This trip really saw An Aod Oolichan come into its own. Going into tiny bays and anchorages, breaching to drop off camping gear, carrying more than five days of drinking and cooking water and doing nice long passages under sail.
Our plan was to set out from Halfmoon Bay and explore Thormanby and then the Jedidiah marine park and the Simpson marine park Islands nestled between Texeda and Lasquiti in the middle of Georgia Strait a little more than 40 nautical miles north of Vancouver. No matter where you come from there is a crossing of at least 10 to 15 miles to get there. That relative remoteness is what attracts me to this place.
Wednesday August 23 was busy at the Horseshoe bay ferry terminal. After getting the boat ready for travel and hitched to the car we were at the ferry at noon… and were the first car not to make it on the 4:15 pm ferry. So we had to wait until six to cross over to Langdale. This setback our launch to 7pm when we arrived at Coopers Green boat launch. By the time the boat was rigged and the car and trailer was parked in a legal overnight spot it was 8pm which is also sunset.
So with my GPS in hand and a nice still night we motored out 2 miles out to Thormanby to arrive and navigate our beaching in total darkness.
We were off and the next four days would allow us to explore the middle section of Georgia Straight and some of the northern Gulf Islands.
In the morning I was happy to see that my new 4kg Rocna Vulcan anchor had found a way to nestle itself in the large beach pebble. Definately one of the harder substrates for an anchor to be effective in. If I’d set just a little further out their was good mud and sand.
The boat settled down on the pebbles perfectly, I felt lucky as a little further out there was a bit of a minefield of boulders on the beach and the drying out would have been a little more fraught. Fortunately the morning was very calm and this particular bay is nice and sheltered. The anchor buddy really was handy in this kind of anchoring context, allowing us to quickly bring the boat to shore if needed.
We then set out in a nice NW breeze with two reefs in the main to go towards our next destination of Jedediah Island.
About two thirds of the way there, the wind started to lighten up and we were able to shake out the reef and and get from the north end of Thormanby to Lasquiti on one tack.
Arriving into the channel to our anchorage there was a big junk anchored right at the entrance and for a moment I thought we were going to get a close visit of China Cloud.
It was however a 45 foot steel junk built in east Sooke. It was on it’s maiden journey to get its mainsail being made in Quadra.
The tides aligned perfectly and our arrival was at high tide.
This was a wonderful setup for making dinner.
The next day on our walk through Jedediah we met the local feral sheep
This amazing south facing bay has what appears to be decades and decades of winter storm driftwood.
Day 3 there was a southeasterly we did a nice day sail out to Jervis island with a fast down wind sail under full sail.
The sail back up was upwind and felt much more comfortable under two reefs.
Day 4 we hiked up to mount Gibraltar with a full view of the whole southern strait obscured by forest fire smoke,
and a close encounter with the goats of the island
After the hike we set out in 12-14 knots with a nice NW wind to push us out Sabine Channel into the strait and back to Thormanby
The final treat was a close encounter with a humpback whale just off of Bertha Island on the south west tip of Thormanby.
One last night of camping before we pulled the boat up on Sunday and drove back to Vancouver.
