Looking down on False Creek

Vancouver is a wonderful and cosmopolitan city, and False Creek, the reformed industrial waterway bordering the south edge of the downtown core, is an interesting anchorage right at its heart. Prominent location of both Expo ’86 and important parts of the more recent 2010 Olympics, False Creek has a checkered history that is slowly being sublimated into the glitz and opulence of big city living. It’s an amazingly central location for the visiting sailor to experience views and a taste of the lifestyle that comes with ownership of the million dollar condos springing up in the Yaletown neighborhood on the northern shore. It is also surprisingly affordable and packed with places to go and things to see.

Anchorages
False Creek is a heavily regulated body of water. It is a no-discharge zone for sewage (a fact you may find hard to believe after watching the rings appear on your hull near the waterline after a couple days there). A speed limit of 10km/h (5 knots) exists throughout. Anchoring is limited to two weeks in every four between April 1st and September 30th, and 21 days in every 40 days between October 1st and March 31st, and requires registration and display of a permit. You can register at the Boating Welcome Center beneath the north span of the Granville Bridge (second bridge in; the BWC is clearly marked in houseboat at the docks of the False Creek Yacht Club), or at the dinghy dock at Stamps Landing below Monk McQueen’s restaurant. The staff at the BWC are extremely helpful with any question or request you might have and I highly recommend them as a resource if there is anything you are uncertain about.

A well-marked navigation channel extends the length of the Creek through the center, in which anchorage is not permitted. You can get a free map at the BWC showing both the channel and surrounding amenities. The map suggests East Basin, furthest inland, and Charleson Bay, along the south edge about halfway in, as the recommended anchorages. The East Basin looks appealing, but as it is past the Cambie Bridge, with a least height of 13m, it’s generally unavailable, or at least inconvenient, to most cruising sailboats. Charleson Bay looks nice and appears to have good holding, but is perpetually crowded. It’s also some distance from most services and dinghy docks.

We had better luck just south of the channel in between Stamps Landing and the Cambie Bridge, a popular spot very near to two dinghy docks and the closest grocery store. This area can also fill up, however. Our next most favored location is just off David Lam Park, opposite Charleson Bay. There is room for only a few boats in the narrow slot between the channel and a “No Anchor” zone where the Vancouver Fire Department pump intakes are located, but this is very close to the Yaletown Dinghy dock and convenient for landing. Holding was not as good here as we found elsewhere; it took a couple tries to set the hook and I was never as comfortable with it as I would have preferred, although ultimately we had no problems in winds as high as twenty knots.

The view from anchor off David Lam Park

In both these locations, you are right on the route of the fleet of small harbour ferries that serve those nearby dinghy dock locations, so you’ll get a lot of traffic going past. There are also dragon boat and kayak teams practicing along the shores which will grunt and shout their way past you close abeam morning and night. This is charming for the first few days, until you’re trying to take a nap. But both the slapping wakes and the splashing paddles, with the traffic noise and the sirens, are part of the overall character of the place.

Summer weekend evenings are also rife with intoxicated powerboaters and passing party barges. Most people don’t bother with anchor lights at night, considering the city lights and the generally well-known anchorage areas; we did, if only for insurance purposes.

Landings
There are five public dinghy docks on False Creek (and a psuedo-public dock at Quayside Marina), all of which are marked on a convenient downloadable map from the Vancouver city Blueways site. They are all well-positioned for access to various attractions and neighborhoods around False Creek. Each also doubles as a stop for the ubiquitous harbour ferries, so the water-facing side of the dock must be left clear. The periphery can become pretty crowded but there is almost always some way to tie up one more. Depending on the value of your dinghy and your degree of paranoia, you might want to bring along a lock for it and/or your motor. The docks struck us as universally pretty safe in the daytime, but some (particularly Spyglass Place) are a little isolated after dark and have an uncomfortable degree of proximity to bars disgorging intoxicated folks in high spirits whose judgement may fail them when presented with an opportunity for joy-rides.

