Around the South End of Vancouver Island and Into the Salish Sea

Hot springs cove is a perfect anchorage, perfect depth, lots of room and lots of protection. As for the hotsprings they are basically undeveloped cracks in the rocks with beautiful hot water flowing into them. There is a mile long boardwalk leading up to them which is a thing of beauty. I arrived at a quiet time but still the hot springs were crowded. I have heard that at some times there are up to 200 people waiting to cram themselves into these tiny pools.

Boardwalk into Hot Springs

There is a back route to Tofino avoiding the ocean swells. It is a perfectly calm unstressfull route. The stress begins in Tofino Harbour with all the boats buzzing around, the shallow water, strong tidal currents and myriad obstacles in the water. I got fuel water and tied up to the local dock. Then I was a tourist just like the hundreds milling around. I was tied up at the end of the dock in a not very protected spot. That night I was awakened by the swells slamming the boat into the dock and the sound of my dinghy attempting to fly off the deck of my boat.

City Dock in Tofino

Finally the time was right to head out to the open ocean and get south thirty miles to Barkley Sound and the Broken Island group.

Off Tofino

Off Long Beach

 I motored into the swells for thirty miles and was finally able to hoist my sails for the last ten miles of so. I anchored in the perfect Joe's cove. Many folks spent weeks exploring this area.
There seemed to be the perfect weather window to get around the South tip of Vancouver Island. I chose to go about 100 miles in one shot. Ultimately this translated into 24 hours of motoring. I had my main sail up steadying the boat but the wind was either calm or right on the nose. As it got dark I double reefed the mainsail and continued to motor on in the dark which wasn't that dark because there was a wedge of moon that came out at midnight. I approached Victoria at dawn. I rounded the corner and started up to Sidney and was immediately plunged into a thick cold fog. The last ten miles I was glued to my radar display being amazed that crab floats materialize as targets on the screen.
The fog lifted as I arrived at Sidney Spit. Normally I would anchor but my dang depthsounder wasn,t working. I tied up to a buoy and tried to get some sleep.

Sidney Spit

Back in the land of the Pileated Woodpecker