The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
Even with us feeling the crunch on time to get to Port Townsend to get a bunch of work done on the boat before heading offshore, we felt the need to take the long way up and around, instead of take the normal – and fast – Johnstone Strait. This didn’t start until a few minutes before leaving Port Harvey,...
We were already on our way south out of the Broughtons after spending a few days within the archipelago, one of which may or may not have included a birthday. It did, in fact, include a rare two-night stay in a single anchorage to catch up on some work and rest, and a visit to an abandoned native village. The...
We were already feeling the crunch. The crunch to make it to Port Townsend by our scheduled haul-out at the end of August. But we had only just arrived in the area that contains endless islands and inlets to explore. Down the entire 300+ mile length of Vancouver Island is a boater’s paradise [in the summer], yet we only had...
It was a drastic change, arriving back into civilization after months of very remote anchorages and the lifestyle of Alaska and the northern part of BC. No one in their right minds would call this a metropolis by any means, but it was to us. Since we did not wish to go into the big-city just yet, our first encounter...
We had a few day wait – thanks to weather – before we could safely round Cape Caution. The Cape is notorious for making mildly foul weather into a supremely big deal, not necessarily for the weather itself but for the state of the water it creates. Nevertheless, a good amount of wind was coming our way for a couple...
Leaving Bella Coola, after a three day rest, we were under no delusion – sailing would not be taking place this day. In fact, we were racing against the clock as the nearest anchorage was 6 hours down-channel, with strong winds that would oppose us by afternoon. Burke Channel is notorious for making life hard on sailors that are traversing...
One might think we would spend the rest of our lives at such an ideal spot as Eucott Hotsprings, but move on we did. We still had Labouchere, a section of Burke, and North Bentick Channels to navigate to the apex of our inland adventures at Bella Coola. It was still a long haul to get there, but the forecast...
It was another 25+ mile voyage from our last stop in Ocean Falls – they all seemed to be 25+ nowadays – but at least the wind would run in our favor this day. It wasn’t particularly strong, in fact pleasant enough for Kerri to work down below while I jibed our way up the channel on a broad-reach with...
The old mostly-abandoned town of Ocean Falls was on our route as a stop of convenience. Looking at it on the charts, it did have a few things going for it, such as we could live a day below a large hydro dam – it sounded more interesting at the time. It was also long abandoned, though there are a...
A two day rest was in order after the six consecutive days of movement last week. The small village of Klemtu, or just outside it in a nearby anchorage, was our safe haven for this time of rest. Not much was happening in the village itself anyway. It really only consisted of a resort, still closed by COVID. The anchorage...