We didn’t have any trouble leaving oars or other basic gear in our dinghy while leaving it tied up at any hour, but then we have pretty crappy stuff.

Moonrise over Vancouver

Surrounding Neighborhoods
From almost anywhere, a morning or evening in the cockpit provides a priceless window on big city life as the well-used trails and parks lining the Creek are used by residents going about their daily lives.

We really enjoyed going ashore on the north side in Yaletown, an upscale neighborhood with a beautiful public space in David Lam Park, where we could sit and drink coffee and admire Insegrevious at anchor just off-shore. Apart from that, it was a little too swanky for us, but there is a very convenient SkyTrain stop which we used as a launch-pad for exploring the rest of the city. Either by train or on foot you can head north to historic Gastown or the rest of the downtown urban core, both of which will feel familiar to most city folk.

To the south is a great walking/picnicking spot, Charleson Park, and of course the incomparable Granville Island with its curious mix of industry, education, tourist shops, and marine services.

Science World is the big dome at the east end of False Creek; I haven’t been there in years and it was in the middle of renovations when we were there so I can’t comment, but I have fond memories from the past. Beyond Science World is Chinatown.

The other direction, west, leads to Kitsilano, a lovely little neighborhood that we didn’t really explore. Likewise, we failed to hit either the Vancouver Maritime Museum or the HR MacMillan Space Centre, both right at the entrance to False Creek and also on our list of things to see… but we just ran out of time.

Provisions and Services
The False Creek Esso location near the Granville Bridge has been closed (despite still being listed in some notable Pacific Northwest nautical publications; we’re looking at you, Northwest Yachting Magazine), and with it, the last fuel dock convenient to the Creek. You’ll have to make the voyage up through First Narrows to Coal Harbour if you need to tank up, or as one enterprising gentleman at a nearby marina did, hike back and forth from the nearest petrol station (about eight blocks up Burrard Street from the BWC) with a five gallon can. Better yet, buy a sailboat, and sail it. We took on fuel in Nanaimo. Two months ago.

Update: Reader Tricia Coldren points out that a new fuel operation has opened up just this month, at the site of the old Esso barge just west of the Burrard Bridge on the south shore of the inlet, False Creek Fuels. That’s great news and a boon to visitors in general and False Creek in particular. And we apologize to Northwest Yachting Magazine, who were only wrong for one year and saved themselves the trouble of editing their list twice!

Internet access is pretty much unavailable throughout the Creek, a significant defect if you are living aboard and working. However, many coffee shops in the city provide free wireless, as does the Vancouver Public Library (Central Branch located just up the hill at South Georgia and Homer streets) with a guest access card.

The closest grocery is the Budget Foods in Leg In Boot Square, just west along the seawall from Stamps Landing. The prices are reasonable but the selection limited. Once you master the Vancouver transit system, there is a Real Canadian Superstore at 350 SE Marine Drive, accessible by a short hop on the SkyTrain Canada Line. That was the cheapest grocery we found; there are a number of small mom and pop produce shops downtown with better prices than any general grocer, but you have to leg it around to find the best deals. There are also an IGA and a Safeway in the downtown core, both along Robson street, but they are generally more expensive. A Save-On Foods south on Cambie street looked like another promising option, but we didn’t have a chance to check it out.

Things to See
Well, what’s not to see? You can have your pick of tourist brochures at the Vancouver Tourist Information Centre near Canada Place, so I’ll skip all the usual highlights and stick with the free stuff.

Moonset the next morning; time for another day of exploring!

Granville Island is a close analog to Pike Place in Seattle, only with more of a mixed use flavor to it. It’s absolutely worth walking around and enjoying. The “farmer’s market,” however, may be quaint but it absolutely not the place to get the best deals on food. Buy something there to say you did and do your real shopping elsewhere.

Like in Chinatown, for instance. If dried chicken feet are your thing. If you’re used to the International District in Seattle, Vancouver’s Chinatown will amaze you. The third largest in North America, it is big, and packed with interesting and exotic sights, sounds, and smells. You could spend a day there, easily.

