Tomorrow we take off for the west coast of Vancouver Island. I had my last day of work on Wednesday until August! It’s a little weird since I’ve never taken this much time off, ever. We have a pretty great adventure planned and will be going out the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the rugged, remote Vancouver Island coast along the Pacific Ocean.
This is sort of a test – a test to see if we like real cruising. Not vacation cruising where you hurriedly jump from one destination to another, but cruising in the true meaning of the word – where you go at a sustainable pace living a mostly normal life, just one spent on the water.
Our itinerary (tentative, since the goal is to remain flexible) looks roughly like:
- July 4-6 – Seattle – Sequim bay – Neah Bay – Ucluelet
- July 7-8 – Barkley Sound
- July 9-10 – Tofino and Matilda Inlet
- July 11 – Hot Springs Cove
- July 12-14 – Hesquiat Harbour and to Nookta Sound
- July 15-19 – Return south to Tofino (includes buffer days)
- July 19 – Meet crew while Natalie flies back to work for the week, cruise Barkley Sound.
- July 23-24 – Bamfield – Port Renfrew – Victoria
- July 25 – Victoria rest day
- July 26 – July 30 – Gulf Islands and maybe the last day or two in the San Juans
- July 31 – Aug 1 – Return to Seattle via Port Townsend
We’ll probably try to post some updates of our progress as we make our way along.
We’re back! I should note this itinerary was an optimistic “what’s the most we could do” type of schedule. We didn’t end up going as far as Nookta Sound (but did make Hot Springs Cove) because we found we liked shorted days better and the ocean passage days were very tiring.