Photo: Tour boats on the dock at Hot Springs Cove.
Our West Wind charm failed us again. As we headed out towards Estevan Point and the Hesquiat Peninsula, we went right into 10-20 knots of southeasters -- not the 10-20 knots west as promised by the weather radio.
We tacked south towards Juan Perez Rocks as huge swells rolled in from the northwest, right on Osprey's beam. A swell coming in would first roll us to port, knocking the winds out of our sails, then pick us up and take us to the top to give us a view of the next swell before dipping down to the trough as the swell rolled us to starboard, heeling us over as if in a gust.
In addition to the swells a strong northbound current set us back, taking almost a knot from our speed and making horrible tacking angles. We finally gave up and motored, not raising sail again until a few miles off Hot Springs Cove.
We sailed into the cove, dropping sails just beyond the floating B&B, Innchanter. As we were putting away our sails, two seaplanes came roaring in, nearing clipping their wings on Osprey's mast. Then Shaun, the Innchanter's owner came by in his dinghy. "Welcome back to Hot Springs Cove," he said.
When we first started coming to Hot Springs, it was used mainly by other cruising boaters and fishermen. Now the cove is popular with day trippers who come by seaplane or high speed tour boats from Tofino and crowd the springs until it's hard to find room in the pools. Cruising boaters are always trying to figure out the best time to walk to the springs to avoid the crowds. In previous years we'd found morning to be the best time, but Steve wanted a bath that day. Shaun had told us the last tour boat left at 6:30 so at 6 p.m. we climbed in our dinghy and headed ashore. There we paid our $3 per head fee and walked on a well-maintained boardwalk to the springs, passing a string of tourists heading back. At the springs we found only three other people.
On the way back we passed 18 people heading out to the springs for late night soaks. We'd hit it just right.
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Photo: Looking up Shelter Inlet in Clayoquot Sound towards Bacchante Bay.
The weather radio promised southeast gales so we decided to head up Shelter Inlet to Bacchante Bay to hide for a couple of days. We left in weather so perfect it was hard to believe in the gales: northwest winds, blue skies and warm air. The northwest wind followed us up inlet, winding around bends, all the way to Bacchante Bay, giving us one of the best sails we'd had all summer.
We anchored off the marsh in Bacchante Bay and sat in the cockpit watching a sea lion catching salmon. He would surface with a salmon in his mouth, shake it to break its back, then dive again. Flocks of gulls circled overhead waiting for leftover morsels. In less than an hour, we watched him catch three salmon. It's easy to see why the fishermen dislike these animals!
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Photo: Ahousat General Store.
The next morning we listened to the weather report again and decided that the gales probably wouldn't get inside Clayoquot Sound so there was no reason to hide. We left at 10:00 a.m. just in time to catch the ebb tide through Sulfur Passage into Millar Channel where we motored under cloudy skies against light southeasterlies.
At Ahousat in Matilda Inlet we tied up at the dock by the General Store. The store and surrounding businesses have been for sale for years. At first every year, we'd wonder if the owners, Hugh Clarke and his sister Patty, would still be there but we no longer wonder; they're always there and the store is always for sale. In the store, we stepped over boxes of goods in the aisle and picked over rotten produce in the cold room, but we found just about everything we needed including a zinc for the replaced heat exchanger.
The Ahousat businesses -- a small café, fish processing plant, laundry facilities and showers, motel and hostel are reminders of the west coast of Vancouver Island as it used to be. Most of these businesses were originally developed for commercial fishermen who came in droves to this coast in the summer. Residents, such as those on the Indian Reserve at Marktosis across the Inlet were an incidental year-round customer base. The fishermen are gone, the residents of the Reserve do their major shopping in Tofino via the taxi boat but the General Store soldiers on. What will happen, I wonder, when (if) it finally sells?
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