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July 7, 2007, Friday Well, we came in to Shearwater and it looks
about the same as it did 4 years ago when we were up here but it does look like
they’ve built another building, maybe an extra lodge. We hailed the dock master
several times as we approached but he never answered back. We had heard several
calls just before us to him so we assumed he was probably busy getting those
boats docked. We decided to just come in and dock in a free space and snugged
her up as close as we could to the boat in front of us to leave room for the
next guy. That’s kind of how we did it four years ago and figured the procedure
must be the same. Once we got tied up the
SAME OLD, SAME OLD We headed immediately up the dock to get some lunch in the pub. Nothing’s much has changed. Even the pub looks the same. Same old food and same old bad service too. Shearwater has never been one of my favorite places and still isn’t now but all the boaters come here as it’s about midway from all civilized stops and has a dock, power, pub and a minimal store and I guess more importantly a repair center. Hopefully you won’t need to use it though we’ve met many boaters that have had some bad luck and luckily they were near Shearwater to get emergency parts flown in and repairs done. It’s the kind of a place where cruisers seem to end up for a brief stop and get the necessary time to regroup and exchange info. It to me is like the last Out Post. It’s rough and tough and not pretty but a necessary element in cruising up here in these remote areas. I’m curious about everyone that works and lives here. It is such a puzzle to me why anyone would want to live here. It’s got to be the last place on earth that you’d want to live or stay for any length of time. It’s kind of ugly and hard. But why can I say, we came back.
BIGGER STORE AND SHOPPING CARTS We soon discovered that the minimal store they had four years ago is much bigger now which is great news. Even though it’s the size of a small 7-11 in the states, they have shopping carts and hand carry baskets and actually had some fresh produce, milk, eggs and even bread, the store bought kind. Last time here it was pretty bad and the food and canned goods were all mixed in with the marine store stuff. This is a great improvement. They even had bottles of wine for sale and Larry said the prices weren’t bad. What a great surprise. So I loaded up with any kind of produce and dairy products that were fresh. It didn’t matter what it was just as long as it was fresh. What ever it was I’d figure a way to make something out of it. It was such a luxury to be able to buy those fresh items. Even the shopping carts were a luxury which was a stretch if you ask me as the place was so small for them. Now if they could just put in a Starbucks we’d be cookin’. The new improvements must be giving the nearby Bella Bella Band Store a run for their money. That’s where you used to have to go to get provisions. You’d have to ride over on the old Shearwater ferry and hoped that they had something you needed or could use to replenish your supplies that by now were getting pretty stale. You’d have to time everything according to the ferry schedule. (See Alaska log 2002)
We spent the rest of the afternoon on the boat and watched the parade of boats come in locking for dock space and protection from the oncoming front. Little did we know that it actually would be a parade. The poor dock master, being new and inexperienced, was over his head. Poor guy was trying hard but didn’t have a clue as to how to tie a boat let alone figure out how to squeeze all these boats in with reservations. It seemed like every time a boat came in he magically disappeared so all the other boaters came to the rescue and helped everyone dock their boats.
It was a mad crazy day as everyone was trying to get in to Shearwater and get space at their dock. The poor dock master was getting more and more nervous because he said he had more reservations than spaces and didn’t know what he’s going to do. Larry suggested to him that he should start moving people (boats) closer together and leave less space between each boat. “You might be able to get in at least three more boats that way.” He immediately started to work getting the boats at the dock to squeeze up closer. Before that he was just letting people put the boats where they wanted and there was a lot unused space. NORTHWEST EXPLORERS Later in the afternoon I glanced up from my computer and thought I saw an illusion. It looked like 4-5 white look-a-like trawlers coming in all at once in a straight line. I wiped my eyes and got the binoculars out to see better. Sure enough I wasn’t imagining thing as 5 Grand Banks were heading this way in a neat little line following the big ship, the biggest Grand Banks, who obviously was the leader. If that wasn’t enough more kept coming from around the corner of the island out of sight. I couldn’t believe it! I called Larry to come look.
