After losing an extra day in Tofino due to the mouse that snuck aboard in the 4th St marina, we were eager to depart. A heavy morning fog was present out on the ocean though, so we waited till 10:30 for that to clear (plus there was no wind yet). We ended up having to motor all the way to Amphitheater Point outside Ucluelet – about 4 hours – but were able to sail with 8-10 kts that showed up in Barkley Sound. We’ve been finding the wind has been arriving later and is more short-lived in late July than it was the first half of July. Previously good wind started at 11am or noon, but now doesn’t start till 4 or 5pm.

This has made me wonder whether our July west coast cruise is perfectly mistimed by about 2 weeks. It would be better to start mid June when there’s still a chance of southerlies, and then return south in the 2nd week of July, when we had strong, consistent northerlies. Summer seems to have come early this year, and the last 2 weeks of July are resembling August weather – fog and low wind.

Still, sailing into Barkley Sound was fun, and I was reminded again of how spectacular Barkley Sound is – the sailing is always good there (at least all 7 days we were there during the month) and there are dozens of beautiful anchorages, many of them with no boats in them. We easily could’ve spent the whole month just cruising Barkley Sound, and I kind of wondered whether we should’ve done exactly that.

[This post took place from July 18 – 21]

Rocks outside of Wouwer Island

Wouwer Island

Wouwer Island is on the outside of the Broken Group, and is a really beautiful anchorage – surrounded by rocks, islands, trees, views of mountains and crystal clear water in the anchorage. Most guide books say it’s for settled conditions only, and I’d agree if there’s more than 20 knots it wouldn’t be comfy. The winds were about 15 after we arrived, and we had some wavelets and slight rocking. Not bad, but certainly not as calm as some other Barkley Sound anchorages.

There’s plenty of room in here for one boat, but two would be tricky without stern ties.

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A couple days ago as we approached Nootka Sound, sailing close hauled, I remarked “it’s all downwind after this!” That evening, a southerly moved in bringing rain and south winds just as it was time for us to head back south. The fun downwind sail I had envisioned evaporated into a long upwind slog. But, no matter – we ended up having some fun, challenging ocean sailing, even though it ended up a tiring day.

The south wind was only 9-12 kts, but the waves were much larger than you’d have in those conditions on a sound. Exiting Nootka, we were motoring with wind and swell on the nose, only making 5 kts when we’d normally do 6, and rolling from -10 degrees to +10 degrees. There was a 3 foot westerly swell with SW wind waves mixed in. We decided to sail, even though going upwind around Estevan Point would take a really long time. But setting sail actually made things much more comfortable – we were no longer rolling 20 degrees.

It took us nearly 4 hours to get around Estevan though, 8 hours overall from Friendly Cove to Hot Springs Cove. The swells approaching Estevan were really large, and if only 10-12 kts does that, I’d hate to be caught out there in 20.

We spotted lots of sea otters!

Normally we’d consider waiting a day for the wind to switch back to northerly, but we were running low on water (~9 gallons of 34 capacity), and hadn’t been to a marina in 2 weeks (which is why we were also approaching a dire coffee situation – we had only whole bean coffee left, with no real way to grind it. We thought we could run our coffee grinder off a small portable inverter we have, but it turned out the grinder uses more than 70 watts. So we’ve been grinding coffee with a battery powered Cuisinart, but it just produces a coarse chop).

Our route sailing around Estevan Point to Hot Springs Cove, with a south wind

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As we sailed towards Hot Springs Cove, the wind steadily backed to the west, giving us a lift (sailor lingo for a favorable shift in wind). We were pointed right at Hesquit Harbor now, so we said why not go to Hesquit? We could always do the Hot Springs on the way back. We make changes in plans like this often when wind or weather gives us a favorable shift to take advantage of.

In this case Hesquit made sense also because it gets us a little further towards Estevan Point and Nootka Sound. We knew Estevan can be treacherous, with its outlying rocks and confused swell convergence. So being a bit closer allows us to monitor conditions and choose the right time to go, plus shorten the passage to Nootka (to ~21 nm).

As we sailed, we saw a gray whale feeding close to shore off Flores Island. Earlier, while motoring out we had seen 6-8 sea otters just hanging out floating on their backs with their toes in the air – so cute! It was a sea life rodeo today. As we entered Hesquit Harbor and passed over the bar (a 20-30 ft section) we were stunned to see a humpback feeding past the bar only a few hundred feet from our boat. We were sailing downwind by now (the wind backs into Hesquit Harbor) at 6 kts, and I altered course to give him a wider berth.

The Nootka Sound lighthouse

Hesquit Harbor

Hesquit ended up being a very nice anchorage. It doesn’t look like it would be, but nestled behind Anton’s Spit (a shallow spit on the west side that’s submerged at high tide), we had complete protection from waves, and a great view of the mountains of Clayoquot Sound. It’s true it’s about 2 nm in, but in the afternoon you can generally sail in downwind, and in the morning it gives you quick access to rounding Estevan, shaving ~6 nm off the alternative option of Hot Springs Cove.

We were the only boat there, and would consider Hesquit again.

Estevan Point lighthouse

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Our arrival to Barkley Sound was a tremendous relief – after bashing and motoring upwind for 200 miles, we were ready for some relaxation and easy sails between idyllic anchorages. Barkley Sound had all that and more. We sailed between every anchorage, attempted some fishing, went swimming in a waterfall creek, hiked Brady’s Beach, made pizza and cookies, and had a dinner out in Ucluelet.

Our route through Barkley Sound: Dodger Channel to Bamfield to Jacques-Jarvis Lagoon to Refuge Is (Lucky Creek) to Ucluelet

Refuge Island anchorage near Lucky Creek

Dodger Channel

The first night we were getting in around 7pm after a tiring day of motoring/sailing since 9:30am from Port Renfrew, so we decided to stop at the first available good anchorage – Dodger Channel. This isn’t an obvious anchorage, so we were the only boat there, but our guide book described it well, and a user report on Navionics has it rated 5 stars. It has a narrow, shallow (12 ft when we entered) south entrance which provides complete protection from waves, and is surrounded by scenic shoreline on all sides. In the morning a deer grazed on the grass to the north, and we rowed the dinghy to the south shore on Diana Island to explore the beach.

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The importance of a shakedown sail is, I think, often forgotten or underestimated. A shakedown sail before a longer one helps discover problems with boat work done over the long winter. And perhaps more importantly, it rebuilds sailing skills, especially physical and mental stamina that might have grown weak over the winter.

Not just any shakedown sail will do – the weekend cruises we did twice a month over the last 7-8 months don’t prepare us fully for the 1-month cruise we’ll be taking this July (to the west coast of Vancouver Island, much like the route we did two years ago). So last Thursday evening we took off from Shilshole for a 4 1/2 day trip to the San Juans (2 days in the islands before we needed to head back for work the day after Memorial Day).

Thursday: Shilshole to Port Ludlow

We took off about 5pm and sailed upwind to Port Ludlow, taking about 5 hours and arriving after dark. There was only 6-10 knots of wind, and sailing upwind makes the journey take quite a bit longer, but we sailed 100% of the way except for the last 1-2 miles into the harbor. Going past Point No Point we had 7.5 knots over ground with the 2 knot current push.

Currents were a recurring theme of the four days – there are large tides currently, due to 2-3 ft minus tides and a new moon. We encountered many whirlpools and tide rips in the San Juans and around the Point Wilson washing machine. This was probably the biggest benefit of our shakedown sail – it was a good refresher in using currents to our advantage, and we hit them all right, often getting 3-4 knot boosts.

Sailing into the sunset towards Port Ludlow

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