Stanley Park is worth another day or two. At one thousand acres, it is the largest urban park in Canada, and perhaps one of the largest in the world. You can walk from the up-scale shops of Robson Street into native forest in a few blocks. If nature itself isn’t your thing, there are also other diversions such as a miniature railway and an aquarium scattered along the 16 miles of paths through the park.

Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver is surprisingly accessible as the northern terminus of the public Seabus service, and is a small-scale version of the Granville Island shops and markets that is often less crowded and more local.

And while you’re in North Vancouver, there are the public parks of the North Slope. Capilano Park, home of the Capilano Suspension Bridge, may be the best known of these, but the tour of the bridge costs rather a lot. Less well-known, but equally interesting, is the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge in Lynn Canyon Park. It’s free, less crowded, and easy to get to on the number 228 or 229 bus from Lonsdale Quay.

Two weeks is really too little time to take in everything that Vancouver has to offer. We used up our anchorage permit time and took an additional week in a marina and still didn’t make it to everything on our list. Clearly, future visits are in order. Whether you have a lot of time or a little, Vancouver is an excellent stop for sailors on a budget.

Still, I appreciate our neighbors, and all the more so when I find myself wandering down to the M-x (number have been obscured to protect the guilty!) restrooms in the mornings, as I must if I am to indulge myself in the occasional urge to have a Cherry Coke for breakfast; M-x is where the soda machines are. Our head has been torn apart for repairs for an ungodly amount of time now, so we have been relying on the marina restrooms more than ever this spring. Compared to our restroom block, M-y, going into the men’s room at M-x is like entering the fourth level of hell. There is always the potential for a certain tragedy of the commons to occur at marina restrooms, but our neighbors (at least our immediate neighbors!) keep it clean and respectful.

They are not without blemish, though, our neighbors. One fellow spent a recent evening pacing up and down our finger pier talking on his cell phone and blowing his nose. As I was trying to sleep at the time, it was somewhat unwelcome but not entirely unexpected. Close friends of ours lived on a houseboat on Lake Union for a time, and I had learned there that the dock is everyone’s front yard, and that life lived in such proximity inevitably exposes many of the ticks and quirks we all have to one another. A measure of willful blindness and a recognition that we are surely equally annoying to others on occasion improves tolerance.

So too does another result of living cheek-by-jowl, which I can’t quite find a word for. I see it in the fellow who dropped a bottle of vodka (an inevitable occurrence on summer docks) and carefully picked up all the glass from the dock and a nearby kayak it had sprayed into. Or the other gentleman I came across hosing bird poop (another inevitable occurrence) off the dock the other day, in front of someone else’s slip, who looked up apologetically (although I’m not sure why you would apologize for cleaning up bird poop) and said “These damn birds just don’t stop,” as if he held out a secret hope that someday, they might. Until then, I imagine, he’ll continue cleaning off the floats in front of other people’s boats, making it a nicer neighborhood for us all.

It’s an eclectic kind of community. Boats draw in all sorts of interesting folks. But there is something about it that does just make you want to clean up bird poop, tidy restrooms, and ignore sniffly folks just outside your portlights. That’s just what you do for good neighbors.

We have no concrete plans to head that direction this year, but nonetheless when I came across a message board thread titled “Nanaimo, BC Changes” I thought I would see what was going on. Nanaimo has been shaping up as the next major battleground over free anchoring and unrestricted mooring in the Pacific Northwest.

From what I understand, the town has gone ahead and installed mooring buoys in the anchorage, with all the associated costs, time-limits, and size restrictions that one generally finds with public mooring balls. According to some, these are now your only option for staying in Mark Bay. The hue and cry is mostly over the cost, the supposed size limits, and the further displacement of long-term liveaboards in favor of transients. It’s not clear exactly what motivated the change. When we were last there in the fall, there was little to suggest an impending overflow requiring government intervention, nor any great dis-satisfaction among visitors as to the existing arrangements.

