British Columbia

[obertra9]

I have been researching a trip to the BC Inlets and have the following itinerary for comment discussion.
This itinerary minimizes cruising outside of inlets. My towable boat is the 27 foot Sport Cruiser with Isuzu 6 cyl / 115hp.
Day Destination / Interests Miles
1 Sunset Marina on Howe Sound to Gibbons on Howe Sound 12
2 Madeira Park / Pendor Harbor entrance to Agamemnon Channel 35
3 -8 Princess Louisa inlet / Jervis to Powell River city RT (round trip) 175
9-10 To Stuart Island entrance to Butte Inlet 50
11-13 Butte Inlet RT 100
14-15 Minstrel Island / entrance to Knight Inlet 70
16-19 Knight Inlet RT 120
20 Shaw Bay / entrance to Kingcome Inlet 35
21-23 Kingcome Inlet RT 66
24-26 Return via Inside Passage to Cambell River city 120
27-29 To Sunset Marina on Howe Sound 125
total 908 miles
At 6mph this is 150 engine hours. 115 gals diesel at 8 miles / gallon $3/gal =$350

Nominally a leisurely 4 week trip.

I am considering 3 ways to do this trip.
* Tow my boat out and back, 5000 miles round trip.
* Rent a small trawler, 27 to 32 foot
* Find an Albin owner on the NW waters that is interested in using my boat for a portion of the Great Circle Loop while I am using his boat. I could tow my boat to the starting point and pick it up at the final destination.
http://www.passagemaker.com/articles/de ... resources/ is a good summary of destinations and distances on the Great Loop.

[joreyn]

Robert, do you have a copy of the Waggoners Guide to Cruising the Northwest? If not, you should get one.

Based on my experience cruising in this area, I would offer this advice. The three inlets you are interested in are definitely spectacular. But they have a downside as well. They are very long, and they have almost no place to safely anchor. In addition, they are prone to strong winds sweeping down from the mountains and whipping the water into dangerous seas. I would suggest doing Jervis Inlet which you can reach the final destination, Princess Louisa Inlet and Chatterbox falls with careful planning. You MUST transit Malibu Rapids at slack water, especially in your boat. So Calculate speed and distance, and allow 30 minutes spare time for that. Best to go at high slack. There is a dock at Chatterbox, and a few good places to anchor in Princess Louisa.

From there I would focus on the islands and not the fjords. Prideaux Haven, in Desolation Sound , is just spectacular. Cortez Island has som gorgeous anchorages. Quadra Island too. And then, in the Broughtons, there are so many really beautiful places to throw the hook down. Get the Waggoners Guide, and the Dreamspeaker guides. They are all terrific.

Also, make sure you are properly equipped. For example, a robust anchoring setup. Our fellow NW Albin owner Tim Shea took his 27 up there summer before last and had a great time.

You could actually tow your boat to Egmont, launch there to go to Princess Louisa, put the boat back on the trailer and tow it to Lund, at which point you are only a few miles from Desolation Sound. After Desolation you could put it back on the trailer and take the ferry to Campbell River, and then tow to Port McNeil, which is the jumping off point for the Broughtons.

Good luck! Let me know if I can advise further. Joreyn at Northsound.net

John Reynolds

[joreyn]

By the way, diesel is around $1.40 per liter. So closer to $5 per gallon.

[johnmurray]

As a former owner of Solitude II, I wish you well. My longest trip was from Chesapeake Bay to Ottawa, a distance of about 1000 miles, and I did it in three legs of about a week each. Ron Ginger, who purchased Solitude II from me, took her all the way from Ottawa to Maine, the long way through the Rideau and Trent canal systems so we know the boat is very capable.
As an officer cadet in the Canadian Navy, I did my initial training in some of the spots you are looking at, and more recently I have charted extensively in the southern Gulf Islands as well as the San Juans.
While I will not comment on your specific itinerary, I might suggest you first try a more modest charter in the southern part of the area (it is wonderful) and take it from there.

