Pacific Northwest sailing

This past weekend we finally untied the docklines and headed off to cruise in the San Juan Islands. Our original plan was to venture off with 5 other boats of…

After two or so weeks at home with gray skies and dark thoughts about the future of humanity, the sun reappeared and we decided to keep ourselves ‘safe’ by sheltering…

(Note: you can click on the small photos to enlarge them. Use your back button to return to the blog.) On Saturday, August 18, 2018, we untied the dock lines…

On May 15, 2017, Leslie and Val on Cat’s Cradle headed ‘out to sea’ to visit a complex archipelago on the southwestern side of Vancouver Island. This is a diverse…

Sometimes people just have a bad day, and this must have been the case one June day in 1792 when Capt. Vancouver arrived at the northern end of the Strait…

We took two nice days to laze around Bull Harbor and Roller Bay recovering from our overnight sojourn.  The rocks on Roller Bay's long and steep beach are truly remarkable. …

We slipped away from our G'Sung Gwaii tour after completing our visit to the beach site with all its story-filled poles and headed south. The wind forecast was 15-25 kts…

After two great sailing days, we are securely anchored in Rose Inlet with the wind still blowing. If the weather permits, Friday morning, July 29th, promises to be the highlight…

Leslie's alarm went of at 5:42 a.m., her old 'get up and jog with Carol' before school time. By 6 o'clock we were rowing Pacifico over the flat, reflective water…

OMG, what a day.....! We experienced the high of visiting the ancient Haida site of K'uuna Linagaay (Skedans) and the low of losing our reading on the depth finder to…

Through the Visitor Center in Queen Charlotte City, we were put in touch with Dick Bellis (Skil Q'uas), a 77 year old native born here of a Finnish man and…

The Hecate Strait which lies between Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and the BC mainland has a fearsome reputation. When a strong pressure system is around, the waves…

From the north end of Vancouver Island up to the border with Alaska is 400 kilometers of forested islands separated by thousands of kilometers of inlets and bays and more.…

July 1: We left Port McNeil in tandem, but not for long, with one of the R2AK racers which had stopped for the night and to examine some of the…

We took a long bus ride from the northern end of Vancouver Island down to the southern tip at Victoria. This 9 hour trip took us from cool, damp, gray…

We have spent two nights at the government dock in Alert Bay on Cormorant Island. We found some Internet, some restaurant food, and some old and new totem poles. We…

After our visit to the Indian villages that are disappearing into the landscape, we anchored on Hanson Island. This island has been officially incorporated as the southern-most extent of the…

After leaving Hornby Island, we beat our way northwest for almost 40 nautical miles. We passed close to Mittlenach Provincial Nature Park and debated stopping in a tiny bay called…

Walking the shoreline south from Ford Bay on Hornby Island toward the south end of the island at Norman Point is an other-worldly experience. The shore is composed of layers…