That thread is loaded with misinformation and conjecture, but the park website is hardly more helpful, noting only that the mooring buoys are $12 per night. This, at least, confirms that there are now mooring bouys, but does little to clarify what they are rated to hold or to what extent they are sited to prevent anchoring on one’s own ground tackle in the bay. Various commenters appear to assert both, and are apparently refuted by other commenters, leaving me scratching my head and worrying what I’ll find the next time I am up there.

It’s hard to speculate much with so little information, so this post is mostly a plea to anyone who happens to be up in that area: What’s up with Nanaimo?

I have touched on this tension before, the desire for freedom conflicting with the outcomes of other sailors exercising the same, and I have no real new thoughts on that problem now. It remains a central question of cruising, and I suppose of the world in general, that saddens me even in its need to be asked. How do you balance it without the ham-fisted intervention of dis-interested parties?

At any rate, if anyone has any more concrete information, please post it in comments! If Mark Bay has in fact been transformed from a lovely bohemian anchorage into the nautical equivalent of a Motel Six, I will understand, but will miss those carefree weeks on the hook in an idyllic setting.

We’re in our “home” home now, our regular slip at Shilshole Bay Marina, but for all that, we still feel a little unsettled, a little bit still out at sea.

This seems especially odd because we are glad to be back, seeing friends we haven’t seen all summer, having a spot where we are guaranteed to have electricity, internet, and a good night’s sleep safely tied up without worrying about dragging anchors or drifting neighbors. If there was ever a place to feel settled and secure, it ought to be here and now. I have an instinctive intellectual response that associates “Seattle” with “home” but now, when I think that to myself, there is no associated warm and fuzzy emotional attachment. Seattle’s just another place.

It seems like home has become sufficiently diluted, or compressed, or something, that nowhere really feels like home anymore. We travel not just onboard, but overland, and sometimes it seems like just about everything I really need to get along with can be crammed into my aging Jansport daypack and carried along to set up a “home” any old place. When you boil home down to such an ephemeral location as that, perhaps it’s no surprise that any old place can turn into no place in particular.

Maybe this feeling will fade over the winter as we narrow our prospects down to only a couple of places, ping-ponging back and forth between the boat and my parent’s place in Port Hadlock, where we are once again chicken-sitting (yes, you read that right) as they head for warmer vistas to the south. But maybe it’s just a chronic condition to be adjusted to.

Sailors make trade-offs constantly and it’s only now that I am beginning to realize how subtle some of those can be. It’s a benefit to be able to travel comfortably and enjoy places you go without pining for some distant bed. On the other hand, it seems like I am missing a little something by not having that pining at all… as if some emotion has been completely withdrawn from my repertoire of feelings.

With the freedom to feel at home anywhere, there is less and less keeping us here.

Roche Harbor

It’s not exactly the highest compliment that one can pay one’s own navigational abilities to admit surprise at finding oneself in a port, or indeed an entire country, where one had not intended to be at the beginning of the day’s journey. Nonetheless, I stand here before you to admit that I am vaguely surprised to find myself back in the United States right now, tied up at Roche Harbor marina after a remarkably painless clearance by US customs.

I say “remarkably” because historically we have had dramas of some sort coming back by boat from Canada to the US, always the more distressing in light of the ease with which we enter that foreign country and the misplaced presumption that, as citizens of our own, it should be easier to get back in than to leave. Until this year, that has never proven to be the case. But at Roche Harbor we were cleared in quickly, politely, with a minimum of suspicion and a veneer of respect. They even said “Welcome home,” when we had finished up, heartwarming words that had never before passed the lips of dockside customs agents within our hearing. I very nearly teared up.

