It all comes down to weather. The wind and currents dictate when or if we go. A gale blew for days on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island necessitating waiting for a weather window to arrive to allow safe and comfortable passage across Nahwitti Bar, and then around Cape Scott at the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

We left Port Hardy on Wednesday, July 16, as soon as repairs were complete and headed about six miles south to Beaver Harbor, anchoring in a cove we’d eyed along the way, Patrician Cove. We were once again greeted by a feeding humpback whale and an adorable sea otter floated in the cove cracking shells on a rock on its tummy. We exhaled. The forecast looked good for rounding the Cape on the weekend—still a few days away.  

Beaver Harbor has an interesting history. Galiano and Valdés anchored here in 1792, and then the Hudson’s Bay Company built a fort here, Fort Rupert, in 1849.  We were able to go ashore and hike a portion of the challenging Tex Lyon trail. Up and down with ropes we felt like kids in summer camp. It was so fun!

After a fun day and a couple of peaceful nights in Patrician Cove, we decided we needed to start making our way west to be ready to round Cape Scott when the weather improved. We decided to head back to Port Hardy—this time staying at the Government Dock, which was just $51 a night—to pick up a few supplies we’d missed when working on the boat (wine), and to re-look at some First Nation carvings we’d seen. It was Port Hardy’s FILOMI Days weekend. This is a big celebration for North Islanders honoring their primary industries—fishing, logging, and mining. We spent the evening walking the waterfront, listening to a pretty good band, and left the next morning for Bull Harbor, the jumping off point to head down the west side. We’d contributed well to Port Hardy’s economy between boat parts, groceries, fuel, and now a couple of beautifully carved North Coast art pieces.

We entered Bull Harbor just before noon on Saturday, July 19. Mid-July should be peak season here, and all the guidebooks show lots of boats anchored in Bull Harbor waiting for a weather window to cross the bar and round Cape Scott. They suggest that a lot of cruisers buddy up for the journey and many new friends are made. It was completely empty. We were the only boat there. Of course, Saturday was the first day in a week or more that the winds had calmed down enough for a smooth crossing. So, we figure everyone who’d been waiting in Bull Harbor had left that morning. But it felt like it was going to be a lonely start to our first big challenge going down the west coast until four more boats came in during the day.

Happy hour that night was hosted by Doreen & Michael Ferguson on SV St. Leger. They have been adventuring on their sailboat for 43 years and have circumnavigated the globe on it. Billy and Lizzy from SV Steph’Ney also joined us—a young English couple gaining offshore experience going down the westside with plans to circumnavigate the world themselves. Michael and Doreen offer a wealth of knowledge, and we heard more than one harrowing high-seas adventure story from Michael, with Doreen suggesting that maybe he shouldn’t be telling us some of these particular stories as we readied to round the Cape.

We reviewed the next day’s plans with them—planned time of leaving and taking the more benign inside route to avoid crossing the worst of the bar. Michael harumphes and says, “The weather looks good tomorrow, just go straight across the bar, you’ll be fine.” Doreen chimes in, “You’ll be ‘round Cape Scott on the ebb before you know it.”

Sunday morning breaks calm and three sailboats, us among them, head out of Bull Harbor. But not Michael and Doreen on St. Leger. They are leaving a bit later headed north around the aptly named Cape Caution. Michael jumps in his dingy, though, to say goodbye and escort us out. He yells, “I just heard that people are catching salmon at six knots by just throwing out a lure.” Such good, generous people we’ve met on this trip. It is one of the joys of traveling this way.

And they were right. We’d picked a good weather window, and you’d never know by the glass calm we had crossing Nahwitti Bar that it has a nasty and dangerous reputation. Same goes for Cape Scott. By the time we got there the sun was shining, winds were light, and we glided right on by.  

We’d planned on pulling in to anchor at Sea Otter Cove, the first secure anchorage on the coast after rounding the Cape. But the sun was shining, and a northwest wind was starting to come up—it was a beautiful day on the ocean. So, we decided to unfurl our genoa and head for Winter Harbor in Quatsino Sound. Three couples—good friends of ours from Sun Peaks—had been fishing at Winter Harbor for the past eight days and Sunday was their last night. We’d hoped to meet them there, but the gale-force winds had delayed us.

With motor and sail and a following sea we average over seven knots down the coast until we turn the corner into Quatsino Sound. Seven more miles and our dear friends meet us at the dock in Winter Harbor. It is 6PM, we’ve traveled over 55 miles negotiating a crossing I’d been fretting over since we hatched this plan, and the Sunday fish fry was on. What a glorious, glorious day!