Columbia Cove

We finally managed to leave Winter Harbour on June 13. We thought we would leave really early but the wind was blowing 15-20 knots in Winter Harbour so we did not get away until 07:45. The trip out to Kains Island was against a 15-20 knot S, SE wind so we we're hopeful for a sail. The forecast had the wind shifting to the SW by afternoon. Well we sailed out WSW from Kains Island for about 4 miles and then tried to tack S to try and make our way down to Solander Island. The wind dropped to 5 knots and after mucking about for about half an hour and basically going nowhere, we reefed in the main and rolled up the headsail and motored sailed around Brooks Peninsula. We got into Columbia voce by 18:30 and picked up one of the 2 public moorings. Thursday we woke up to NO RAIN which was nice for a change and after a leisurely breakfast, we put the crab trap down and went to try and find the path out to the outer beach. The path is in the Southern part of the cove and is marked by a few fishing floats that have been hung in the trees. A spirited 15tminute hike brought us out to a sand beach littered with wood, old fishing floats, plastic bottles, flip flops (jandles for the kiwi readers) and various other bits of bric-a-brac that you would find on a beach. The surf was rolling in and it was astonishingly beautiful. I spent the afternoon fishing and ofter cathing a small rockfish for the crab trap I ran out of fish "luck". When we first put the trap down, we used a tin of cat food, it didn't do much! I gave up about 4:00 PM and when I got back to the boat, saw that we had company. A couple from Vancouver, Colin and Niki, on Agua Verde, had come down from Sea Otter Cove. Colin runs a small CYA school from his boat and will work out of Tofino for the next little while. We swapped lies for a couple of hours on their boat and will likely run into then again as we work our way south. The highlight of the day though had to be the black bear we watched wander down the beach in the late afternoon. OUR FIRST BEAR of the trip, yeah!!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see:

http://www.sailmail.com