Quigley Creek Cove to Tom Bay
/5:15am and the fog has descended upon our anchorage. In fact, it’s zero/zero. Back to bed, as our scheduled departure is not until 10:30am. It’s not a surprised that the sun is hiding. The forecast has turned to a long string of cloudy and rainy days.
Our departure time this morning is based on Meyers Narrows, the protected route that takes us “back inside”. I picked a tide height and current that I was comfortable with (having transited this passage several times), saving us a couple of hours waiting for the exact moment of high slack.
We went throughthe narrows on a +9-foot tide and saw no less than 11 feet under the keel. The current was on our stren at 2.5 knots which presented no problem going through the well-charted narrows. Karen made a note in the logbookl that +9 foot was a great tide highet to target our passage.
Our original plan was to take Thistle Pass to Meyers Narrows, turn right at the top of Meyers Passage at Tolmie Channel near Boat Bluff Lighthouse and then head down Finlayson Channel to Jackson Pass and anchor in the one-boat hole just before the narrows. But the timing to depart at slack the next day was not favorable, so we decided to take Oscar Pass instead to our destination of Salmon Bay on Mathieson Channel, about a 5 hour run. Our decision to head south was driven by the need to arrive at Shearwater on a specific date to pick up a new sea water pump for our 20kW generator.
the unmistakable Boat Bluff Lighthouse
Karen took the helm as we approached Boat Bluff and Klemtu. Though still cloudy, the wind was up, and we changed course a bit to minimize the beam seas (and dodge logs). Many boats were heading north, probably toward Alaska. One was Rushmore, a very large yacht we saw last year on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Oscar Pass was, happily, more sheltered due to the wind and waves being on our stern. But as we exited, we quickly saw that the wind and fetch was heading straight into Salmon Bay, our planned destination. Time for an alternative. We chose Tom Bay, despite not knowing much about it, as it was just a bit further south and was oriented for protection from the prevailing wind.
Tom Bay is attractive. There’s not much written about it, but it’s easy to enter, has nice views and there’s a great “bear beach” at the head. In fact, not long after we anchored, a black bear prowled the area for a while. Later that evening, another black bear (fatter) was eating sedge grass and even laying down in the grass, when it heard something and scampered post-haste into the woods. Shortly thereafter, another black bear came into view. That one also enjoyed the sedge and explored a bit, until it sniffed the area where the other bear had been and it ran into the woods, maybe chasing the scent. Mating season?
Tomorrow we head for Troup Narrows Cove.