Larry said “Oh yea, I was talking to Bob Hail down the dock and he said there was a flotilla of chartered Grand Banks coming in. The group is called Northwest Explorers. They are out of Bellingham and they take charter groups up to Alaska and back.” Bob Hail coincidently has a Grand Banks also. He writes articles for Passage Maker and other boating magazines Larry thinks.
The poor dock master was a nervous wreck trying to sort out what to do with all of them as they were rapidly arriving and crowding the harbor waiting for docking instructions. Somehow though everything worked out and the marina managed to get them all in. They had to raft groups of three together securing to the largest Grand Banks that were lucky enough to be at the dock. Unfortunately they were stuck out on the outer docks which had no power so all the boats out there had to run their generators in mass to keep their batteries charged. It was wild. We were swamped by Grand Banks every which way you looked.
TIRED OUT AND STAYING PUT FOR A FEW DAYS We decided to forgo another mediocre meal at the pub and instead cook on the Knotty Dog that night. We were closely watching the weather forecasts and thought maybe this would be a good chance to sit it out to rest for a couple days. I was all for that because we were both pretty tired out and anxious just to sit and do nothing at least for a day even if it was in Shearwater.
Next morning we slept in and it was unusually quiet around here. All the Grand Banks were staying put too. Nobody was leaving unless they had to.
WEATHER FRONT Here’s the latest weather report:
I actually was glad we had a Front coming in. It meant we could sit and rest for a day or two. We were at a dock, had power, full tank of water, the company of other boaters at the docks, a store with some produce and other items we could buy and a marginal restaurant. So considering the remote location that we were in, what more could you ask for to sit out bad weather? Well, I guess we could be in an anchorage with no one around, no where to go, and having to take Zig back and forth to shore in the freezing cold rain to go the bathroom while watching out for bears, wolves or cougars and worry that the anchor might not hold, and run the generator to keep warm and batteries powered up. I was just happy as a clam just sitting here at the dock even though Shearwater is kind of rough around the edges. We were lucky to have the spot as many boats got turned away that day. It was the first time I’ve seen so many boats anchored out, rafted up and turned away. I felt sorry for some boats that just had to settle on coming in momentarily to get milk or bread and then head off in the rain and wind to find a safe place to anchor it. Many cruisers were complaining about the trend for big power boats to be able to call ahead on satellite phones to make reservations and then fly out and leave their boats taking up all the available dock space. Some were also complaining about the Grand Banks flotilla saying when they come into an anchorage or dock the take over everything and there’s no room for anyone else.
In my crazy imagination I can’t help but always thinking Shearwater is like someplace out of a science fiction movie, a strange remote outpost. It’s rough and tough around the core but has the supplies you need and you all have to stop here, many to fuel up and get supplies. The water is bad and the demure is edgy. All the cruisers are friendly at the docks though and it’s another thing I like about coming here. We’re all in this adventure together and when the weather gets iffy we all talk and compare notes. It’s a funny thing this strange commradery. I was also hoping we’d meet up with another boat that had the same travel plans as we, going to the Queen Charlottes. Unfortunately, many were on their journey back down from the usual loop trip of Alaska. They were coming through in waves now. No one was going north like us now and no one was going to the Queen Charlottes nor had anyone we talked to been there. When you mention it to someone they just stop and look at you, and some say “good for you” or “it gets rough out there” or “Hecate Strait is shallow and can get very rough quickly” which didn’t help my fear of going there. It only made it worse. I was starting to feel a lot of apprehension about it.
