Muirhead Islands to Sullivan Bay

It’s a relatively short hop over to Sullivan Bay, and we have reservations for two days. The only navigation consideration is timing Stuart Narrows to pass at or near slack. Our exit timing confirmed slack is 10 minutes after high or low tide at Alert Bay.

We had a non-eventful run up Drury Inlet and through Stuart Narrows. As soon as we emerged, we started to see lots of other pleasure boats.

We were joined by four other boats on the approach to Sullivan Bay. Seems most cruisers leave before noon and the new arrivals show up between noon and one. There were a few more arrivals in the afternoon, but not many.

Sullivan Bay Marina

We wanted 50amp power and things were busy, so Bill, the dockmaster, wanted to put us on the outside of dock 1, which is too exposed for Karen’s tastes. So we ended up at the outer end of Dock 3, in front of a tidy, vacant float home. We were basically alone on this dock for our entire stay and we liked it! Views were great!

Oceanflyer all alone on dock 3

Bill reported that the season had been a little slow, but it’s picking up and they are sold out for Friday Prime Rib dinner tomorrow.

We checked out the store, bought some odds and ends, did laundry, off-loaded recyclables and put in our order for cinnamon buns to be picked up tomorrow morning.

We always make it a point to walk the docks and inspect the float homes. They typically are quite nice and well kept. The big surprise this year was a bright red helicopter on a floating landing pad, moored behind one of the homes. Nice way to travel!

if you have a helicopter, why not make it red!

Muirhead Islands Lay Day

We enjoyed a pleasant morning working on long term route planning as we start to get serious about heading south. We need to be back in Bellingham in early August.

beautiful morning loooking east from our muirhead anchorage

After the tide turns and begins to rise, we are going to do a dinghy explore of Acteon Sound. We have taken the big boat in there before, but the Muirheads are perfectly positioned to allow an easy dinghy excursion all the way back to the entry to Tsibass lagoon.

the view to the west toward sutherland bay

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas. Though sunny and bright, it was quite windy. There were whitecaps everywhere we looked and a few even in our anchorage.  We waited patiently for the winds to lay down, but it was late evening when that finally occurred.

Instead, we chilled out and did some boat chores, enjoying being the only boat in the Muirheads.

Blunden Harbour to Muirhead Islands, Drury Inlet

We are now in a pattern of foggy mornings. The visibility for our trip today from Blunden to the Muirhead Islands in Drury Inlet ranged from 150 feet to ½ mile.

fog to start the day

As we left the fog behind in Queen Charlotte Sound and turned up Wells Passage, we saw a buck swimming across our path. We slowed, and the buck took our stern and continued his long swim to get to the other side.

this guy was an amazing swinner

The entrance to Drury Inlet is guarded by Stuart Narrows. Slack is predicted to be 10 minutes after high or low at Alert Bay. There is some latitude when passing though the rapids depending on your boat and the tidal exchange, but at full current these narrows should not be challenged. It’s not unusual to see boats anchored in Helen Bay just NW of the narrows as they await slack current. None were there as we entered this time, and passage through the narrows was uneventful.

We broke up the cruise to the Muirheads with a detour past Jennis Bay. We often made Jennis Bay Marina a mandatory stop back in its heyday. We spent many fall days there kayaking, enjoying great company and celebrating birthdays of Alison’s kids.

Sadly, Alison is long gone, having moved on with life. Two years ago when we were last in Drury, a floating lumber camp was in the east side of the bay near the marina, but this year they are on the south shore of Drury Inlet.  That changed certainly cleaned up the look of Jennis Bay.

We wanted to try a different anchorage in the Muirheads this year. We have always anchored in the one boat cove on the NE side of the islands inbetween the guitar shaped islet and the islet immediately NW. But when we were last year, we visited a boat that chose to anchor on the south side of the islands in the cove farthest west and liked what we saw, especially as they were not stern tied.

looking east down drury inlet form our muirheads anchorage

This anchorage provides delightful views in all directions. The only downside is that the west winds and fetch can build here. Our heavy boat handled the moderate afternoon fetch well, so no problem. The third alternative to anchor is the south cove, which also has nice views and offers better protection from the westerlies.

looking west from our anchorage

entrance to actress passage in the upper left corner of the image

Feeling the need to stretch our legs,  we took a dinghy ride to the old logging dock just NE of the entrance to Sutherland Bay. You can see it clearly from our anchorage. The dock is still suitable to land the dinghy and gives you access to logging roads for a hike.

