aug. 31. While most employees will be furloughed, a skeleton staff will remain to field customer inquiries and maintain the plant in readiness [...]

Our anchor chain was just starting to show some light rust on a few links, so I decided to have it regalvanized.  With the boat on the hard, we backed the car up to the boat and transferred the chain to the trunk of our car.  250 feet of 3/8-…

Recreational crabbers have just over a week left to drop their pots before crab fishing closes in most areas of the region. Seven areas of Puget Sound will close to crab fishing at sunset on Labor Day, Sept. 6, including marine areas 6 (eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca), 8-1 (Deception Pass to East Point), [...]

Looks like the Canadian government is finally ready to pull the trigger on the long-awaited sewage treatment plant for Victoria. For years, this lovely city has pumped about 30 million gallons of raw sewage a day into the Salish Sea.  The near final go-ahead for the treatment plant is great news for the environment, but also [...]

If you’ve been listening to channel 16 on the VHF lately, you’ll probably have noticed that the local Coast Guard units have a new handle — Sector Puget Sound. As of July 30, the Coast Guard merged the well-know Sector Seattle and the Group Port Angeles units into the new Sector Puget Sound.   According to the Coast Guard, the merger aims “to bring the [...]