SleepyC on Vancouver Island 2016

I spent a night at the Nahwitti river mouth two years ago while on a week long hike. We fished the river and it was the best fishing, barefoot from the sand bar that to friends and I have ever experienced. Now we joke that the bar ruined fishing for the rest of our lives....in a good way.

Keep exploring,

Greg
 
Good story Greg, and a really cool area. I was surprised by all the windmills on the hills on the Vanc Island side, at that NW corner. Seems like a great place for them though.

The first day up there the water was glass flat and bright blue, with those 10 foot surges every 20 - 30 seconds, except for the white wall at the bar. The next day the timing was spot on and the bar was almost flat until after I crossed, then the Pacific swell was unmistakable.

Around on the North side of Hope Island, about a mile off shore, I ran across a pair of kayakers, on their way back from Pine Island. Ten foot swells, with 1-2 foot wind waves building. I checked with them and they were fine, well equipped and experienced. Thanks me for checking and on we went. Not sure I would ever be out there in a kayak, as even the C-Dory seems small in that neighborhood.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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You have had a great summer cruising Harvey, thanks for sharing it with us. Now 'fess up, where was the best fish & chips?

Martin.
 
WOW, Martin, I think I'm still digesting the results of that survey. Mmmm mm good.

Maybe I need to make a list. I did try several places, and kindo fo liked them all.

The cutest place: The Little Red Barn behind the Port Authority building in Sointula, on Malcolm Island. And the F&C was good. That would be not greasy, crisp fried batter, and generous portion (6 to 8 oz pieces), done, but not dried out and with fresh cut fries, not frozen packaged, and the coleslaw (either with the order or optional should have more to teh dressing than just mayo.)

The largest serving: was at the little trailer at the Comox Marina complex, close to the launch ramp. The cod was 8 - 10 oz, with a generous serving of fries. The slaw was minuscule. the fish fresh and moist. The proprietor is a very interesting mariner.

The longest wait:was at Sporty's in Port Hardy. The F&C was OK, but there was no coleslaw with the order, and the portions were small, 4-5 oz. The fries were very salted. The fish was quite oily. They were quite proud of their product.

The favorite F&C for me is still at Fish On Fifth in Sidney just off Beacon Ave, north on 5th Ave a hundred feet. The fish is fresh, done and crisp battered or breaded, and the fries are fresh cut for the order. And they have Ginger beer, which any good self respecting F&C place should have.

There were some other places, but nothing worth driving out of the way for. Unfortunately, George at Port Harvey didn't have F&C available this year. It should be back on the menu for next season, but the pizza there is extra good, and worth the night on the dock for.

And my favorite place to eat was, hey Martin, are you sitting down for this one :?: Duchesses at Alert Bay. Bannock, and anyway she does it it is super good, reasonable priced, and the home kitchen charm is hard to beat. You get to sit at her kitchen table and depending on who else is there, you might get to have a totally European experience, or one day three couples each from a different Scandinavian country. It was super food, good for the day, and never over $10 for a full meal. No fish and chips there, but everything is good. And it is absolutely worth the walk.

Hope you get to enjoy some of these places too, and there are always others popping up so please add them to the list.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Hunkydory":2fyt2y0c said:
Harvey, I really enjoyed your trip report & found your combination of list fun to read. It is at times very difficult to do a write up on a daily basis when cruising.

We too used Desitin for the first time this year. It does help to reduce some of the green growth, but found its removal to be about as hard as the green growth without it, especially on the sides of the boat just above the new coats of bottom paint. That area above the bottom paint seemed like a good place for it too, however the junk in the water around ports & stagnate anchorages stuck to it, making the combination very difficult to remove. Hot water at the car wash wouldn't remove it, I finally got it & the stains, the combination created, off today with acetone & much scrubbing. We did use it very liberally every where we applied, perhaps to much so.

Jay
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I didn't think about putting the Desitin on the gel coat, only the metal parts and initially only on the trim tabs. I found mine came off qujit redily with a hose, some pressure and a scrubbing with a brush and "Boat Soap".