I suppose the key is to sneak up on them (WARNING: do not actually sneak up on armed Customs officers) as we did. They might otherwise have had time to better prepare their ritual humiliations and depredations. We didn’t even have a suspicion we were going to the US when we departed Ganges that morning, motoring slowly through heavy fog bound for Sidney, BC. The plan was to get to Sidney, then park ourselves at a friendly yacht club of our acquaintance and avail ourselves of the many fine bookstores and groceries for which the town is known. Perhaps, during the four nights we planned to stay, we would even take the bus to Buchart Gardens, always a favorite stop for my wife. I had quite the grand agenda going through my head, as often happens when one’s world is otherwise shrunk down to a half-mile in any direction.

In the middle of these musings over our last hurrah in Canada, I spotted what looked suspiciously like a fast-moving white sperm whale crossing our bow. I wasn’t so far gone that I imagined the humped shape was actually a whale, particularly not the notable literary icon of that shade and species, but I did wonder for some minutes if someone had either purchased or built a scale replica of the Kalakala without my knowledge.

A couple minutes later, I could make out the dim dark shape behind the fast-moving white blob and I was embarrassed; obviously I’d been looking at the bow wave of a particularly fast barge.

A couple minutes after that, I was shocked again to make out the white superstructure over the black rectangle behind the white blob: in fact the whole contraption was a BC ferry speeding on toward Vancouver. It had been lost in the ground clutter of islands on the radar, and served as an excellent reminder not to let the mind wander overmuch while at the wheel.

When we got to Sidney the fog had lifted to reveal a bay full of wheeling sailboats racing in the freshening breeze. We felt our way nervously into Tsehum Harbour, a popular but shallow area that is remarkably poorly charted in all the references we have aboard. After all that heart-in-throat navigation, we were disappointed to find that the racing sailboats were all part of a regatta put on by exactly the yacht club we had planned to stay at, and that all their guest moorage was reserved for visiting racers.

There are plenty of marinas in Sidney but they are all far more expensive than we had budgeted for the stay, and anchoring out seemed inconvenient and counter-productive for our purposes. There was some patently unjustifiable anger close on the heels of the disappointment. It was as if we had personally been rejected. The nerve! After some rather muddled considerations, we finally hit on the idea of just skipping Sidney and crossing right back over into the US. Forget Sidney! We didn’t want to stay in their lousy old fresh-groceried, bookstore-filled city, anyhow!

So we raised sail and zipped across Haro Strait and found ourself at Roche Harbor, with even more expensive moorage, a lesser selection of groceries, and no bookstores to be had. We sure showed those hosers over in Sidney, eh?

The sun smiles on us at Roche Harbor

All the same, it’s sort of liberating to be back in the States finally. Our phone service doesn’t cost extra, dollars are dollars, and remarkably, the sun is shining. We chatted with another crew at the marina who said it has been convenient enough to rain only at night here, which will be a welcome change over the Gulf Islands if it continues to hold true. And we have an unexpected week to spend poking around the islands in the off-season, checking out places we have always rushed by in the past. So, it’s a surprise to be here, but not an altogether unpleasant one, commentary on my planning and navigational skills aside.

Misty Ganges

Swans and warships are incongruous companions in an anchorage, but that’s what we have here in Ganges right now. Apparently the late season in cruising brings out all the oddballs, ourselves warmly included.

Contrary to type, the young naval trainees from the three or four Orca class training boats that come in and tie up at the Ganges Marina each evening are polite, self-contained, and professional (notwithstanding an incident we overheard on the VHF a couple days ago, where apparently an error by two trainee navigators caused an “incident” that raised the ire of a fellow cruising boat and resulted in a series of unexpected apologies made over the air). The swans, on the other hand, are inveterate beggars, their predictable daily rounds made among all the anchored boats looking for handouts belying their otherwise apparently serene and noble air.

Too close for comfort

Although Ganges is a popular stop for Gulf Island cruisers, I still get a weird and unwelcoming vibe here. Maybe it’s the weather, which has been markedly miserable for most of our stay; maybe it is just sad associations from past visits. Or maybe it’s the fact that two different boats, inside of twenty-four hours, have managed, in this mostly empty harbour, to anchor well within bumping distance of our boat. I don’t know exactly what it is about the place, but I don’t think I will be sad to leave.