NORTHWEST EXPEDITIONS GROUP We were fortunate to get to spend some time with some of the Grand Banks people. We were invited to join them for drinks one of the evenings they were here at Shearwater. They were a nice bunch of people and it was interesting to hear about their trip. We really like Jodie and Randy Barb and Jodie’s brother and wife from Newport Beach. They said they had chartered a Grand Banks from NW Expeditions out of Bellingham and invited her brother and sister-in-law to go along. They were having a ball. They flew in to start the trip with the Northwest Explorers group in Ketchikan. They did their provisioning there too before they left to make their trip south to Port Hardy. The leader of NW Expeditions guides the boats on each leg of the trip and picks out their anchorages and dock stops. In the early part of the season they start out from Bellingham and the first leg takes them to Port Hardy I think, then another group flies in and the next charter leg leaves from Port Hardy and end in Ketchikan, the next group does the Alaska loop back to Ketchikan, and then the last charter group takes the boats from Ketchikan to Port Hardy. I guess I’ve forgotten how the boats get from Port Hardy to Bellingham. They must have another group come in Port Hardy and take them to Bellingham. Jodie and Randy said that you don’t have to go with the group and if you want you can break off at anytime and rejoin but I guess the main thing is to get to the end of the leg at the scheduled time. We thought what a great way to get to do this trip without having to do the whole thing and if you didn’t have a boat of your own to do it or even if you did it was a great way to learn all the ins and out with an experienced guide who knows the ropes. You get an expertise guide to figure the weather, route, and anchorages or stops. He also makes sure you get to take in all the sight seeing too and hit the best anchorages. It’s especially great for people that don’t have a whole summer to go cruising up in these remote areas. Jodie and Randy said they were having a ball and that the group was a good group of people with no problems. I wondered what an amazingly difficult job NW Expeditions has undertaken to do such a trip. Imagine all these boaters coming and going on their boats at different legs of the trip and having to start essentially from the beginning each time with them. Did they all know what they were doing? Did they all get along? The only problematic thing I would think would be that they were all on a pretty strict schedule which I guess could be the biggest negative of doing something like that. We have the advantage of no schedule so when the weather gets bad we don’t have to continue on. That was a bit of a problem for the group this time as they were expected in Port Hardy in a couple days and it looked like they were going to miss their scheduled arrival time because of a front coming through. This meant the NW Expeditions trip coordinator had a big job assuring the charterers that they would do everything they could to get them to Port Hardy on time and if not would do their best to reschedule flights home, etc. for them. Now that’s when doing something like that can be stressful. But the group seemed really good about everything and went with the flow although they left Shearwater probably sooner than one without a strict schedule would and with the anticipation that the next leg may be a little rough. They were also facing crossing Queen Charlotte Sound in semi-bad weather too which I wouldn’t want any part of. But again, the group knew it was going to be bumpy and there was a whiner amongst them that I could see. They seemed ready to do whatever was required. (Wow, we just heard it’s blowing 71 knot winds off Sartine Island, just north of Vancouver Island.)
HEAD EM UP, MOVE EM OUT, (whip crack) RAWHIDE
Well, we were sad to see Jodie and Randy and the rest go. It was fun meeting them. It was quite a sight watching all the Grand Banks leave. At first it was like the dock was some sort of space shuttle as the pods separated from the rafting position of the mother ships at the dock then was like an old west round up as they gathered in formation out in the open area off the docks and waited for the leader to get in position and lead them off like a wagon train. For some crazy reason I kept hearing in my head that song Raw Hide and the whip snapping with Clint Eastwood rearing up on his horse saying, “Head Em Up, Move Em Out”. We watched the amazing sight as they left in perfect formation. We eaves dropped on their radio channel as “mother goose”, the leader. (and that’s what his handle is actually) told them the huge BC ferry was coming in through Llama Pass up ahead so they would keep off to the starboard side of the channel to give her plenty of room, and other information about their journey as they progressed. We listened to them as far off as we could before the reception was too weak. Earlier Larry I guess had suggested to Randy that they might want to stop at Duncaby Landing on their way south as they could have power at the docks and a nice meal in their restaurant while they waited out the bad weather. The Expedition leader was planning to anchor everyone in Fury Cove and hadn’t heard about Duncaby Landing or didn’t know that it was all newly renovation and under new ownership. We heard Randy hail “Mother Goose” and discuss the option of going to Duncaby as opposed to Fury Cove. (I think sometimes it’s much better to be at a nice dock during a storm than stuck in the boat in an anchorage, even the beautiful anchorage of Fury Cove.) It was decided that Grand Banks were going to Duncaby as someone called them and they had dock space enough for all of them. I would have loved to have seen them all at the docks there. Hope they have a safe comfortable trip back to Port Hardy.
