August 15-August 24

 

August 15 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER)– August 16

    We spent today cruising from Tofino to Barkley Sound.  Our first night anchorage was at Dodd Island in the Broken Group of Islands. We had good weather and water for our open ocean stretch and found a really protected bay for two nights.  Steve, Di and I went fishing and we got a couple of lingcods and Di got a keeper Rockfish. We caught several other fish too small to keep and also a yelloweye which you are not allowed to keep.

 

August 17 – Cataract Creek Cove

                We moved a few miles inland to Cataract Creek Cove.  We have been here before and we spent some time cruising in the jetboat up two of the local rivers. There are a lot of floating homes here and also huge oyster farms (lots of oysters on the beach!).

August 18 – Rainy Bay Cove

           We spent the day exploring the area and Steve and I went fishing where we were rewarded with 2 nice size silvers!  Its Salmon dinner tonight.

August 19 & 20

           We moved up to Robbers Passage to be close to Bamfield for our final leg around the island.  We explored the Passage and area around Bamfield including a trip to town for lunch and a walk along the boardwalk!  Steve and I had the opportunity to do some more fishing – it started off slow with a couple of small Lingcod and small rockfish but we ended our fishing by doubling up with 2 Kings. It was a crazy way to end the fishing part of our trip! Unfortunately I was not successful in netting Steve’s – I was too excited to get his into the boat and then get mine netted. I did not get under it enough, managed to knock it in the head with the net and it spit out the hock and got free at the last minute.  We turned our attention to mine which we netted so that helped the sting of not getting his into the boat! I felt really bad but he was great about reminding me that he had a good fight and it won the battle.  I think I will practice netting!

August 21 – Sydney Spit – We made the entire trip around the end of Vancouver Island and decided to spend the night in Sydney Spit!  It was an 11 ½ hour cruising day and we were all happy to drop anchor and relax for the evening.  It was a beautiful day of cruising – we had great water, weather and a whale show!

August 22 – Todd Inlet – We decided after our long day yesterday we would spend one more night at anchor in Canada before crossing over to Roche Harbor and starting our trek home.  We moved to Todd Inlet so that we could go to Butchart Gardens and have one more night together with Glen and Liz and Rick and Pam.  Butchart Gardens was fun – Steve and I have not been in over 20 years so it was a fun day.

 

August 23 – Happy 8^th Anniversary to Tyler and Amanda and 48^th for Chris and Tom!

   We said goodbye to our travel mates and headed for Roche Harbor. We stayed at Henry Island SYC Outstation and headed for home in sunshine and smooth water!

Our plan is to spend one more night on the boat close to home and go into our boathouse tomorrow so this is my last entry for the 2022 Trip around Vancouver Island.  It was a great summer aboard the Nelsea and many many manymore happy boating memories!

Canada August 3 - August 14

 

August 3 – August 5   Kyuquot Sound, Mary Basin – Nuchatlitz Inlet, Nuchatlitz Bay, Esperanza and Espinosa Inlet.

      We have been moving thru this area for a few days – going on Dinghy tours, fishing the outside on the Ocean and enjoying the sunny weather. The fishing is quieter here than it was our last day in Kyuquot Sound but with a full freezer we are definitely enjoying out catch!  There are a lot more people in this area – we fished with 18 other boats off of Nachatlitz Inlet! There are lots of fishermen, campers, more homes and fishing operations!

     The beaches south of Kyuquot Sound were amazing.  We went ashore at Rugged Point Marine Park and hiked thru the trees to several different beaches that were beautiful white fine sand.

August 6 – 7   We stayed in Mcbride Bay which gave us the opportunity to go to Zeballos and Tahsis. Zeballos has a museum a few blocks in from the town that is interesting and we actually went there on our trip in 2017.  Tahsis has fuel, the Island Attitude Café which is decked out as Margaritaville at the dock next to have a margarita and lunch!

 

August 8-13   Valdia Island, Hot Springs Cove, Bottleneck Cove, Friendly Dolphin Cove,  Quait Bay and Kennedy Cove

     We have been moving thru the area as we make our way South for home.  We were really looking forward to a soak in the Hot Springs but the First Nations closed them with Covid and they are still not open so we only stayed 1 day.  We have been touring the different areas by our small boats,  When we left Quaiit Bay, Nelsea and Magic Moment headed for a night in Kennedy Cove and the other two boats, SeaLife and Beachcomber wanted to spend two nights in Tofino so they headed directly there  We used the jet boat to try to go up the Kennedy  river to Kennedy Lake but even at high tide we could not get to the lake – too many rocks. 

On August 12th we toured Freedom Cove.  It is a funky floating home that a Wayne and Catherine started building in 1992.  It is a completely off-grid, off-land floating home (except they do have TV and Internet access now). Quite the site to see in a bay they named Freedom Cove.  We met Wayne and got a tour of their home. As you enter the bay, the first picture below shows a home their Son has built on the bay also.  He was born in Freedom Cove and visits often.  If you want to more about it you can just google Freedom Cove, BC.  Many articles have been written about them and the loating home they have built in this beautiful Bay in BC. They are both artists and everything they use is recycled materials. Catherine is quite the gardener and grows their vegetables and herbs.

 

August 14 -  We left Kennedy Cove headed for Tofino.  After getting fuel and groceries, we met up with the others at Gods Pocket near Tofino.  We toured the area and all the oyster farms and you can tell we are getting closer to town as there are many cabins and floating homes in this area. We had a fantastic dinner out at the Schooner Restaurant. The restaurant is family owned since 1949 and the food and service were exceptional!

Below are more pictures of our beach explorations.  We have seen shipwrecks including a sunk WW2 Landing Craft in Quait Bay. The Wagonner book and our charts said it was a submerged concrete structure but we discoverd it is a steel landing craft!  Abandoned canneries, bear, birds, rivers and fishing operations have filled our days with many fun small boat tours!

This is the picture of the submerged top of the landing craft!