I was amazed at the growth. On the stern, up from the hull, there was "grass" about an inch and a half long, and a serious fuzz about half an inch on the motor parts that were in the water. Under the chine lips (where the hull sides reverse up and into the plane of the bottom), I had barnacles the size of pencil erasers. The green sludge came up about an inch and a half above the waterline paint. All of this in 48 days of moving every day. Admittedly, some of the moving was short distances, 3 miles was the shortest, and on each move I did some time at planing speed, thinking that would help remove, or prevent it from growing.

The green growth will have an affect on how I plan for the next long trip. Bottom paint, probably not, but pull the boat and do a good washdown and dry out for a day could be part of the solution.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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I saw on another thread that Susan is already planning for the 2017 Seattle Boat Show, and on another one, that they are making plans for touring Maine in 2017. Maybe it's not to early to start planning for next summer up north?

Will I go back? Yes. For as long? Not without making some arrangements for pulling and cleaning the hull before so many days. Where to? Not sure, but would surely include Port Harvey, Echo Bay area, and some end of the inlet trips again. When? Not sure. Later might be better weather, and better for bears at the rivers, earlier might be better for the weather too.

Telegraph Cove will be part of the trip because it has excellent parking and facilities, and maybe a launch at Port Hardy.

I enjoyed some buddy boating this past season and would enjoy more of that. Anyone interested in a Broughton experience care to share some time? I know scheduling is not a good idea, and the freedom to go with the flow is important in cruising, so dates and times need elasticity. Maybe hopscotch meetings would work best.

If your thinking of going up to the north end of Vancouver Island, or spending time in the Broughtons, chime in, with times and places, just for fun.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon

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"It was a great trip, thanks Boring. I have a RayMarine Classic C-120, and ...."
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Boris, My apologies for the name change. I did that post on my Tablet and it must have done an Auto spelling correct, when I pushed "enter". I should have looked back at the entry but I didn't. Sorry.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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South of Heaven":2wz7ej1q said:
Nice write-up Harvey. 68 day long trip?! Im assuming you're retired? ☺
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Yes Jason, I am retired and now I can't figure out why I didn't do that years ago. I'm kind of liking it.

I started out thinking I would do a chronological reporting but with all the gaps in coverage, I gave that up for the "highlight" style. The timing worked well, except I ran out of patience with the rain early on and the heat in the later part. It was all great though, and I highly recommend the northern waters, and Canada cruising for lots of good reasons.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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It was a great summer up north. I learned much, saw some cool stuff and had some insight into solo cruising.

I also learned that sometimes water (drinking) is more precious than boat fuel.

The most exciting wildlife moment was when the dolphins were driving fish towards me in Burley Bay. They came in the entrance a half mile a way and then formed a line 50+ animals wide, coming straight towards me. I was in my inflatable so it took a while to figure out what all the commotion was. As they headed towards me, really roughing up the surface and in a line about 150 feet wide, I was beginning to wonder what was going to happen when the y got to me. At about 25 yards from me, and all in unison, the made a 90 degree turn to their right, forming a line now single file, playing follow the leader, and off the went back and around the edge of the bay to the entrance. Then they did it again; raising a ruckas along that north shoreline. This time, as I had paddled off toward my boat, they went clear to the end of the bay, and then milled around there, apparently feeding on the fish they drove down the bay.

Pretty cool to see the coordinated team work.

Must be a good time to work on planning next years travels.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Thanks for the trip overview Harvey. I really enjoyed reading it.

Great to see you taking advantage of retirement sir!

Looking forward to seeing you at the SBS CBGT!

Take care,
Dan, Tanya, and Hannah on Echo
 
Harvey, enjoyed reading this back in Sept. and it was well worth a second read now! We would all become better boaters if we made these "do again" and "don't do again" lists after each trip.

You might have missed making a journal entre each day but you did say you had 3000+ pictures! Each one worth a thousand words. One good thing about digital camera's - you don't have to worry about running out of film or the cost of developing them all.

