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.

A few years back, we arrived one Friday night at Silverdale at the head of Dyes Inlet. It’s usually not a very busy place, but the docks were packed and a fair number of boats were at anchor. We dropped the hook away from the crowds a bit, nearer to the head, and settled in for the evening. About 9pm, a tug with a barge arrived from the south. The tug captain slowly picked through the anchored boats and eventually stopped near the head a few hundred yards away from our boat. We couldn’t figure out why a tug would be arriving at night like that and what it would be doing at the head. No docks or industry were there and there just didn’t seem to be any good reason for it.

We got our answer at 10pm. Explosions erupted on the barge and light filled the sky. It was a fireworks barge and we had the best seat in the house. We’d arrived at the beginning of Whaling Days. The annual event includes an always-impressive fireworks display, a street fair with live entertainment, and outrigger canoe races. It’s a real family affair—with kids and adults of all ages. On a hot summer day, the warmer waters of Dyes Inlet are ideal for swimming. The festival atmosphere extends to the docks—they’re packed and everyone is having a good time. Each year we’ve been, several dozen cigarette boats roared in on Saturday as part of a poker run and roared back out again just as quickly. We could hear their engines for miles.

A recent question on Bayliner 4087 fuel consumption:

We are currently in negotiations to purchase a Bayliner 4087, 2001 model with 330 Cummins Engines.  Can you set my expectations for fuel burn?

Second question, we have just sold our Grand Banks 32 for a faster boat.  However, much of the time I do anticipate cruising in the 8- to 10-knot range.  Will the Bayliner do that efficiently?  I expect that it will run fine at those speeds, but with some hulls that are semi planning such as the 4087's, it may not be that comfortable.

Response:

Our 4087 is heavier than most at 29,000 pounds, so our fuel efficiency and speed numbers will be slightly lower than some. Wide open, the Cummins 270s will burn 29 GPH.  The engines will not live long at that throttle position though. We run our boat very conservatively to get good engine longevity.  We chose to use two basic speeds: 7.75 knots and around 13 or 14 knots. At 13 to 14 knots we burn 15 to 17 GPH. It takes roughly 320 HP to maintain that speed in our boat. You may chose to run faster than we do – most do – and, if you do, your burn rate will be higher.

At displacement speeds, you basically just pay for moving the displacement of the boat.  The hull shape matters a bit but it's mostly just weight.  At 7.5 to 7.75 knots, you'll burn under 3 GPH (right around 2.5GPH).  We've lasted as much as 73 hours on a single fuel load (220 gallons) at those speeds and still had more than a quarter tank remaining. Because the Bayliner is lighter than your Grand Banks at displacement speeds, it'll consume less fuel down there.

For comfort at low speed, the boat does wander a bit and doesn't really like an aft quartering sea, but I just put it on autopilot and let the autopilot deal with it.  It doesn't bother me a bit.

                                                --jrh

Andrew Anderson Marine Park, operated by the Anderson Island Parks and Recreation District, is a lovely park on the southwest side of Anderson Island in the south Puget Sound (map of area). The nature preserve, sometimes called Andy’s Marine Park, provides the only public saltwater shore access on the island and is part of the Cascadia Marine Trail system. Little-known to boaters, the park is popular with locals and kayakers and makes a great afternoon picnic stop.

The park meets saltwater at a sloping gravel beach packed with sand stars. Behind the beach is a delicate, protected lagoon. An old wooden floating bridge crosses the lagoon, where the sounds of chirping birds fills the air. Once across, a well-maintained trail climbs up into the woods behind. Signs along the way indentify the local where flora and fauna.

We moored at Tolmie Marine State Park and ran the dinghy across. Other moorages are at Oro Bay and Eagle Island Marine State Park. The Anderson Island Historical Society has a detailed map of the island. The terrain around the lagoon bridge can be very muddy—duck feet or rubber boots are helpful.

Last weekend we anchored off Blake Island Marine State Park.  The high temperature for Saturday was 59F. A few other boats were about, but the marina was half-empty, all the buoys on the north side were free, a handful of boats were on the west side buoys, and a few kayakers had landed on the spit at the northwest corner. We walked around the island and met only one other person.

This weekend, the high temperature was a record 89F and the island was packed. Friday night a constant stream of boats entered the marina and returned back out a few minutes later because no moorage was available. We frequently anchor off the north side of Blake Island for the fabulous city views. The north-side buoys, despite the view, are rarely taken because the anchorage is exposed to wakes from large ships travelling through the nearby vessel traffic lanes. This weekend, all the north-side buoys were taken and as soon as one boat vacated a buoy, another quickly took it’s spot. It felt like the San Juan Islands on a busy long weekend. And on the west side tents and people packed the shores, while a mass of over 30 boats filled the anchorage. We’ve never seen it so busy.

05/10/08, looking northeast towards Seattle from the spit at the northwest corner of Blake Island:

05/10/08, looking south from the spit along the west side of Blake Island:

05/10/08, the half-empty marina at Blake Island’s northeast corner:

05/18/08, looking west along the north side of Blake Island, every buoy taken:

05/18/08, looking south towards the spit and the west side of Blake Island:

Some time back I came across a  query on whether synthetic oil could be safely used in marine diesels. My response:

Most manufacturers permit the use of synthetics, but don't allow longer oil change intervals when employing them.  The question I've always had is whether the gain is worth the cost.  Some of the advantages of synthetics that spring to mind are 1) better performance at temperature extremes, and 2) slightly lower engine internal friction.  In the past, when racing cars, we used synthetic engine oil at times on the premise that synthetics would provide adequate lubrication for very high load applications using lower viscosity oil.  We were after the slight increase in usable horsepower provided by the small decrease in internal engine resistance obtained using a thinner oil.  I believe this is likely measurable, but I don’t know if it’s really significant.  I somewhat suspect that it’s close to an irrelevant gain but, when racing, we would take every trick we could get even if the gains were slight.  I feel less inclined with recreational marine diesels and there is no way I would recommend using a lower viscosity oil than specified by the manufacturer, whether synthetic or not.

On the temperature extreme front, we felt that synthetics would allow us to operate the race engine longer before catastrophic failure when an engine was failing with low oil pressure or overheating.  We might be able to get a lap or two more before it completely stopped operating.  Overheating a diesel is close to the worse thing you can do, so the ability to operate somewhat longer under these conditions is not something I’m willing to pay all that much for.  However, if you live in the arctic, the ability to start easily and get better lubrication faster on extreme low temp start-up could easily be worth the additional investment of synthetic engine oils.

When I was working as an auto mechanic in the early days of synthetics, I saw many instances of moving to a synthetic in an automotive engine causing much more oil leaking.  Nothing catastrophic, but noticeably more leaks were common.  It seemed that those that didn’t leak before changing didn’t leak after.  But, those that did leak, would leak more after the change.

Like all things in engineering, it’s a cost/benefit trade-off.  For me, the additional cost isn’t justified in my usage, but I know it works well for many.  We’re still using dino oil in Dirona.  I changed the oil this weekend, warmed it up, and checked levels as usual.  The oil hardly showed any color (see below) -- just what we like to see.  Whatever oil you chose, change frequently.

                                                --jrh

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