Almost any long cruise can become a litany of places not seen and plans that have had to change, so I won’t belabor ours except to say we’re already past the point where we had planned to move along. There is a lot to see here in the Gulf Islands, but one misty, fog-shrouded island starts to look very like another before long, and many of the places we had thought to spend some time start to look less appealing, in the rain, than do spots like Ganges, with a nice warm little coffee shop or two, some art galleries, and a well-stocked grocery store. So here we sit, waiting out the rain, with swans coming around trying to bum cigarettes off us all the time. Or were those the trainee sailors? I’m already confused.

Passage Island from Whytecliff Park

You’ve sailed past this lovely little park if you have dodged the ferry traffic out of Horseshoe Bay on your way to or from destinations deeper in Howe Sound, north of Vancouver. You may have noticed a large and distinctive white rock, jutting six stories out of the water, forming an island joined by a tenuous causeway of stone, in between the Lookout Point and Batchelor Cove. If you happened to look closely, you would probably have seen people waving at you from the top. That’s Whyte Island, the most prominent seaward facing aspect of Whytecliff Park.

You sailed past it because the small bays formed between the rock and the headlands on either side are rocky and indifferent anchorages. So you may not have realized that a fine public park backs the Rock and the beach it shelters, and that fine vistas and picnicking spots are to be had ashore there. Braver souls may even venture in to swim at the beach… it’s not as cold as you might think.

Whytecliff park boasts lovely old trees, vast expanses of cool green lawn, tennis courts, play areas, barbecue pits, and dozens of intertwined, hidden trails twisting along the seemingly impassible rock face, leading to small, secluded crevices along the cliff perfect for small picnics, each with its own isolated and distinct view out toward Bowen Island, up Howe Sound, or out across the Strait of Georgia.

A vast crevice delves between two of these massive outcroppings, and at high tide the surf pounds and churns within. You can follow the twisting trails down into the gap at lower tides and pick through the debris that has been flushed in and stuck there, including huge logs the likes of which you hope never to meet under way.

Sunset is the best time to appreciate the vistas of Whytecliff Park, but you will probably have plenty of company.

Getting there will take a bit of work for the average boater. Although relatively close to Horseshoe Bay, Sewell’s Marina and the public dock there can be difficult places to find moorage. Should one do so, a quick dinghy ride around Lookout Point and down the shoreline might be the best option, although the crowded and debris-strewn beach at the park doesn’t promise an easy landing. Walking is another option, following the twisting path of Marine Drive up and around the other side of the peninsula, but it’s not a foot-friendly route.

From Vancouver or its vicinity, the 257 bus will get you closest, from which you then follow the same walking route as above. The 239 provides an easy transfer from Lonsdale Quay to the 257; Lonsdale Quay is a transit hub that is fairly easy to get to from most marinas or anchorages around the area.

A rented car, or friends who have one, may be your best bet.

Looking down the public dock at Refuge Cove

We’ve been noticing an odd thing these past few years as we have been out sailing: the actual sailing part is the easiest thing. What is hard is stopping in a port for any length of time.

There are usually different reasons for our difficulties in any particular port of call, and we have come up with different theories over time to try to explain them. A popular one for a while was that being out sailing, or even at anchor, was so pleasant because it was a form of avoidance. The real world, the world of work and bills and renters and other obligations, was inevitably piling up a large backlog of problems while we were away, which of course would then break over us like a tidal wave upon our return to civilization, unleashing untold trial and stress. But even if we’re just anchored out, but with phone and Internet service, we don’t seem to feel all that pressure, so that doesn’t seem to be it.

Another theory is that it’s mostly adjustment fatigue, a difficulty dealing with all the distractions and possibilities suddenly open when one goes from a very small boat into a very large town. But it happens even in smaller ports, so that’s not likely. More plausible is that all those possibilities, combined with our collective need to address all the various bits of reality that have been accumulating in our inboxes, serve to create a list of things to get done that is impossible in the short span of time we usually have available. When you connect that time with money, in the form of moorage fees, there is certainly a yin and yang of marina life that will necessarily cause stress.

