May 29, 2022 Day 2: Prevost Harbor to Henry Bay: 126 miles. 208 miles total.
I was awake by 6:00 AM. Once I’m awake I don’t like staying in bed especially when I am sharing a bed about the size of a full with two other kids. As soon as I got up everyone else woke up. We made a quick breakfast of oatmeal, pulled up our anchor and we were off by 8:30 AM.
We made it to the Port of Sidney BC (Hello Canada!) around 9:00 AM. We filled out our ArriveCan app with all our information to make things go smoother. I’m not sure if it actually helped or not since I don’t know what it is like without using the app. We docked and called a number that was on a sign. We were on hold for about 6 minutes, but then we got disconnected. We called again and this time we had to wait 10+ plus minutes. We were put on hold since Ellen was using a birth certificate, and we got disconnected. We called again and this time it was about a 20 minute way. This person was really quick and got everything filled out quickly for us and we were off. While we were waiting we did see a seagull eating a starfish. Ellen liked having free range of the still boat, and the kids liked their tablets, so it wasn’t all bad.
We had a couple hours until we had to leave because we needed to time the currents/tides to go through Dodd’s Narrows. Dodd’s narrows wasn’t tricky to navigate, but timing it around slack tide is important. The currents can get going around 9 knots at max flood and ebb tides. We got a few food items at a convenience store and ate at Sea Glass Waterfront Grill. Then we left around 2:00 PM to get to Dodd’s Narrows around slack tide. We timed it perfectly and we didn’t have to wait for other boats and we were able to sail right on through. It was pretty small and over quickly. But passing through the narrows was really pretty. There are some houses right on the water and I think it would be really fun to sit and watch boats try to go through at max ebb/flood. A little after the narrows Chris saw a humpback whale.
Around Sisters Islets/Steven’s Passage BC, between Hornby Island and Olson Island. (A few hours before Comox we got into some pretty rough waters. It was a pretty rough ride for about an hour. Luckily Chris did a great job manning the boat. The kids did a great job at staying where they were supposed to be, and Ellen actually let me hold her without too much of a fuss. After we got out of the rough water we saw a big orca pod hunting. We were able to watch them for a while and it was just what we needed to calm us all down from the rough ride.
At 9:30 PM we dropped anchor at Henry Bay. This was a nice anchor spot. There were quite a few boats already anchored where we wanted to be, but we were able to go a little further out in the bay and it was just fine. Tonight everyone went to bed and Chris just held Ellen until she fell asleep, then he put her in her bed. It only took about 10 minutes so it wasn’t too bad. In the middle of the night we did start rocking pretty good. I was nervous people were going to get sea sick. (Chris is the only one in the family that gets sea sick, but he was OK during the rocking.) Luckily no one got sick and no one was bothered by the rocking. Lillian said she liked it. When I was awake in the middle of the night I looked up from my bed and saw the big dipper super clear. In the PNW this is a nice treat since it stays light so late in the summer, and its so cloudy in the winter we don’t get to enjoy the stars as much as I’d like. We are making good time and getting to see so much wildlife.
Ryan’s Thoughts: Customs for Canada. Food ice cream and Minecraft mending all armor grinding. Lots of whales.
Lillian’s Thoughts: I ate the best meal I’ve had in a long time (pasta with butter from Sea Glass Waterfront Grill.) Mom just made dinner: ham and cheese sandwiches. Oh we just saw Orcas!