BELLA BELLA
We decided to get the dinghy down one day
after the weather calmed down a bit and took a run over to Bella Bella. It was
a little rough out in the channel as the winds hadn’t settled down like we had
thought they had yet so we road behind the little water taxi as he broke the
water waves and then we had a pretty smooth ride.
Bella Bella is the Indian village near Shearwater. It’s the only place around that you can get drinkable water except for Ocean Falls. They also have a pretty good sized grocery store to supplement your provisioning. Other than that there’s no reason to go there in my opinion. We pulled up to their marina and didn’t know where to tie up the dinghy. We were the only dinghy type there, the rest of the boats were fishing skiffs. We tied up to an open area on one of the docks but after walking up the ramp we realized we tied the dinghy to the fuel dock and Larry went back down to move the dinghy over to the other dock where we had a difficult time finding a space and finally tied here near the ramp. We headed up to the store. No one seemed
to be around. The dock master at Shearwater had told us there was a wedding in
the village today. It was Sunday and very quiet. The store was much better
stocked than when we came here 4 years ago. There was lots of fresh produce and
wild local berries and home made locally baked breads and rolls. There was a
white girl shopping too and I assumed she was another cruiser. She seemed to
know the store pretty well and that’s how I discovered the home made baked goods
as they were kind tucked around the corner.
I wanted to walk around the village a bit to see what Bella Bella was like. Larry who had been waiting outside with Ziggy was concerned about the dinghy and wanted to go back to the dock. He said he watched as someone had already moved it and fishermen were rafted up to it and walking over it. He told me to take my time and walk around but he’ll meet me at the dinghy and wait for me.
Ziggy and I headed up the road. A large
raven followed us and made funny noises at us. He seemed almost human. They
are nothing like the large black birds you see everywhere. You know the
difference immediately as the ravens are very large and have quite a presence
about them. The last ravens I saw were at the Indian village in Queen Charlotte
Strait area where I encountered all the black snakes. This one was talking to
us and kind of like teasing us or laughing at us. Maybe he was asking why we
were here where we don’t belong again. I can see why they are so important in
the Indian mythology as they are very clever and eerily very human like. So the
raven followed us up the road as if to keep and eye on us, these outsiders. As
we reached the top of the road I saw what looked like a long house with native
painting on the outside of it and nearby it a strange tower protruding up from
the building.
SPENDING TIME AT SHEARWATER It’s different this year at Shearwater. For the first time we’ve noticed that there are more big boats cruising up here than in 2002. There were several of these big boats left at the docks while owners flew home. Some of the cruisers were complaining about the difficulty of getting at the dock these days as all these big power boats are monopolizing the dock space and no one is even in them.
We met a nice couple on M/V Emerald Star, a green hulled Nordic Tug named Dwaine and Lynn, and another couple across the way on what I think was an old Island Trader trawler named M/V Mary One. These people weren’t heading anywhere specific just cruising the BC coast and surrounding areas of North BC. NO POWER OR CONNECTION The power on the docks went out the last evening while we were there. Their server was out also. No one could find the new dock master to get the breakers reset. Everyone was walking the docks and looking for him or anyone that had knowledge of how to turn them back on. The dock master goes diving every night after work looking for sunken wrecks in the area so no one knew where he went. There was no one to be found that knew anything about anything. The owner and manager are invisible here, I think sometimes on purpose. Just lots of new signs posted everywhere with rules. The power finally came back on about 11:00 PM but we still no internet connection.
BEST PIZZA We had pizza in the restaurant the last night at the recommendation of the nice couple Duane and Lynn from Emerald Star. It was the best pizza I think we’ve ever had. It’s homemade from scratch and it is delicious. So if the same cook is there when you come to Shearwater be sure and order some. I’ll be dreaming about that pizza from here on out.