We continued our tour into Sutherland Bay, checking it out as a potential anchorage. The winds started to pick up and fetch to build, so we turned around and headed back to OceanFlyer, where we spent a peaceful night.

Millbrook Cove to Blunden Harbour

We awoke to fog. That was not in the forecast!

We picked today to go around Cape Caution because forecasted sea state was the calmest we’ve seen for weeks.

The blessing with fog is that with fog comes calm seas. We left right behind the Outer Reef we followed in yesterday. It did not take long before he disappeared from sight. In fact, the first two hours of our trip were in fog with visibility of 1 mile to much less. I kept finding small, go- fast targets on the radar with no AIS and Karen kept a sharp eye to see them if she could. Sometimes even if they were 1/8 mile away, there was no joy. The seas were calm, though, with ripples and less than one foot swell.

not much to see in the fog, even as the sun makes an attempt to burn it off

Even after we left the fog on our stern, the seas remained almost flat, improving as we made our way south.

fog clearing from the west

We passed our good friends aboard Alaskan Dream (OceanFlyer’s sister ship) as we were both abeam Cape Caution. They were heading north for their annual fishing trip, towing their Grady White. We exchanged greetings on the VHF but never saw them in the fog.

We entered Blunden, passing a large farmed-fish transport vessel anchored just outside the entry. Blunden looked just like last time: sunny, windy and whitecapped. We enjoyed a peaceful afternoon relaxing.

Draney Inlet to Millbrook Cove

Today we are going to position ourselves to round Cape Caution tomorrow morning. The high-pressure ridge is still with us, making for clear but hazy skies.

So far Predict Wind has done an uncanny job of forecasting. I can only think of one day in the last two months where they missed the prediction. They continue to level up their game. And they are telling us that tomorrow is the day to make the crossing.

We calculated our departure from our anchorage based on published slack, adjusted a bit later based on what we experienced on the way in. We enjoyed our 12 mile run back to the narrows. Draney Inlet is characterized by tall and steep granite mountains on both sides. The result is a large number of slides. I suspect you would see lots of mini waterfalls in the rainy season, but now, in early July, the only consistent waterfall is the charted one at the last bend before you reach the head. That one is serviced by Caroline Lake.  Apparently there is a hike up to the lake by the waterfall, but we cannot confirm it. At this time of year, the waterfall was just OK, not spectacular, so we spent our time exploring the creek instead.

On the way back, we took another look at the narrow, rocky entrance to Allard Bay (supposedly an anchorage just inside, then dinghy to the head to a waterfall at high tide) and down Robert Arm. Both look worth exploring next time.

As we approached the narrows, things looked a lot better than they did when we entered. At these tidal exchanges (11’), low slack appears to be as much as 30 minutes after what is published. We left about 15 minutes after published slack. It looked good to the eye, no turbulence, but we still had about 2 kts of current on the stern.

Because we entered and exited Draney Inlet at low slack, we have no information about whether high slack is closer to published times. Low slack was fine, as Draney Narrows are deep enough at any tide.

We started to see more recreational fishing boats as we headed down Rivers Inlet toward the mouth and made our way past Open Bight (great beaches if the wind and weather are right!) and Cranstown Point, Head, Kelp Head and False Egg Island into Smith Inlet. We actually retraced part of our journey from the beginning of the cruise, when we rounded the same area from Smith to Rivers northbound.

Another new destination for us: Millbrook Cove. We’ve read about it for years and it is described as an excellent anchorage whether you are preparing to cross Cape Caution southbound or have just crossed and are looking for a resting spot before continuing your journey north.

As we approached the cove, we saw another target on AIS was also headed there. This was a large Outer Reef motor yacht, so we hoped there would be room for us.

looking into Millbrook cove from smith inlet

looking out to smith inlet from millbrook cove

The entrance is flanked by small islets and some rocky shoals with kelp clearly showing the no-go areas. These entry islets and shoals are well marked on the charts. However, there is shallow water in the north of the cove where the shoaling extends out much further than charted. There were several boats at anchor when we entered, but we found room near one of the islets near the entry and had a beautiful view. The cove has at least one dwelling, and some old pilings that may have once been docks. Definitely well protected and a great place to stop before we head further south.

at high tide the obstruction are just below the surface. shelf extends further than charted

another look at the “surprise” shallows

low tide reveals all