Aussies' Adventures Along The Northwest Inside Passage

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Part 3: From Desolation Sound To Big Bay

By David & Irene Axup

Editor's Note: Northwest Boat Travel Club members and designers of the NBT Club burgee, David & Irene Axup, of Melbourne, Australia, have spent over two years carefully planning for "an adventure of a lifetime". Several articles were published in our club magazine, describing their preparations. Now they are here - on our lovely waters, sailing northwestward on their adventure of the next four months. We asked them to share their cruise with our members and with us.

G'day to all

Here are a few update notes for NBT On-Line Guide:

Beach Gardens Marina people were quite helpful. The laundromat is a walk up hill from the Marina. Showers are available in the gym/spa area for $C2.00 per person and it is likewise a hike.

The hamburger concession at Refuge Cove does not open until July and closes at the end of August - copies of the printed Northwest Boat Travel Guide are in the store.

There is a refuse facility at the Squirrel Cove pier and a donation varying on the size of the bag is requested.

Rendezvous Lodge is definately worth visiting. A little note that the dock is protected by a floating log breakwater and the gap to get in is not wide. Having said that the food was excellent and the staff most helpful. They are hoping to extend into diving as well as being a fishing lodge. We are going back on the way South.

26th JUNE - Tuesday

Today we are to head north and so it is up early to get ready. We have a slack water at Yaculta Rapids to meet. As we prepare a large motor vessel noses up to us. Linda and Jack Schreiber with whom we have been corresponding by e-mail. Their vessel is Sanctuary. We arrange to meet at Cordero Lodge.

0930 Out of Squirrel Cove after passing the Whalens on Yellow Card. What wind there is is on the nose and we cannot afford the time to tack slowly up Lewis Channel. The channel closes in and the mountains rise on either side of us in spectacular fashion.

Several boats pass us going south and none of them bother to ease off on the throttle as they go and so we have to turn into their wake to avoid rolling. A couple pass us going North and give us a wide berth to minimize the wake.

At the end of Lewis Channel we emerge into Calm Channel and it lives up to its name with not a breath of wind and water like glass. The view up Sutil Channel and Deer Passage is breath taking.

1200 We are in Calm Channel and slack water is not until 1505 so we decide to put the Rendevous Lodge claim to have the best Ceasar Salad to the test and call them on the VHF.

1220 We nose carefully in to the dock through a log boom breakwater and tie up. The view from the verandah of the Lodge is great and the staff friendly and set about preparing our lunch. A humming bird we identify as Anna's Hummingbird is busy around a feeder hanging from the verandah and a Red Breasted Woodpecker is busy on the conifers near the steps. We can add these to our list of wildlife identified.

1420 Out of Rendezvous Lodge. We are going to call in for dinner on the way back south in August.

The tide is still on the ebb and so we enter Yaculta Rapids as it starts to enter the slack and the passage into Big Bay is quick and smooth.

1538 Tie up at Big Bay Marina and book in at the office to find two Aussies working here.

We spend the remainder of the afternoon going for a walk in the forest nearby [no bears] and admiring the view of Gillard Passage.

Dinner in the restaurant overlooking the anchorage.

27th JUNE - Wednesday

The weather is lousy - rain, poor visibility and not a good forecast in respect to winds. We miss the slack water so that finishes us going further north today.

We spend the day doing little odd jobs.

David left one of his credit cards at Refuge Cove and a phone call confirms that and the store keeper is going to cut it up for us. Another phone call, this time to American Express, and the problem is no longer a problem.

The Sailmail issue is addressed through a number of phone calls to Jim Corenman in Hawaii but we have no success still. Looks like it is going to have to be a radio tech in Port McNeill to look at the system. BUGGER.

This means that we will have to send our reports to Phil and Gwen when we can get access to the e-mail and a disc to post to them with photographs.

A phone call to home to speak to our son Colin and he informs us that our boat back in Oz, Toucan Dream, has been sold. Thank goodness we are a one boat family again [rubber ducky not counted]

Linda Schreiber on Sanctuary calls on the VHF. We were going to meet at Cordero Lodge but now can't as we missed the slack water.

Must be having a fit of the "lazies" as we decide to eat in the Restaurant again. David cannot resist lamb and so orders what is probably the most expensive dish on the menu. The meat prices are all upside down here - guess that's appropriate as it is on the other end of the globe to us.

On the way back from dinner we detour to look at and admire a Pacific Seacraft 34 and the owners Wendy Harper and Larry Hipfner invite us on for a look and a chat.

It is raining heavily again and so we wander home through the rain - this place is still beautiful even when the weather is not.

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