Sirius Sailin'

Vessel Name: Storm Petrel
Vessel Make/Model: Fisher 34
Hailing Port: Winchester Bay, Oregon
Crew: Fraser and Jeff
About: Additional Crew: Zac and Indy
Extra: Storm Petrel is a 1977 Pilothouse ketch. She has sailed the Oregon/Washington coast since 1999, now home port is Pleasant Harbor, WA.
Recent Blog Posts
30 September 2023

uly 24 - 25 A Rollicking Ride Down Hecate Strait to Cumshewa Inlet & Gordon Cove (53° 02.5’N, 132° 01.6’W) First Quarter Moon

The early morning was gorgeous! We got underway at 05:35 under thin, broken overcast skies with very light wind. The "Sleeping Beauty," a profile of a supine female form seen in the configuration of the mountain tops to the NW appeared navy blue in the early morning light. The gauzy white overcast was [...]

30 September 2023

July 23– Daajing Giids, Bearskin Bay, Queen Charlotte Harbor (53° 15.1’N, 132° 4.7’W) Waxing Cresent Moon

We left the marina by midafternoon with the intention of repositioning to the fuel dock adjacent to the marina in time to meet the attendant’s hours, 16:00-20:00 to this time of year. Before casting off the lines, we realized that the external regulator was not powered. Jeff did some troubleshooting [...]

30 September 2023

uly 21 – 22 Daajing Giids, Queen Charlotte Harbor (53° 15.2’N, 132° 4.4’W)

Although Jeff and I prefer to anchor out, being at a marina has advantages. It is easier to walk Zac and Indy at any time, engage in boat repairs and maintenance, explore the surrounding area, and of course, it is always nice to have a hot shower with plentiful water, that is, if one has enough “Loonies” [...]

Tofino to Ucluelet

18 September 2009 | Ucluelet, Vancover Island, BC
Fraser and Jeff
We left Tofino under a sunny sky with calm winds and a lightly rolling sea. As we left the island and moved into deeper water, we were almost immediately treated to the sight of a humpback whale surfacing a couple of hundred yards in front of us. It is always a thrill to see the leviathans as they enjoy the rich waters of British Columbia. We decided to put out our fishing lines and before we could get the second line in the water, we had another fifteen to seventeen pound coho in the boat. We have been quite lucky to catch a salmon almost every time we want one. While Jeff filleted the fish in the cockpit, Fraser was busy watching another whale, which breached twice, then waved its pectoral fins high in the air. The pectoral fins of an adult humpback are quite significant and it is an impressive sight to see them waving above the surface. Of course, a breaching whale is always an awe-inspiring sight. It is quite humbling to see thirty feet of whale come shooting out of the waves, then crash back with a tremendous splash.

The trip southeast along the coast to Barkley Sound was quite pleasant with smooth, but organized waves rolling under us from the west. With our mainsail flying the ride was fairly stable; enough so that we could enjoy fresh salmon tacos for lunch.

A little further along, off the white sands of Long Beach, we were joined by a couple of Dall's porpoises. The little black and white torpedoes rocketed through the waves crossing right under our bow. We were all enjoying the spectacle from the bow as the autopilot kept us on course. The dogs really enjoy a visit by dolphin or porpoises and bark encouragement as they hang over the gunwale to get a closer look. Dall's porpoise often look for boats so they can play in the bow wave. They only spend a few minutes with us as we're a bit slow for their antics.

We reached Amphitrite Point and turned north into the sound then northwest into the harbor of Ucluelet. Ucluelet, another "big town", is, for some reason, more inviting to both of us. We find Tofino a bit too rushed as tourists flow from one shop to the next. Ucluelet is also switching its income base toward tourism as the fishing and logging industries diminish, but it seems to maintain a more relaxed pace.

One of our fond memories of Ucluelet from our last visit five years ago, is walking along the "Wild Pacific Trail." Though beautiful, it is not all that wild with its graveled surfaces, bridges, and boardwalks over ravines and boggy spots as it winds along the forests and cliffs of the spectacular, rugged coastline from Ucluelet toward the northwest (it will eventually go all the way to Long Beach). We were all looking forward to a good walk and quickly made our way to intercept the Wild Pacific Trail on the outskirt of Ucluelet. We were quite surprised that a housing subdivision in the making was overlaid on top of the trail with roads, streetlights, lot lines, utilities and all the rest. The developers managed to keep the trail accessible, but this portion is not the wild trail we remembered. We enjoyed a walk on the trail for a small stretch and were surprised when we came upon a huge resort condo built right out onto the cliff at the shore side. About the time we decided to head back to the dock, the rain began to fall as a light mist. It quickly developed into a full fledged rain and we were all soaked through by the time we got back to Storm Petrel.

The second day on the "52 steps dock" (there is a steep stairway to the street level with, you guessed it, 52 steps) while we were relaxing on the boat after a walk around town, we were greeted by a couple of fishermen who were passing on the dock. They invited us over to their fifty-foot troller, the Confident, for a tour. It was a very pleasant and interesting encounter. We were both amazed at some of the impressive technology employed to help find the fish and with the work accomplished by the two lone crewmen on the boat. The Confident was currently seeking albacore tuna off the southern BC coast. She had been employed with prawn fishing until the season closed, then salmon fishing until that season closed. It takes a lot of work to make a living fishing these days with the price of fuel and everything else going up. The Confident burns about $350 worth of fuel every day she works, so she has to catch a bunch of fish just to keep even. The tuna are tough to fish because even when you do everything right, you find the fish and are right in the middle of them and have all your gear set just right, they may or may not decide to bite. I guess if it were easy, it would be called "catching" instead of "fishing". The captain and deckhand of the Confident wished us well on our voyage and gave us a couple of hooks and tuna jigs to try our luck on our way home.

Although the weather forecast called for high winds on Thursday, we thought we could make a run up to a favorite anchorage in Pipestem Inlet late Wednesday afternoon. The entrance to Barkley Sound was rough with 2-meter seas until we headed further into the sound. Underway we listened to an updated weather forecast for the following day, then decided in favor of a secure moorage and returned to the harbor and a slip at the inner basin public dock. Steve Bird, the harbourmaster is a great guy, always helpful, and assured us there was room for the night. The friendly community on our dock is composed of other transients like ourselves seeking a quiet moorage and a live aboard couple, established residents of Ucluelet. It is fun to meet fellow mariners from diverse backgrounds and to have wonderful conversations about a range of interests, from boating to philosophical concerns. We exchange information, share adventures, suggest good places to visit, and are quite often, "consequential strangers" to one another. We liked the term, consequential stranger, after hearing it used in an NPR interview. It refers to someone you have only just met or don't know well but with whom you have a meaningful encounter. The commercial fishermen who gave us a tour of their boat are an example, as is the First Nations man we talked with in Zaballos. We've been enriched with a number of such lovely, consequential meetings this summer.

The weather seems to have turned to the fall patterns sooner than it usually does. We've been told, and our experience has shown us, that September is one of the best months for sailing in this area and all the way down to our home waters. We have experienced delays for weather at every step of our trip down the west coast of Vancouver Island, much more than we anticipated. We expect to get home soon, but maybe not quite as soon as we had planned. We have had a couple of good days here, only to have it rough further south along the Washington and Oregon coasts. It looks like Monday may provide a window of opportunity with acceptable weather along our route south.
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Storm Petrel's Photos - Main
1 Photo
Created 10 September 2023
Random Pictures from our travels.
20 Photos
Created 12 July 2009
Casey, Jake, Kaela
11 Photos
Created 6 June 2009

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