Safe Harbour: Day 11: Port Hardy to Bull Harbour

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Day 11: Port Hardy to Bull Harbour

I had an early morning cramming some work out at Café Guidos (Waggoner eNews was the project…http://waggonerguide.com/content/waggoner-enews-0). I finished around 11 AM, swung by the grocery store for some final items, and headed back to the boat.

Around noon I pulled out of Port Hardy, destination Bull Harbour. Bull Harbour is about 25 miles towards Cape Scott, and overnighting there put me in an ideal position to round Cape Scott early the next morning.

The cruise to Bull Harbour was easy. Almost a strait shot up Goletas Channel, really. The only excitement was the Van Isle 360. Good conditions for me mean terrible conditions for sailing. And these were terrible conditions for sailing. Most of them were making less than 4 knots of progress. Ouch!

Some of the Van Isle 360 fleet

I made it to Bull Harbour in about two hours. Inside, I tied to the public dock. Bull Harbour is part of a First Nations reserve, and Tom and Reginald, the two caretakers, came to collect my moorage. The $20 fee seemed a bit steep, especially since I had paid less the night before in Port Hardy and that included electricity and water. Oh well.

This sea cave at the entrance to Bull Harbour is evidence of the surf that pounds this coastline

I walked across the island to Roller Bay, where I hoped to watch the surf rolling in. The only problem was there was no surf. I walked the long beaches for over an hour, though, marveling at the amount of plastic crap that had washed ashore from Asia and Russia. Last summer I read a fascinating book called Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea that examined the flotsam and jetsam in oceans. The story really comes to life when you see the amount of trash on ocean beaches.