We stopped and fueled and watered on our way out of Tahsis, then headed out towards the mouth of Nootka Sound. We were deep in the mountains at the head of Tahsis Inlet, 20 miles from the ocean. We had a little time to explore Nootka, so we chose a nice little bay about half way out.
It was what has become our typical west coast harbor, a skinny little entrance that opens up into a cozy spot that might hold a handful of boats if they were packed in tight. In this case again, though, we were the only boat inside.
In the morning we headed toward the next destination, a bay at the mouth of Nootka Sound called Friendly Cove. It’s the home of a First Nations village called Yuquot, which means “Winds from many directions”. It is also a harbor with so much history, Elsie has a great writeup in her book. But the winds were channeling strong up the inlet and Nootka Sound was super stinky when we turned out of the inlet. So we decided another night in our little cozy quiet bay sounded better than pounding down to what could be a breezy night. So we turned a 180 and headed back up to Bodega Bay.
We woke up from afternoon naps and saw another cruising boat motoring by past us into an inner bay. Someone was sitting up on the bowsprit watching for rocks as they slowly motored through an entrance even more shallow and narrow than we had just passed through. In the case of the inner harbor they were counting on tide height to keep them afloat, since the charts show barely above 6′ at low water between the two bays.
Our afternoon dinghy tour around the bay took us past their boat and we stopped to say hi. Their boat looked very much like ours did 17 years ago when we were heading south, and we were curious to see if offshore was in their plans. They have lived aboard for many years and are heading south this year. We invited them to dinner and had a lot of fun talking about cruising life. I have never ever regretted a second that we were out sailing, and I wish them the same experiences.
Later that night another boat that we had met in Rumble Beach came in and dropped a hook in our little bay. But we were leaving in the morning and didn’t get much chance to visit.
The winds had eased from the previous day and our trip down to Friendly Cove was much more mellow. It was a nice anchorage and we got a walk ashore to see the old church and toured around the Coast Guard station.
Another early morning alarm got us up and around our last piece of land that sticks far out into the ocean, Estevan Point. We had a nice sail in light winds for a couple of hours, one of the few days we actually got to turn the motor off.
Just south is Hesquiat Harbor, and it looked inviting as we passed by so we chose a spot at the head of the bay in a tiny harbor and decided it was so pretty we would stay two nights.
When we left Hesquiat on Sunday we planned to head into Tofino and anchor near a real town with real restaurants and grocery stores. We knew some southerly winds were in the forecast, but not strong enough to bother. As we motored along in the flat calm we heard an announcement on the VHF from the Coast Guard with gale warnings for the south coast. We had some random cell signal from somewhere and gave Windy a quick look and sure enough a little low was coming ashore up north and the southerly winds would blow strong until it passed by. So we diverted into a little cove called Quait Bay, and here we are now. It’s pouring down rain but we don’t feel a bit of wind. In a little bit we’ll set up the starlink and look at the buoy reports from offshore and see when we can leave here. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon it’ll be settled down and we’ll get to Tofino.
