MV Dirona

Day 1: Penrose Island Marine Park

This is a rather desolate-looking navigation buoy in Queen Charlotte Sound that we passed while heading north past Cape Caution early on the first official day of the trip. We anchored the night before in Walker Group Cove after topping off our fuel and water in Port Hardy, and set off very early to cross the sound before the winds came up later in the day. It is open ocean to the west - if you head towards the background of this picture, the first land you hit will be in Asia. It can get really nasty in Queen Charlotte Sound when the wind picks up, especially during big winter gales.

We anchored the first night north of Cape Caution at the eastern side of Frigate Bay in Penrose Island Marine Park. This is the view from our moorage. The more popular anchorage is at Fury Island, but popular means crowded, so we opted for this spot, which we had all to ourselves.

This is a large eagle's nest on Penrose Island. Eagles typically use the same nest year after year, adding material each season, which results in huge aeries that have been known to reach nine feet across and twenty feet deep, weighing nearly two tons. While some have been in use for upwards of fifty years, most only last about twenty, the host tree eventually collapsing under the weight.

These two are most certainly the owners of the nest picture above, perched on nearby tree. Eagles form mating pairs that are believed to last throughout their lifetimes, and usually stay in the same territory together.

We took the dinghy around Penrose Island and up into Darby Channel, looking for the cannery ruins which were shown on the Coast Recreation Map for the area (these make excellent maps to take along in the dinghy or for a good large scale view of a region). The picture on the left is the remains of a brick chimney and boiler. There were many bits of machinery strewn along the shore also. We found a second ruins a little further down, in a small indent off the main channel. All the structures had collapsed, but were visible under the water.

We stopped off in Dawson's Landing for fuel and continued south into Rivers Inlet. We turned into a small bay for lunch and later found this abandoned building on floats. The corner had been severely damaged somehow, but were were intrigued so we went inside to investigate. (If this were a horror movie, this would be the point when the audience says "Nooo - don't go inside!") But it was completely empty and consisted of about a dozen dorms with beds, closets etc. Quite spooky nonetheless.

Near the abandoned bunkhouse was a small graveyard. If you have read June Cameron's Shelter from the Storm, this is the one she mentions in Rivers Inlet. Some of the grave markers were quite old, while others were more recent, from the late 1980's.

We returned back to our anchorage through Magee Channel, which is extremely sheltered. The calm water and relatively high tide resulted in some wonderful pictures where it is difficult to tell the reflection from the real image. The picture at right is intentionally sideways—it looks like a giant alien has nested onto the shore.

Day 2: Fish Trap Bay, Fish Egg Inlet

The next night, we anchored in Fish Trap Bay, in Fish Egg Inlet. Oyster Bay is the more popular spot, with small waterfalls at the far end, but they are quite a distance from anywhere anchorable, and we anticipated a crowd, judging by the two very large power boats that came out as we went in. This is a shot from the boat, where you can see the fish trap that gives the bay its name. Native peoples placed huge boulders across the channel into a small shallow bay so that fish could enter at high tide, but would be trapped there when the water receded.

After breakfast, we set off for big dinghy exploration of Elizabeth Lagoon, quite a long way from our anchorage, passing two sailboats that we saw near Dawson's Landing yesterday. Joe's Cove, at the entrance to the lagoon, looks like a nice anchorage—there's a little sign on one of the trees: JOES COVE and across the bay are the remains of a homesite, pictured.

We went through the rapids into Elizabeth Lagoon almost at slack and then toured the lagoon all the way to Sulphur Arm — it was huge. Coming out, the rapids were visibly ebbing as shown in the picture, so we lifted up motor and paddled out. It was easy — the rapids were not that big at all—not like at Tsibass Lagoon up Drury Inlet.

Day 3: Kwakshua Channel, Calvert Island

The following morning was clear and mirror-calm. This is the view from within Fish Egg Inlet as we traveled west towards Fitz Hugh Sound.

This is a closer view of Mount Buxton, on the north end of Calvert Island, visible in the upper left of the previous picture. I could never quite get a picture without a little bit of cloud catching on it.

Looking behind us down Kwakshua Channel, the rising sun cast a warm glow. We are now officially in the Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy Area.  The following pages describe our trip through the park and detailed anchorage notes can be found in our cruising guide, Cruising the Secret Coast: Unexplored Anchorages on British Columbia's Inside Passage.

We anchored in an unnamed bay just to the west of Keith Anchorage, then took the dinghy over to the latter to hike the trail up to the microwave radio tower. Caretakers once lived year round in this secluded bay to look after the site, but it is now maintained remotely by helicopter. Iain Lawrence's Far-Away Places has a good map of the trail.

The tower site offers a panoramic view of the park. This is the view looking west over the Pacific Ocean from the helicopter pad behind the tower.

We had strawberry crepes (which I made on board that morning and we carried up) for breakfast while sitting up on the helicopter pad—very decadent, very Martha. :) The deer flies and no-see-ums were out in force up here - good thing we had bug repellent with us, or it would have been a very quick stop.

This is the killer view - looking north across the park. We were very lucky to be there on such a clear day. Mount Merritt on the northern half of Hunter Island is visible prominently in the distance. If you have thumbed through the BC Marine Parks guide, you will recognize this image from the Hakai Recreation Area page.

That afternoon, we took the dinghy to the Hakai Beach Resort in Pruth Bay at the head of Kwakshua Channel to walk across to the West Beach. The resort is quite impressive and they welcome boaters for dinner so long as you make a reservation first.

In the shed behind the resort, they had literally dozens of Honda engines with their lower units removed. We weren't sure if this was for maintenance or if customers had knocked them off hitting rocks.

This is the view from the West Beach, a beautiful beach on the western side of Calvert Island that looks straight out into the Pacific Ocean. It is very reminiscent of Hawaii with soft talcum-like sand and breakers rolling in. The sand was so warm that day that it was almost too hot to walk on barefoot.

Looking east into Pruth Bay and down Kwakshua Channel, this is definitely the most popular anchorage in the area. Later in the day there were probably twice this number of boats, with several milling around looking for the ideal spot to squeeze themselves into. Only one other vessel showed up in our little cove, just to the east—it was a wonderful spot with excellent holding.