DIVING FOR SHIP AND PLANE WRECKS The dock master says there are a lot of wrecks in the local waters here. He said some are planes from the WW II and there’s supposed to be an old steamer from the days when old Bella Bella was active in the 1850s. The owner of Shearwater is flying some 87 year old guy in that served here when the air force had a base here during the war. The dock master said the old guy thinks he remembers where the plane went down and shoe them where to fins it. The owner Shearwater wants to haul it out and put it on display somewhere on the resort grounds. EAGLES There was no more feeding the two local eagles. They still have an old dead tree on the grass area that they used to perch on waiting for the cook to bring out some raw meat and throw it to them. I asked the waitresses about the eagles but no one seemed to remember the tradition of feeding them. That’s sad.
HIKING We took a nice walk on the roads behind the resort. They were made during the war to get up to the old air field up on the hill. I picked a wonderful bouquet of wild flowers to take back to the boat with me. It had a beautiful mixture of fox gloves, white yellow daisies, Queen Anne’s lace and other flowers that I don’t know the name of. This is such a dreary place that it was amazing to see these beautiful flowers growing here. We also saw wolf prints in the semi dried mud just above the resort so we didn’t wander too far off the road with Ziggy. He’d be one big tasty morsel for him by looking at the size of those paw prints. FISHING LODGE One day we were amazed when we saw two
strange looking planes swoop in over head and then land on the water with no
pontoons. These big fat planes were the strangest things we’ve ever seen.
Everyone on the docks stopped in their tracks and looked at them. These big
guys just landed right on their bellies, then motored into the dock balancing
lopsided leaning over on the tip of one of their wings. As they approached the
dock in this funny slanted position he’d bring the plane around and a dock hand
grabbed the up lifted wing, swung it over the dock and set it down on the dock
to rest so the passenger door was right beside the dock. It was a funny sight.
It looked like a scene out of the past and I half expected someone like maybe
Howard Hughes would step out. But instead out came one sports fisherman after
another. It was like those scenes where you see all the people piled into a
phone booth and they just keep coming out. The sports fishermen were here for
serious fishing and didn’t waste anytime but just headed up the ramp one by one
and to the lodge to check in. It wasn’t much more than about 30 minutes later and they were all dressed and ready to fish and heading over to the sports fishing dock getting into several little fishing skiffs. I couldn’t believe the sight as they all sped off in unison from the dock heading out to fish. It was like a mad rush of speeding boats all going in one direction. How in the world do the fish have any chances around here? They were so many fishermen. It was an incredible sight.
READY TO MOVE ON Time to go, weather is calm now and we’ve had all we can take of Shearwater until the return trip. We’re plenty rested for our next leg of the journey. Most boaters have already left and gone on their way. Sadly we didn’t find any one going our direction or anyone who has gone where we are going for some extra information but nevertheless, we were ready to move on.
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dock master came up to us and wanted
to know our boat name and once he heard it was Knotty Dog and it matched his
reservation list he was no longer concerned about us. You could tell he was new
on the job, only been there a week and was a little stressed out. 
SQUEEZE ‘EM IN
CRUISERS BOND AT SHEARWATER
There were some fresh cinnamon buns
on a rack but nothing to pick them up with so you just had to use your hands.
We laughed about getting our hands sticky. I asked where she was from and she
said “here”. I was stunned and couldn’t imagine her living here. She looked
like a city person with a city hair cut. She said, “It’s always nice when they
have fresh bread in here baked by a local.” So I guess it was my lucky day to
get the fresh cinnamon buns and fresh baked bread and rolls. They were
delicious by the way, better than any bread we bought the whole summer. I never
had a chance to talk to this girl which I truly regret as she was in a hurry and
quickly left. I’d love to have talked to her more to find out what she did
here. It will always puzzle me. 
RAVEN AND MYSTIC DOG
