My friends are leaving town, their boats primed for travel after a winter of hurricane-force winds, temperatures in the ‘teens and deep snow.
Usually, they leave without a fuss. One morning, a moorage space simply is empty.
Tom and Chuck, Stew and Pat, Lance and others made the break in March. Jeff was gone by mid April. Last I heard, Lee and Diane had reached Ocean Falls, deep in the wilds of northern British Columbia.
Within the next couple of weeks most of the coastal-cruising bunch will be under way for the true wilderness in British Columbia and Southeast Alaska.
Appropriately, the postal service and e-mail servers have begun delivering messages from operators of the small marine resorts tucked into quiet coves along the main routes of the Inside Passage letting me know they too are coming to life.
It was splendid news to learn that Tom and Ann Taylor, health problems under control, will open their Greenway Sound Marine Resort in the Broughton Archipelago June 1. The best news is that Ann again will don her chef’s apron. Her prawn entrees are the finest.
For those of us who enjoy the Taylors’ hospitality, the bad news is that Greenway Sound Marine Resort still is for sale.
The fixture resorts along the Inside Passage will be back. Sullivan Bay Marina, a destination for half a century or more, will continue to be a restful place for boaters rounding Cape Caution.
On the other hand, a new resort opened last summer on Jennis Bay off Drury Inlet, just north of Sullivan Bay. Friends reported a warm welcome from the proprietors, the Allo family.
Bill and Jean Barber, who own Lagoon Cove Marina, are among the few not wired to the Internet. Lacking any contrary reports, I suspect Bill will be there, guiding traffic into his moorage and harvesting prawns each morning to serve on the dock in the afternoon.
Pierre’s, near Echo Bay in the Broughtons, promises another summer of special dinners, including pig roasts. If you need a “people fix,” the crowds that attend a pig roast at Pierre’s will do the job.
Nearby, Bob and Nancy Richter will be managing their Echo Bay resort and store from a perch atop a massive concrete pontoon that once was part of a floating bridge that crossed Lake Washington at Seattle. Their resort is for sale, as it has been for several years.
Across the bay is Windsong Sea Village, a pocket resort also for sale.
A favorite place near Echo Bay is Billy Proctor’s home, shop and museum housing artifacts he’s found on the beaches of the area. Billy doesn’t charge admission although there is a jar in which you should drop a couple of Canadian dollars.
Around the corner in Tribune Channel Max and Anca and their kids will be greeting cruising guests at their float in Kwatsi Bay, which also is their year-around home. Always a rustic place, where cell phone and VHF reception is scratchy, Kwatsi Bay will have a wi-fi connection for boaters.
But one doesn’t spend weeks in the Broughtons tied to a resort float. There is splendid anchorage at Turnbull Cove and the crabbing in Claydon Bay can be superb. There are other excellent anchorages, too, but I’ll let you find them.
Among my favorite places on the Inside Passage is the rugged trail from a moorage in Cortes Bay in Desolation Sound to a rocky plateau on the south tip of Cortes Island from which one can see the rest of the world – almost.
I received a little help on this report from Bob Hale, publisher of the Waggoner Cruising Guide. If you see a 37 Tollycraft named Surprise along the Inside Passage, say “Hi” to Bob and his wife Marilyn. They’ll be glad to chat and eager for news from along the Inside Passage.
Although my cruising will be in short segments this season, designed to test my skills at handling a 42-footer alone, I’m thinking of going north in 2008 if I can sign on a compatible crew.
Susan Hall and Bob Hale have provided the push. Susan and her husband, Tom Huse, live aboard a 49 Grand Banks, and were with us on the GB Grand Tour to Wrangell, Alaska a year ago. She says, in effect, sign a crew and go for it.
And Bob Hale, who has cruised alone on Surprise when his wife, Marilyn, couldn’t come along, says cruising alone is not that bad. One may be lonely, but one never is bored, he says.
That sounds good.