Barkley Sound Day 10 – Failing to find the nettles at Nettle Island

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The girls got up fairly early today in Marble Cove and we had some breakfast, then Devon and the girls went out in the Kayak for a while. I did the dishes and started looking at the charts for our next few stops. The sun was out again and it was a beautiful day. After their long kayaking excursion around the little island in front of our cove, the girls came back and it was time for lunch. We decided that it may be a good day to sail to our next anchorage. So after lunch we made sure the cabin was secure and the tray tables were up, or something along those lines. Then loaded the kayak on deck and secured the dinghy to the stern.

Just about then the man from the fish farm in the cove motored over and said hello, then asked for a little help. He has two boats, one larger one plus the one he was in. He needed to move the larger one into the middle of the floats of his oyster farm and then get back to shore to get his smaller boat, hard to do by oneself. So I said sure and got ready, then dinghy’d over to his farm floats. I talked to the guy a bit, he told me that it’s next to impossible to get private land in Barkley Sound, but he really wanted to live out here and one of the few ways to do so is to buy/operate a seafood farm. So he bought a little oyster farm (1 hectare of water area in the cove) and it came with a house on the shore (totally off grid). His son got a similar 9-acre farm around the corner in Robbers Passage. Seemed like a nice guy, just making a living farming oysters in his own private beautiful cove in Barkley Sound. Pretty nice little setup in my opinion.

After helping out the oyster farmer, I dinghy’d back to the boat and we fired up the engine and started to bring up the anchor. After getting the first 100 feet of chain up, it took quite a bit of effort to unseat the Rocna from the mud bottom. That thing was set deep, it came up with a mound of mud with shells and all sorts of things embedded in it. I’d never seen the windlass struggle with the old Delta, which makes me think it’s never all that well set, but it could just be the mud bottoms here in Barkley Sound we keep finding.

With that, we headed out of the cove into Imperial Eagle Channel and decided to let the wind point us to one of our several anchorage choices and see what happens. We set sail on a port tack in 10-11kts of wind and we were cruising along at 6-7kts, 10-12 degrees of heel, on one of the most comfortable passages we’ve had to date. The wind took us straight across into Sechart Channel so we decided to sail around Nettle Island and come in from the NW side to anchor in the south bay. As we came through Sechart Channel we saw a lodge on the north side behind an island and it reminded me that the Postal worker in Bamfield told me to check it out. Maybe we’ll dinghy over there tomorrow or something.

We ran the generator the entire time we were sailing since we needed to make water and charge the batteries. It’s not silent, but it’s a lot quieter than the engine. Once we dropped anchor in the back of the bay, Devon and Katherine and both kids loaded into the kayak and took off. DSC_5337.jpeg

I washed down the deck, cockpit, and swim step area to get things a bit cleaner than they were. We had full batteries and water tanks about 5:50pm so I shut down the generator and the watermaker and we were sitting peacefully in our anchorage with two other boats nearby. Olivia fell on the rocks and got a few scrapes on her hands when they were out kayaking so she needed some band-aids on her palm, and then while Morgan was talking to me on the edge of her bed, she forgot she was on the edge and as she turned to get off she fell backwards onto her head and also hurt her ankle. Two down. I BBQ’d the steaks and asparagus for dinner and somehow burned my arm on the BBQ, but didn’t realize it till later. Three down. Devon then somehow cut herself getting the rest of dinner ready. Four down. Katherine is the only one who didn’t somehow hurt herself today.

After dinner Ellie went to bed and Morgan stayed up to help narrate the travel video Devon is working on. Morgan is doing a pretty awesome job at that, looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

· Anchored in the south cove of Nettle Island, Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island, BC · Engine Hours: 1438.7 to 1439.7 = 1 hour
· West Wind, 10.5kts and steady
· Genset Hours: 634.1 to 637.6 = 3.5 hours
· Water Consumption: 156 / 8.1 = 20 gallons
· Water Produced from Watermaker: 28 gallons (Tank Full) · Barometer at 1015.5mb and falling