Our latest theory, though, is simply that it’s hard to depend on other people, and that’s what you are forced to do in port. We have just left Campbell River, one of our favorite ports of call, under storm clouds of stress and frustration. As near as we can tell, most of it was because we abandoned our self-contained, sailing rhythm for the seductive conveniences of the marina… which promptly went away. After our first night, a transformer ashore blew out and left our dock without electricity. Out at anchor, or sailing, we rely only on what we can produce on the boat. At the dock, which we were paying fifty bucks a night for, it seemed intolerable; there was work to do, every minute counted! The helpful staff moved us to another dock that wasn’t affected, but most of our day was lost to debating alternatives and making the transition.

To make up for it, we decided to stay an extra day. But on that day, the electricity to the new dock was also cut off, as was necessary for the hydro crews to work safely on the first problem. The marina staff were apologetic, but we couldn’t see a reason to stay another night, so we asked for a refund and sailed off.

None of this was anyone’s fault, but we’ve come to view port stops as times to get things done. The clock is ticking, it’s easy to get frustrated when little things get in the way.

When it’s just us, on the boat, we have learned to make it all happen ourselves. This isn’t to suggest that we are always successful, but at least we generally know our limits, so it’s easier to plan around them. Nature always gets a vote, too, but when things are going wrong in that department, we are usually so preoccupied with keeping them from getting worse that there is no time left over to sit and fret about it. In port, there is all kinds of time to fret.

As much fun as sailing can be, it’s also pretty nice to take a few days off and just sit someplace, anchored out and watching the world go by.

It’s necessary, of course, to pick some place where the world actually goes by; sheltered anchorages with a small opening out into a well-trafficked channel are good, but rare. More common are those with a good view that are also exposed to wake and weather. In these parts, even that isn’t particularly uncomfortable, though. Another option is to find a place right in the middle of a busy harbor, something like False Creek in Vancouver or Mark Bay in Nanaimo.

To my surprise, Cortes Bay in Desolation Sound also seems to be something of an attractive crossroads, a place where the weary cruiser can toss out the hook and lounge idly in the cockpit watching the world come and go.

In all the guidebooks, Cortes Bay is reputed to have terrible holding ground but that doesn’t seem to stop people from coming in and anchoring there. Neither is it a major point for rendezvous or resupply: there is a public dock there that sees a lot of floatplane traffic, but it seems to be used mostly by locals, and there are no local services to speak of. Cortes Island is at least three ferry rides away from any mainland dwelling vehicle owners.

The counterpoints to this relative isolation are location and selection. The location, at the south tip of Cortes Island, makes it one of the first protected anchorages encountered by boats coming north into Desolation Sound, and so an attractive stopping place after a long day on the Strait of Georgia. The selection was made by the Seattle and Royal Vancouver yacht clubs, each of which has established an outstation in the bay. This combination brings a lot more traffic in than might otherwise be supposed, and it is satisfying to sit in the sun and watch the boats come and go.

Just sitting around anchored out is a bit of a novelty for us, but it’s one that I am rapidly getting used to. Previously, much of our cruising has been destination oriented and made on restrictive timelines. We weren’t completely inflexible, but most days were spent sailing, and an extra night in one spot was an unusual luxury. We had never just anchored some place and said “We’ll leave when we get bored.”

This year, in a variety of places, that’s exactly what we have done, and let me tell you, it takes a long time for me to get bored! Gorge Harbour, Cortes Bay, Grace Harbour… places with varying attractions, qualities, and shoreside amenities, but all spots where I have been happy to just hang around on the hook, soaking up the sun, reading, working, or puttering around in the dinghy.

