We’re voyaging north to further explore the Hakai Luxvbalis Conservancy Area and the outer islands north of Seaforth Channel, so we won’t be blogging again until we’re back and caught up in the mid-August time frame.  More then.

Jennifer & James Hamilton

Jennifer@mvdirona.com / jrh@mvdirona.com

Queen Charlotte Sound has many amazing white-sand beaches, but the best we’ve found are at the McMullin Group. The sand is deep and soft, and almost every beach has view east to the Coast Mountains.

The island group is wonderfully complex, making for interesting dinghy exploration. As we toured around, we kept finding what we thought was the best beach, only to find an even better one around the corner. And as at many of the nicer beaches in Queen Charlotte Sound, we found an elaborate kayaker camp, complete with a rope swing. From the camp, a trail led to the western side of the group, for views across the Pacific. We later took the dinghy into the outer reefs west of the islands. That was exciting—the seas were reasonably calm, but breakers crashed over the reefs all around us.

For more detail on the McMullin Group, directions and anchoring advice, see chapter twenty, Bardswell Group, in Cruising the Secret Coast.

Earlier this month, Michael Short of the radio show Let’s Go Outdoors interviewed us on Cruising the Secret Coast. Michael asked a variety of questions, including how we got started in boating, why we wrote the book, and some of the experiences that have stood out over the years. The show aired this past weekend as Episode 10 of Let’s Go Outdoors Canada (LGO Canada). Listen online.

We lived for years in Victoria, B.C., where both our families had owned various small boats. Work took us to Toronto for a decade, and during this time James’ parents had purchased a larger boat, Hunter’s Moon, a Hunter 31. When we returned to the West Coast, the time we spent on Hunter’s Moon convinced us we needed a boat of our own.

Hi. I just bought your book and love it.  I'm a little confused about the anchor buoy/trip line system you describe in Chapter 4. We run a Bruce 33 lb. anchor off a 32-foot wooden Grand Banks.

If the anchor is fouled, it sounds  like you approach the buoy while continuing to pick up the anchor rode. I suppose at this point you are almost directly above the anchor and find out it is fouled.  If you cannot raise it do you then pick up the buoy system and just reverse or do you try and attach it to the windlass in order to trip the line/buoy?  Is 1/8” line strong enough to do either?

Thanks for any advice, 

Mark and Joan M.

Our response:

You’re right—if you can’t release the anchor with the anchor rode, you’re not going to release it with an 1/8” line. The purpose of the trip line is not to pull out the anchor by force. Rather, the goal is to unhook the flukes by picking up the anchor from the crown.

We retract the rode until it is up and down (meaning no slack) and attempt to raise the anchor. If the anchor were fouled, we’d then use a boat hook to bring the buoy system on board and pay out rode to provide some slack to the shank end of the anchor. We’d first try to release the anchor via the trip line by hand. The trip line is too small to fit around our windlass, so if that failed, we’d cleat the trip line to a bow cleat and slowly back down.

Jennifer & James

This week, boxes of Cruising the Secret Coast were delivered to the warehouse at Robert Hale and Co. Click here for book details, including sample pages and an overview by Waggoner publisher Bob Hale, and to order online.

The book was a long time in coming. In 2002 we began researching what would become Secret Coast, and published our experiences in Pacific Yachting and PassageMaker magazines. And we sent our findings to Bob Hale, who printed many in the Waggoner Cruising Guide. At the same time, Jennifer also was working on a book describing the history of the Broughtons and surrounding area. Bob had reviewed several early manuscript drafts and provided critical feedback and advice.

By early 2004 we had enough material gathered to consider writing a cruising guide. The book was a natural companion to the Waggoner, and since we had been working so well with Bob as correspondents and on the history book, he was a natural choice as publisher. When we suggested the idea to Bob, he and the rest of team at Robert Hale and Co. were interested. We continued to gather material for the cruising guide and work on the history book until 2005, when it became clear that only one project could be done at a time. We decided to focus on the cruising guide and put the history book on hold.

Thus began an intensive two-year effort of writing, editing, map production, picture selection, and many, many, many rounds of reviewing and proof-reading. During that period we exchanged more than 1,500 emails with Bob and graphics designer Marni Erwin. Finally, following nearly a three-month print cycle overseas, the books have arrived. It’s wonderful to see the finished result.

We’ll be signing copies for the first time on April 12^th from 8am to 12pm at the 48° North/Fisheries Supply Boater’s Swap Meet. The annual event is popular. The Fisheries Supply upper and lower parking lots and the street west of the store will be open to people for selling, and Fisheries Supply also sells discontinued items at deep discounts. Although the official swap meet hours are 7am to 1pm, sellers start arriving at 4am to establish a good location, and the selling starts by 5am.

For us, an ideal cruising destination combines solitude with a chance to explore new territory. We seek places that are little covered in the cruising guides and where few people go. Besides an appealing anchorage, we are always on the lookout for interesting side trips, such as a trail to a view or a lakeside perch, or a lagoon to explore in the dinghy or kayak. We’ll periodically post locations that for us meet this criteria under the “Secret Coast” category. Some are documented in Cruising the Secret Coast, while others are beyond the scope of the book, such as in the south Puget Sound or the northern central BC Coast. We’ll start with Suquash.

By boat, Suquash is thirteen miles southeast of Port Hardy, opposite the western tip of Malcolm Island. The Suquash Coalfield is the reason that nearby Fort Rupert—which offered the closest shelter—was established in 1849 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) of Great Britain. Mining was halted in 1852 when a superior coal source was found near Nanaimo, but the HBC continued to operate Fort Rupert due to their investment in the outpost.

In the early 1900s, a private company deemed the Suquash Coalfield worth mining. This time, it was a major operation that anchored an on-site settlement large enough to support a school, post office and regular steamship service. It closed before the Second World War, but much of the equipment was abandoned in place. It is an easy walk from the beach at Suquash to see the ruins, and they are extraordinary. The first ones we found were huge shovels, perhaps four metres high. Farther along was a metal wheel with one-meter spokes.

To the south, and closer to shore, were the ruins of the foreman’s house. Two intact river-rock chimneys soar skyward, blending into the second-growth forest. Inshore and south was a narrow concrete and stone structure, about seven metres high, with an archway through the centre. We couldn’t guess its purpose. Beyond was the mine shaft itself, where a massive steam engine rests on a concrete bed. The engine ran a huge spool of cable to raise and lower a carriage through the mine shaft. The shaft is said to extend across Queen Charlotte Strait nearly to Malcolm Island. Legend has it that miners could identify ships passing overhead by the ships’ vibration signatures.

For more detail on Suquash, directions and anchoring advice, see chapter eight, Fort Rupert, in Cruising the Secret Coast.

Online ordering is now available for our upcoming Waggoner sister publication Cruising the Secret Coast: Unexplored Anchorages on British Columbia’s Inside Passage. The guide describes the “Secret Coast,” our favorite, less-visited anchorages between Victoria and Bella Bella. Included are detailed navigation instructions plus history, sights to see, and trails to walk. Added chapters discuss anchoring techniques, water conservation, meal and trip planning, even laundry.

Cruising the Secret Coast will be available in April. Pre-order online now for free shipping (US only).

The Seattle Boat Show seminar schedule has just been posted. We’ll be presenting on the red stage at 4:15 on Saturday February 2^nd. Our presentation will include highlights from our upcoming Waggoner sister publication Cruising the Secret Coast: Unexplored Anchorages on British Columbia’s Inside Passage.