Ravishing Rapids....

Pictures to follow!!

Last post we had just put in the Refuge Cove on Redonda Island. The store is well stocked considering how ‘off road’ we are now. Only a few fresh veg – put plenty of other dry goods and fishing tackle, liquor store and post office. This store location served the earliest settlers and loggers – and when the Union Steamship boats came up delivering mail early Sunday mornings, it was swarming with families from the surrounding islands in Desolation coming to get their mail and catch up with their neighbors. Well, in 2008 and is much the same, as the cruisers on the water make Refuge Cove a spot for groceries, sending mail (internet and otherwise) and chatting up the dockies to see where everyone has been.

After attending to our provisioning, etc. we left Refuge Cove and made our way through Calm Channel to Church House Indian settlement. Church House is now completely ruins. Richard and I moored at the dock here some 15 years ago and the buildings were still standing although the village itself was deserted. At that time the Church (Anglican) was upright with a very nice steeple jutting towards the sky. You can see only part of one corner of the church now and the dock is totally gone. Not even the bears that were combing the beach were there to great us this time. How sad….

The rest of the day has been spent navigating the rapids. Current and tide tables, charts and calculators put to good use as we traversed Yuculta Rapids, Whirlpool Rapids and Dent Rapids (including Devil’s Hole!) and finally found ourselves in the beautiful Cordero Channel with snowcapped mountains glistening off our starboard side and water as calm and smooth as silk.

After a somewhat comedic landing (it’s good to put the boat out of gear when you are at the dock tying down) we settled in to Shoal Cove on East Thurlow Island. There once was an old hotel, store and pub here but it has all since gone – burned down they say. It was a favorite of the miners and loggers as well as government people who came by every so often to snoop into everyone’s business.

Now, there is a tidy little cabin with a terraced deck that serves as the pub. When it’s not the pub, it’s the wharfinger’s home. The current owners hail from Campbell River and are gradually restoring the cove with charming gardens and cabins.

We celebrated our extra long day by frying up our first catch of prawns from Desolation Sound earlier in the day.

Next day we took a walk up to the “Pub” and joined the owner and neighbors and friends for coffee. I was able to pick up some good local knowledge on the hot fishing spots. After a pleasant exchange we were invited to tour the grounds and asked to stay to the Pig Roast that was to happen later that night. Alas, the fish were calling my name and we declined the pig. When I lamented the fact that I didn’t have a downrigger on board, the cabin owner said – remember, fish can see up but they can’t see down. The theory being, they can look up to your flasher and spoon if you’re above them. We left the dock and spent 2 hours fishing off Hall Point on Nodales Channel. No luck – I snagged my gear and lost it at about 50 feet. The pig roast was looking better…..

We meandered our way down Cordero to Bickley Bay (very pretty and full of crab traps) and were joined by a group of Dall Porpoises for much of the way. They are such comedians and love to romp and play around the boat. We entered Green Point Rapids right at slack and tucked in to Murray Islets once the Sunderland Channel started getting bumping – a sure sign that Johnstone Strait would be uncomfortable transiting. We had a quiet night after finally getting the anchor(s) set so they would drag.

Up way to early in the morning to great Johnstone Strait at it’s optimal. The water was fine and we were thankful for the new radar which worked perfectly. As you can see from a few pictures, we certainly needed it.

After leaving Johnstone Strait, we made our way to Call Inlet and had lunch and a restful afternoon at Bockett Islets. A great little anchorage but it will be too shallow for evening so up anchor we went gunk holing Soderman Cove, the site of the Soderman logging operations. In 1905 Oscar Soderman was living in a shack on Minstrel Island, hand-logging for six months, selling the logs, getting roaring drunk until the money was gone and then starting over again. This was the pattern of his years until Sidney snagged him. When the red-light girls were run out of Ocean Falls, Madam Sidney established them across the inlet outside the city limits in a house on pilings, which was given the name Pecker Point. Exactly how it happened no one knows, but one morning Oscar, waking from an Ocean Falls spree found himself married to Sidney. She invested considerable money in his logging company, applied her expert management to their affairs, ended Oscar’s binges, paid cash and had no debts. So many characters pioneered these islands!

We found a snug little anchorage between the shore of and Warren Islands in Call Inlet. The traps were down again 2 Crab Traps and 1 Prawn Trap and we retired to watch a movie – Moby Dick – how fitting!

We didn’t make it to the end though. Early this morning we busied ourselves retrieving the traps – 0 in the 2 crab traps and a bounty of 64 prawns. We had a pleasant cruise through Chatham Channel and around to Minstrel Island, through the Blow Hole to where we now rest at Lagoon Cove on Cracroft Island.