Feel free to add more accounts of your trip adventures here - enjoy the read.

Regards, Rob
 
Harvey I will check with Billy and see if you could use his boat ways for a half day or so for a hull scrub.
Also there is a very sandy beach in the Byrdwoods that you could use on a falling tide. I could show right where it is.
Also the head of the Bay in Echo Bay is a good place to beach.
Hope to see you again this summer.
Dave
Raven Dancer
 
Dave, Thanks for the offers and suggestions. I did do some scrubbing, a couple of times during the trip. One, where I was able to do a very complete scrub of the metal aft, (trim tabs, engines, transducer) and that helped. Later, I did a scrub with the boat in very shallow water, where I was wading around the outside, and scrubbing as far under as I could reach, but still missed some. I have some barnies to get off yet, :evil: but it's cold out there on the ground, even a concrete barn floor.

Any good ideas to get them gone would be appreciated.

Has me really considering bottom paint. Something for the New Year.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon

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Great report, Harvey. I love that area and would definitely go back again. I too am wondering about bottom paint. Have you been able to get all the growth off?
 
Mike_J":3dcxd685 said:
Great report, Harvey. I love that area and would definitely go back again. I too am wondering about bottom paint. Have you been able to get all the growth off?
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Hi Mike, Good to see you here. When I saw those kayakers up there, I thought about you. Pretty, and remote.

Oh yes, I got most of the growth off. When I shaved I kept the mustache and some goatee :shock: :lol: . I got rid of all the green stuff on the boat too, but it took me about 6 hours of real hard scrubbing, and I still have some barnacles to get rid of. Pretty sure they are dead, but those little hard lumps of shell don't just rub off easy.

Plastic scraper, red heart wood piece, and real scraper are all lined up to go to work. I'm open to any good ideas.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Barnacles did not seem like such a big deal when we did 2-3-week cruises, but after several 2-3-month summers in BC and SE Alaska, followed by many days of hard work removing barnacles etc, I decided to do bottom paint on New Moon. Did it myself using water-based ablative Pettit Hydrocoat. Worked like a charm - saved me a ton of work at the end of every summer, and took little longer to apply than one summer's cleanup efforts.

There was still some green stuff, and barnacles and a few mussels on the hardware like swim step mounts, trim tabs, lower unit, etc. I learned to hit a commercial RV-sized power washer the day after pullout, and blast off the green and barnacles before they had time to dry on hard during my multi-day drive back home. This also made a big difference in how much scraping and scrubbing was needed at summer's end.

The Hydrocoat was still working pretty well ~6 years later, but wearing a bit thin on the sides, chines, and transom. Scratched that up a bit with sand paper and applied another coat or two, and voila for several more years.
 
Richard, I'd be interested to hear how you did your bottom coat application. Did you do it yourself? How did you manage to get the boat off the trailer etc. I am seriously considering getting mine coated. It sounds like you had a good few years of use before needing a recoat...
 
Hi Mike,

Did it myself, on a 10,000+ pound 26-footer that I could not figure out how to safely lift from the trailer. So I left the parts covered by the trailer bunks unpainted. I figure the barnacles in those spots get pretty well squashed when I pull her out onto the trailer....

Careful cleaning, followed by Interlux 202 wax solvent, to be sure there was no residual wax from when the boat was built or when I used to wax the hull.

Then two coats of Pettit 6999 Sandless Primer - no need to sand or scuff. IIRC, there are very specific timing requirements between first and second coat, and also between second coat and first coat of bottom paint. I followed exactly - plan ahead.

Hydrocoat (2 coats, with 3 on sides, chines, and transom) went on easy, and was still doing pretty well after 6? 7? summers in SE Alaska.

I applied both primer and paint with a brush, much of it lying on my back under the trailer. Messy - I wore old glasses and coveralls.

Super glad the Hydrocoat was water-based -- way less nasty, and easy cleanup.
 
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