An inukshuk standing watch at Grace Harbour

I have felt bad at some points in the past that I don’t seem to be one of those people who need to kayak to every corner of a bay or canvass every hiking trail leading inland to feel content. And I confess that I am no longer overawed at the wildlife and scenery. But I can spend forty-five minutes watching a school of fish hover beneath our rudder, or a family of mergansers fishing along the shoreline, or I can sit in the cockpit soaking in the pine scent and the view of distant mountains slowly lightening with the sunrise, or stand in mid-afternoon in a quiet, still stand of second growth timber watching bugs flashing in the sunlight, and be fulfilled. I feel like the inukshuk standing near the head of Grace Harbour; quiet, unmoving, looking out at the world.

Small Inlet, Kanish Bay

We left Blind Channel to bash through the ceaseless northwest winds and swells that have been rolling implacably down Johnstone Strait every day for a month under clear blue skies. Word on the docks was that today was the day for those heading further north; max winds of 25 knots rather than 35 made for the easiest day available to pinball up the trench toward Alaska or the Broughtons or around Cape Scott.

We weren’t going so far, though, just up the short stretch of Mayne Channel and around Mayne Point before heading back to the south. Slamming into the slop pouring in from the main part of the strait, I couldn’t wait to get the sails up and enjoy the power of those mighty winds from astern finally. And I didn’t wait; as soon as it was even remotely practical, I popped out a small patch of genoa and reached across past Edith Point and headed south down the Strait. Between us and Edith Point, a single, strangely mottled orca surfaced amidst the three foot rollers. His markings, rather than the acute black and white pattern typical of the whales, were speckled and almost grayish. We watched for others as he sounded, but there was nothing more.

Although the tiny bit of genoa I had unfurled was pushing us along at six knots, we were against the ebb current and made only about three or four knots over ground. After only a couple hours, we pulled in at Turn Bay, where Johnstone Strait meets Nodales Channel at Chatham Point. We were alone there, but for the house on Turn Island. The wind swept right through the anchorage but our anchor held fast and in the lee of the dodger, the sun was hot and we watched birds swoop and fish along the saltwater marsh at the head of the bay.

The next day we repeated our short downwind sail, this time into Kanish Bay. Kanish, the first, best stop north of Seymour Narrows, has been a pretty regular stop for us passing through these parts in the past, but we had never explored much of it, always content with the easy anchorage behind the Chained Islets near the mouth. This time, we sailed further in, past islands, rocks, and aquaculture, into Small Inlet, a provincial marine park.

We’ve been missing out. Small Inlet was a wonderful, nearly landlocked cove, dotted with islands, surrounded by trees and tidal marshlands, filled with birds… and utterly bereft of other boats. We saw two kayakers while we were there, probably from houses in nearby Granite Bay, but otherwise had it entirely to ourselves.

We dinghied to the head of the inlet, where trails lead, variously, up to a nearby lake or across a small isthmus to Waiatt Bay, a popular anchorage in Okisollo Channel. We located the trail, hidden in the trees but marked with a flash of pink ribbon, and walked softly through silent woods. As quiet and natural as they seemed, like most places along the coast here, they’d been logged at some point in the past; I nearly tripped on a rusting cable left behind. But the forest comes back. A dried swamp at the height of the isthmus cradles birds and feeds plants. Rock formations, buried in loam, jut unexpectedly up in the forest along the path.

We passed one man on the trail, and when we got to the other side, we were amazed we had seen only him; Waiatt Bay was as full of boats as Small Inlet was empty. The beach was crowded with landed dinghies and kayaks. Only a half mile from our secluded grotto, we felt like Lewis and Clark might have if they had brushed aside some branches and emerged in modern downtown Portland. We walked back to our own thinking of our good fortune to have a whole huge bay to ourselves. But it’s not really good fortune; intimidated by the rough reputation and the prevalence of commercial traffic, few cruising boats choose the Seymour Narrows route either north or south. Even fewer feel like putting in so soon or so deep into Kanish Bay. A few miles north at Blind Channel, we’d felt crowded; here, closer to the teeming cruising grounds of Desolation Sound, we were completely alone. Solitude, it seems, is simply a matter of picking your spot.