These are all names of places we’ve heard about from our friends Steve & Elsie for years. We’ve known they were far away, hard to get to, but worth all the effort. Bunsby is easy to pronounce, and as Elsie learned and wrote about in her book “Voyages to Windward: Sailing Adventures on Vancouver Island’s West Coast”, was a minor character in a Dickens novel. Kyuquot is much more of a mouth full, and still more than 10 days later, not something that I can roll off my tongue easily. I have to think about it every time, kie-YOU-kit. Nuchatlitz is easier and more like it looks, new-CHAT-litz. And Esperanza is one of many names given by the early Spanish explorers.
The Bunsby Islands were a welcome sight after a very boisterous rounding of the Brooks Peninsula. The anchorage was empty when we pulled in, and we looked forward to a couple of days of chilling on the hook. There were some possible beaches to land and go ashore, but not really many places to walk, so we hung out on the boat and took the dink out for a tour. The second morning in the anchorage we were joined by several boats from the Royal Victoria Yacht Club (RVYC). This wouldn’t be the last we saw of that group, who are also doing a counter clockwise circumnavigation of the island.
From the Bunsby Islands we headed south into Kyuquot Sound. It was an early morning motorboat passage under cloud covered grey skies. We passed by the popular Walters Cove, not seeing anything there we needed to stop for on this trip. It’s added to the list of “next time”, knowing we have a limited amount of time and will have stops we have to save for later. Our first destination was deep into the Sound in Dixie Cove, which was a delightful, well protected and empty anchorage. But again, like most of Vancouver Island, there were no trails or beaches to explore, just dense forest right up to the shoreline all around. I did get out and row the dink around to get some exercise and explore what little I could.
The next morning we decided to try and stop at a nearby harbor about an hour away that had fuel and water. One of the older cruising guides we had suggested that it was built for sportfishers (there is a road to Campbell River and they can trailer their boats) and cruising boats shouldn’t waste their time. We made a late morning departure and headed towards the bay called Fair Harbour. I was pretty happy with our timing, thinking we’d easily beat all the sport boats back from their day’s fishing. Then I looked behind me and saw what looked like a scene from a bad James Bond movie, the entire width of Kyuquot Sound covered with small fishing boats roaring up behind us, 8 wide across the breadth of the horizon. I knew they would overtake us long before we got to a dock and sure enough, by the time we arrived they were still queued up for dock space and we knew there was no point in even continuing. We turned a 180 and headed back to the next anchorage, passing a group of RVYC boats motoring in. Our fuel and water were not even at the concerned level yet.
The anchorage we chose for that night looked amazing in the guide book, but the charts were a bit terrifying. The entrance was literally a 22′ wide opening through rocks that came straight up out of the water. After years of counting on the charts from Navionics and Garmin, we have full confidence that we’ll be in the right place in that 22′ when I look at my smartphone. And after years of driving our boat, Rob & I are both confident we know how to manage current and keep us where we want to be.
And it was amazing inside, one of the tiniest little spots we’ve ever tucked into. The pic above is a 360 panorama and makes the cove look much bigger than it was.
The next morning we headed out for a beach day, going to a day stop at Rugged Point Marine Provincial Park. It was a lovely walk out to the beach with some fun tide pools and sand shapes to explore and photograph.
That evening we went back to Blue Lips cove and squeezed back in and out of that tiny spot for one more night.
The next inlet south from Kyuquot is Esperanza Inlet, with the Nuchatlitz Inlet and Marine Park a bit further south. Esperanza will take us inland up around Nuchatlitz and into Nootka Sound, so we chose to stop at Nuchatlitz first. There were several anchorage to pick from, and we decided on one of four that looked inviting, winding our way through very rocky passages. And guess who was in the cove we wanted to anchor in when we arrived? RVYC, of course. We stayed in the outer bay and had a nice afternoon on the boat.
The next day some breeze was coming ashore, so we moved inland up Esperanza Inlet a bit. We picked another lovely anchorage and waited out the winds onboard for the day. Here was the only wildlife sighting of the entire summer (besides birds and sea life), a deer swimming by the boat. Which given the quantities of deer we see at home, seems unfair that’s all we’ve found out here in the wild. We’ll keep watching.
Another early morning get up followed after the winds died, and we motored up high into the depth of Vancouver Island, some 20ish miles up a narrow inlet to the town on Zeballos. When we arrived there were four boats from RVYC getting ready to leave, so we waited and got space on the dock. Zeballos was a former mining boom town in the 1930’s, transitioning to lumber and fishing tourism once the mines closed down.
As we were walking up the docks to see what offerings the grocery store might have (which were indeed slim pickings), I chatted with a local fisherman. He was there with his two sons, and they had limited out on Chinook salmon by 8:00 that morning. I asked to buy a fish and he insisted he wouldn’t accept any money, so I offered to trade some smoked Copper River salmon from my freezer and we had a deal. Dinner was absolutely delicious!
The next stop along the way south was the town of Tahsis, down Zeballos inlet and up Tahsis inlet, now 25 miles from the coastline. And who should be at the dock when we arrive, but several boats from RVYC. This time we decided if we can’t beat them we should join them, and after being invited to happy hour with their group, had an absolutely marvelous evening getting to know many of them. We’ve now definitely put Victoria on our path as we travel home, with a stop at the Yacht Club.
Today was laundry day and another attempt at a barren grocery store. I don’t know why I expect different, except we had much better luck all through Central and South American and the South Pacific than we’re having here on Vancouver Island. But we still have a half full freezer of home cooked food and will be in Ucluelet in a little over a week where groceries are plentiful. The eagles at this marina have no lack of food, though. At the end of the day all the scraps from the fisherpeople are set out on the breakwater. It was fun watching 20 eagles scrambling and each taking their share of the big scrap pile.
We’re at a very nice marina here in Tahsis, and had a chance to chat with the owner after dinner tonight. They have a big board that lists all the donors to their hatchery programs and we talked about that. I always feel guilty about eating any Chinook Salmon, knowing our resident Orcas are in danger of extinction and that is their only food source. But watching the sport fisherpeople here limiting every day on Chinook I was curious about how they were making a sustainable population for one of their few surviving industries. I believe he said they have four hatcheries and are putting nearly a million Chinook into the waters every year. Hopefully this solution will eventually help solve the problem of declining numbers of wild Chinook, and our resident pods will have plenty to eat once again.
