Archive for 'Ports'
Blind Channel
There’s not a lot to recommend Blind Channel Resort if you are assessing it using the conventional cruiser’s nine-line report. It’s expensive, awkwardly located in the middle of a set of tidal rapids, very rolly, docks swept by current, deucedly shallow along the inboard rails, and they pack you in like sardines. The fresh baked [...]
Full StoryPender Harbour, same as ever
We haven’t been through Pender Harbour in a couple of years, but it is pretty much the same as we remember it… beautiful homes lining the snaking bays and inlets, lovely little parks and patches of otherwise inaccessible terrain rendered unbuildable to prevent the place from feeling overcrowded and urbanized. The same seals sunning themselves [...]
Full StoryThe end of the road is the beginning
The last bastion of civilization can be any number of places depending on where you are heading and what your standards for civilization are. At various times in the past, I’ve felt like my last touch with civilized society before a departure to wander in the wilderness has been at Campbell River, at Port McNeill, [...]
Full StoryA sad night in Ganges
Sadness permeates the boat here at anchor in Ganges, even as the rollicking background noise of a hundred happy fellow vacationers drifts in the open hatches. Four people are dead, though not here. Only one we knew, and we knew his passing might be soon, but the other three have added to the already oppressive [...]
Full StoryHigh Temperatures and Low Tides
Note: There’s a reason this blog is called “Late Entry” and if you’re wondering why I am writing about nice weather when it’s miserable out, well, I’m not… this was actually written last week, when it was sort of nice. The combination of high temperatures and low tides seems to have kick-started the summer scene [...]
Full StoryPlaces you sail past: Bloedel Reserve
One of the positive aspects of being more landlocked this winter than we had planned has been the opportunity to visit some places that have, by dint of coastal geography, been places that we have generally found ourselves sailing past rather than stopping at and visiting. Whether their appeal simply hasn’t been obvious from the [...]
Full StoryDecadent Living
My timing of the tides and currents through the San Juans en route to Seattle proved to be masterful and heroic in scale… yet deficient in one particular: Spieden Channel. I’d worked out our trip from Sidney to Seattle precisely accounting for the tides and currents at Sidney, through Haro Straight, down San Juan Channel, [...]
Full StoryHaving it both ways
I don’t want to say that I am feeling cozy, particularly, because that’s really more a word that my wife would use and she would mean something completely different than I might mean by it, so it’s probably best to avoid it entirely. Especially because right now men’s figure-skating happens to be playing on the [...]
Full StoryA Day of Rest
That’s what today was supposed to be, at least. And certainly, I’m going to hit the bunk right after writing this, because tomorrow’s busy schedule calls for an early departure and promises a day of, shall we say, interesting, sailing and navigating from start to finish. To start, we will have to pick our way [...]
Full StoryThe kindness of Canadians
I’m not saying Americans aren’t kind, particularly here in the Pacific Northwest (where we have something of a reputation for altruism, at least, if not strictly kindness), and certainly not among or around boaters and marina workers we have encountered, who are with very few exceptions complete gems and entertaining to be around in the [...]
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Marty McOmber
Scott Wilson