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Summer Cruising – Shoal Bay Music Fest

Shoal Bay is a cool little spot in the Discovery Islands. It’s the epitome of laid back – the kind of place that I’m sure you’d be just fine if you forgot your high blood pressure medicine at home.

Located on the northeast corner of East Thurlow Island, you’ll find the Shoal Bay Lodge, which lies near what once was the site of a thriving community of over 5000 inhabitants, drawn to the areas logging, mining, and fishing industries. Rather than spend too much of your time and mine telling you about the location, its past, and its future, I’ll direct you to their website, and encourage you to check out every informative and entertaining page within. If you only have time to read one page, make certain it’s The Story…

On August 9, Shoal Bay hosted their annual Music Fest, and this year’s cruising plans included this as one of the planned stops. During last year’s cruise, we were a week late, and learned of the event and how much fun it was. Being a “musician” (no claims of being a good one), I enjoy an opportunity to play and sing.

Briar Patch, Enough Time, Jolly Mon, and Little Bear arrived on Friday, the day before the Fest, to nearly-full docks with multiple boats rafted, and the anchorage filling by the hour. I found a nice spot to settle and drop my hook in about twenty feet of water.

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Summer Cruise – Motoring to Tribune Bay

I’m currently out on a three week trip to Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands. While, at this point, our little flotilla is making our way slowly in the direction of home, I’ve been away from reliable internet for a good part of the trip.

Rather than provide a day-by-day account of the trip – which takes a bit of work, and is probably not too exciting for the reader – I’ll share some of the highlights of the trip. And there are some!

So far, we’ve visited Nanaimo, Tribune Bay (Hornby Island), Campbell River, Anchorage Lagoon (Sonora Island – unsure of its “official” name, if it has one), Shoal Bay, Toba Inlet, Pendrell Sound, Refuge Cove, Squirrel Cove, Westview (Powell River), and currently at anchor in Garden Bay, Pender Harbour. It’s been a great trip, and I’ve seen and experienced a lot. You can see where the trip has taken us by checking out my Spot Adventure Page.

For this post, the first highlight I’d like to share was a few moments from the trip from Nanaimo to Tribune Bay on Hornby Island. After spending a couple of days in Nanaimo, watching the wind blow and following weather patterns, we saw a window of opportunity to move on. Leaving in the afternoon and cruising at slow speed put us into Tribune Bay after dark, but the prize for doing so was motoring into a beautiful sunset.

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Internet Aboard – It’s not just for torturing the folks back home.

As boaters, and travelers in general, many of us walk the line between getting away from it all and staying in touch with people back home. With social networking, e-mail, and blogs we have the opportunity to share our adventures, most likely leaving our friends and family green with envy. Aside from the entertainment factor, sometimes we’re required to conduct business so everything runs smoothly at home. If we need to or choose to accomplish these things, reliable internet access is a big help.

Last summer, I spent several weeks cruising on my boat, Jolly Mon throughout British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound. I’ll share some of my experiences and solutions for staying in touch.

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2013: Year in Review

The best camera is the one that is with you.

These days, we carry great little cameras in our pockets, in the form of a smartphone.  The quality of the photos and videos these devices can capture is amazing, but the best part is, we pretty much always have them with us.

I’ve done this a couple of times before; create a year in review video featuring images captured by my iPhone.  Out of the scores of pictures and videos I’ve taken, these are just a few of my favorites, presented in the order they were taken.  2013 was a great year for me, and I look forward to seeing what 2014 has in store.

Best viewing is in HD, and you’ll want your sound turned on.  The ad at the beginning can be clicked away.

 

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Turning Toward Home

In my previous post, I wrote about the journey north to Desolation Sound and beyond. This will be a continuation of that trip, although now we have turned our bows toward home, and are slowly making our way south.

Day 16: Sunday, August 25

We enjoyed a calm night at Anchor in Roscoe Bay and awoke to clearing skies and sunshine. I’m pretty certain I had my fair share of clams and Scotch and guitar playing last night, but I was up and out of bed fairly early. Wind Walker is beginning their trip toward home today. Todd wants a few extra days in a weather window for a comfortable trip home. A slower-moving sailboat, Wind Walker can’t just speed up to run ahead of weather like the power boats in the group. We saw them off, leaving us onJolly Mon, Briar Patch, and Enough Time behind. Perhaps we’ll run into them down the line. We’re hoping to spend a few more days gunkholing in Desolation Sound.

After taking care of a few things, we left Roscoe Bay and made the short run to Refuge Cove for water and ice, with plans to decide our next destination over a burger. During the run, a check of the updated weather forecast predicting big winds and rain on the way, made us re-think our plans. Winds of up to thirty knots would be coming in tomorrow, followed by rain for the next several days. Even though we have a week to get home, maybe it’s best to slowly head that direction. Wherever we decided to go today, we would probably be there for at least two days. After considering our options, we decided Westview at Powell River would be a good choice – we could tie to the dock and have power and water, and would have a town to help pass the time. We contacted Westview Marina by phone, and although they do not take reservations, they advised they had plenty of room, and didn’t anticipate filling up.

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