June 17, 2000 - Soakin' In the Hot Springs
We awoke the morning of June 12th to peace -- the wild winds of the previous day had died down to almost nothing. We motored away from Port Hardy at 6 a.m., greeted by the early morning fog and misty rain. As we carefully threaded our way through the fog and approached Queen Charlotte Strait, the sun broke through the fog, and we were able to put up our sails with a nice 15 knot westerly breeze. So, our sail across Queen Charlotte Strait was nice and mellow; we had our spinnaker up most of the day and we slid up and down the Pacific swells at four knots. Later that evening, we set our anchor in Pruth Bay on Calvert Island. We could tell it had once been a gorgeous cozy cove, but now had been taken over by a large sportfishing resort (unfortunately built after our guide had been updated). We had a great time there anyway; the next day we walked down a short path to the other side of the island which faced the Pacific and spent the afternoon beachcombing.
The next day, we got to sail a bit more as we traveled up Fitz Hugh Sound to Namu, which was a reported abandoned town. We had planned to stop there, and the town did look intriguing with it's abandoned houses and buildings and rotting boardwalk, but after arriving we found no anchorages and a sketchy dock that the caretakers were charging $20/night to stay at. So, we decided to press on.
Our Waggoner guide had a small paragraph on a little cove a few miles from Namu, "Fancy Cove" so we decided to check it out on our way to Bella Bella, the next town about 25 miles away. We found Fancy Cove to be simply marvelous; we were the only boat in the tiny, totally protected cove, surrounded by rocks and trees. We even watched a few deer nibble at the water's edge the next morning.
Thursday, we arrived at Bella Bella, a Native village which we were quite disappointed in. The town did not have a public or even private dock at which to moor, and no anchorage available, so we were unable to stop to explore it (not that there was much to see). When we did try to tie up at the fuel dock to perhaps stop for ice-cream, we only got tangled up with a few large powerboats who were trying to leave just as we were trying to tie up. Not the most pleasant situation. So, without looking back, we found an anchorage a few miles away (Kynumpt Harbour). Unfortunately, our new powerboater friends had found it before us, but we were able to squeeze in anyway.
The next morning we were excited to get going, as we were to start our travels up the long narrow passages up the Northern B.C. coast. Unfortunately, we were to spend the next few days motoring, as there was either no wind to speak of or 25 knots right on our nose as it came rushing down these narrow channels at us, with no room for tacking (or, we would have had to tack 500 times to get 5 miles...). We motored through Milbanke Sound, and up Finlayson Channel to Klemtu, another Native village (this one also with a full public dock and no anchorages). Despite the constant roar of our engine, the trip was gorgeous with virgin forests and cliffs towering thousands of feet on each side of us for miles and miles. Mist hung in the trees, so we couldn't see the tops of these mountains, nor the beginning or end of each channel. This leg of our trip had a marvelously mystical quality, especially so since we rarely saw another vessel. It was as it the entire world had disappeared and we were left drifting alone in this fantasy world. We will remember that feeling forever.
We anchored that evening in Swanson Bay, along with a couple of fishing boats also on their way to Alaska. Swanson Bay held the ruins of an old pulp mill, which had been mostly eaten up by nature; only the very top of a tall red brick chimney was visible from the bay. We went exploring and found the ruins of old machinery and a cement building -- very eerie! Continuing on up Fraser Reach, we passed Butedale, an old cannery town that was literally rotting into the water. It was quite strange for us to see these abandoned towns and villages being swallowed up by nature once again, especially so coming from Seattle where there seems to be never ending expansion and development. Very unfamiliar to us to see these places where hundreds and thousands of people used to live -- now empty, trees growing from buildings, moss devouring boardwalks. We had to wonder if Seattle would end up like these places someday, far into the future.
At last, we reached Bishop Bay -- the site of the infamous hot springs we'd had our sights on for a number of days. We tied Jenny P to the dock, put on our swimsuits and practically ran to the neat little house that housed a big soaking tub formed by granite. The water was the perfect temperature, nice and hot and clean. We soaked for an hour by ourselves, listening to water drip in the forest, birds calling, the trickle of water that kept the pool filled with fresh hot water, marveling that something as wonderful as this comes straight from the earth. What a treasure in the middle of the Northern British Columbia wilderness!
-sdj-