[joreyn]

I agree with John. There are a couple of charter companies (Anacortes Yacht Charters and Bellingham Yacht Charters) that seem to be pretty good. Anacortes Yacht Charters has some good itineraries on their web site. I'd reccomend starting off cruising the San Juans, Gulf Islands, Jervis Inlet to Princess Louisa, and Desolation Sound. Up and back could be three to four weeks. Or you could do the San Juans in one week ,or the San Juans and the Gulf Islands in two.

If you are towing your boat out here, the PNW Albin Rendezvous will be in LaConner sometime between late June and Mid-July. That's a good jumping off point for cruising in the areas above.

[DesertAlbin736]

On the subject of charter operators, there's also San Juan Sailing in Bellingham. They charter both power and sail. We chartered with them in 2011 & are good folks. BTW, 150 hours at 6kts on our A25 would be between 60 to 75 gallons. I've put over 200 hours on our 24HP Yanmar 3GM30F over the past two seasons and averaged 0.4 GPH.

San Juan Sailing has a number of smaller tugs and trawlers in their power fleet, including a Ranger 29 and a Nordic Tug 32 on up to larger Nordics, Grand Banks, and American Tugs.

Here's what we chartered in 2011, a Jeaneau 40.

[coolchange]

Towing a 27 for 5000 miles is not something I would look forward to....unless I had already chartered for a summer (week or more) to see if I even want to come here (you will). Desert has done a lot of towing (of a 25 Albin) which is close but not the same as an oversize load 27...I usually tow from Aurora OR to Bellngham WA when I am going north...it's only a few hundred miles..but through Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle etc...its a long day and I am beat at the end of it...( 6.0 ford Diesel and a triple axle trailer)..a lot of your trip would be open country and big roads but it's still 5000 miles!
Besides the above there are boats out of Comox which is right across from Desolation Sound...
The comment on Fjords is spot on...they are long ie Princess Louisa..day in, day out, day there...there goes 3 days or you could explore the sound and environs
Charter a little faster boat and see more...then, if you love it, drag your boat out next time...there will be one


Some pics of a trip from San Juans to Braughtons....just for fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmKHg_1V7J4

[DesertAlbin736]

Desert has done a lot of towing (of a 25 Albin) which is close but not the same as an oversize load 27...I usually tow from Aurora OR to Bellngham WA when I am going north...it's only a few hundred miles..but through Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle etc...its a long day and I am beat at the end of it..

Which is why we chose a 25 over anything bigger. Also why we got away from sailboats in the first place for the same reason, ie mast raising. But given the fact that we live in the middle of the Sonoran Desert 360 miles away from the nearest coastal area, that being San Diego, trailering is the way to go for us. It's all a matter of available time. We don't mind long road trips, in fact we enjoy them. We take it easy and almost never go more than 400 miles in a day, towing at +/- 60MPH. Cost wise, the amount it costs us in truck fuel to make it up to Bellingham and cruise for 6 weeks is roughly what we'd spend on a one week charter. Granted, not the same level of luxury.

Durning our 2014 cruise when we attended the PNW Albin Rendezvous in Roche Harbor, we did in fact detour a bit from a more direct route straight up through Salt Lake City, Boise, Kennewick and Yakima. Instead of taking I-82 and I-90 direct to Seattle we stayed on I-84 through Portland so we could stop for a visit with my wife's sister and her husband in Deer Island on the way.

The brother in law is also an avid home brewer, and has this website

http://www.deerislandbrewery.com/

They cruise the San Juans and Gulf Islands for a week or two almost every summer with their Bayliner 2556 command bridge sedan cruiser, but due to time (he works for the railroad and is still a few years away from retirement) and their 1 or 2 MPG boat fuel cost they usually don't go North of the Gulf Islands. Pictured below is their boat "Heavenly", which they keep docked on the Columbia in St. Helens except when they trailer it up to Anacortes for their vacation cruises and haul out for the winter.