Copeland Island Marine Park

This morning started out a little weird.  We were getting ready to lift the anchor when Marilyn let out a shriek and yelled “you’ve got to look at this!”  “THIS” turned out to be a little deer swimming calmly across Gerrans Bay.

We stood on the aft deck and watched the stupid bugger until he disappeared under a dock on the east shore.  We never saw him come out.  Perhaps he’s still under there.  One can hope.

After we recovered from the shock of the deer we pulled the anchor and headed out into Malaspina Strait.  It was more than just a little lumpy out there first thing this morning.  The automated buoy at Sentry Shoal (at the north end of Georgia Strait) was reading 18-22 knots of wind and .9 meter waves when I got up at 5:00 but by the time we left at 10:00 that had dropped to 6 knot winds.  The waves were still pretty serious but we knew they would diminish as the day went on and they did. 

By the time we got to Powell River it was pretty well flat water, the sun was shining and the wind had died to nothing.  In short it was a perfect day for our 6 hour cruise up to Copeland Island Marine Park.  The Copeland Islands are just north of the coastal BC community of Lund.  We stayed here last spring, over on the other side.  When we were last here there were two or three boats in the little bay that we are in now but today there isn’t a soul here.  I’ve seen exactly one boat go by since we anchored around 4:00.  After we got the anchor set I took a stern tie line to shore in the dinghy.  Then I phoned Al Pinkney and told him he was lucky he wasn’t here because I would have kissed him square on the lips if he had been.  Thanks to his advice my dinghy not only started first pull but it idled and stayed running the whole time while I was pulling the stern tie line and returning to the boat.  Just the way good outboards do.

Those two photos are the view off our bow.  We look out over a narrow channel past the east side of the islands – the photos are looking at the mainland.  That section of mainland is also the start of the famous Desolation Sound which depressed Captain Vancouver as much as it now delights hundreds of thousands of summer visitors every year.  We’ll spend a couple of nights here enjoying our last access to 3G internet service before we head into the wilds north of Desolation.  Pretty soon we’ll start leaving our wake in waters that we have never travelled before.