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Pirates Cove

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It was another lovely morning as we edged out of the Princess Cove anchorage. There is a little reef guarding the entrance to the cove. It was covered when when we entered the anchorage the day before however now the tide was much lower. This was an opportunity to test out the chart plotter. We edged up to a channel that was indicated on the plotter. I didn't really expect the thing to be this accurate... however, there was the channel right where the chart plotter said it would be. Can these really be this accurate? As soon as we were safely through and the depth sounder indicated deep water, I turned up the throttle and we were off.

Right away we were greeted with a favorable current. So far this trip had been awesome tidewise. In the past there have been times when we had not been so lucky so I was relishing our good fortune. We found deep water north of Wallace Island so we cut over towards Galiano and proceeded north. As usual, we had no idea where we were going to end up tonight. Our only goal was to spend some time in the northern part of the Gulf Islands and do a little exploring.

After a little over an hour of powering, we saw one of our favorite stops from last year (Whaleboat Cove) and went over to investigate. Looked good... it was a comfort to know that we could always stay here tonight if nothing else worked out. We continued north... Across from Whaleboat Cove there were some cliffs that were intriguing. On a whim we decided to go give em a closer look. These cliffs are on Valdez Island and rise almost directly out of the water. They also went pretty far down under the water. We were less than 50 feet off shore but had over 100 feet of water under us. The cliffs were this strangely eroded sandstone. I took a number of pictures (see below). We went from one end to the other and then back again. I was being careful about encountering unexpected protruding rock. Fortunately there didn't seem to be any.

After more northerly travel we came to Gabriola Pass... Now we were seriously beginning to look for a place to stay overnight so we poked our bow into Degnen Bay. We thought it might be fun to go for a hike and look at the cave pictures that the early native people had left nearby (as were described in one of our books). Unfortunately the harbor didn't look all that inviting. And there wasn't really anywhere to anchor or tie up. After a bit of investigation, we pointed the bow back out into the nearby Gabriola Pass to look for an anchorage elsewhere.

Since we were this close it was tempting to add Gabriola Pass to our "pass resume". This pass looked like it could be fairly gnarly if the currents had been wrong. However when we got there it was completely slack. We were indeed having some very good luck with tides and current this trip. So we went through the pass and out to the Strait of Georgia. It really was gorgeous. You could see over to the mountains where we were last year when went to Princess Louisa Inlet. It was quite tempting to turn north and continue exploring. But that was a bit out of our way and would have definitely been a commitment since this slack water in Gabriola Pass was not going to last long. So reluctantly, we turned back toward the Gulf Islands and retraced our path through the pass.

Where to next?... after some thought, we decided it would be interesting to check out Pirates Cove. This was supposed to be a nice place to visit and was a marine park. Last year we looked in on it however it was quite crowded and I chickened out. The cove is small and very popular because it is so protected. Last year when we looked in, all I could see was masts so we bailed. The notion of undertaking a difficult anchoring operations with such a large audience was a bit much. Besides, there was this tricky entrance (it's actually not that tricky but seemed so at the time). You have to line up this arrow with an 'X' on a tree then turn left and pass close by a red mark (of course keeping it on your right). This year I was feeling a bit more adventurous and we couldn't see that many masts inside so I went for it. And before we knew it, we were in... Piece of cake!

The hard part was yet to come however... anchoring... and we had to stern tie. Normally, this is easy. You drop the hook where you want it then row into shore with a line, snug it up and adjust things to about where you want the boat to end up. Unfortunately, I repeatedly messed up this simple operation. At one point I had even crossed anchor lines with another boat... oy! To my credit, he was taking up way too much space. He really didn't need that much scope out and his stern tie was a good 200 feet. But... anyway.. I'm not bitter... he turned out to be a nice guy. And I can't completely blame him. I didn't have my act together all that well. But his boat and anchoring technique was one of the problems. Anyway... we eventually got settled in and so ended the entertainment that we were providing our new neighbors.

Pirates Cove is a delightful stop. Turned out to be one of my favorites of the whole trip. We took the dinghy to shore and did some exploring, we also explored the cove by dinghy and then just lounged around the boat. The anchorage got much more crowded in the evening when all the cruisers came in to overnight. Everyone seemed to prefer the other side of the cove though. I thought we had the good side. Didn't really make any sense but we didn't complain.

The next day, we weren't real ambitious about leaving. I took the dinghy out of the cove and into the big water. It was fun just dinkin' around. Then we all went for a hike around the island. There is some history on this island. Apparently there was this guy who started a cult here. His name was Brother XII (aka Edward Wilson) and he was able to convince something like 8000 followers that he was the twelfth master of wisdom or something like that. A master of wisdom was someone from another world who was part of a line of divine perfect masters who would teach his followers the mysteries of ancient Egypt and usher in a new age. People would visit the islands on their boats and the woman would be lured away and decide to stay?! Also folks would donate their entire life savings to the cause. A fortified settlement was built in the northern end of DeCoursey Island. Also there is supposed to be a buried treasure on the island. Gold coins were sealed in glass jars and placed in cedar chests. However this treasure has never been found. At that time Pirate's Cove was called Gospel Cove or The Haven. Brother XII had an evil mistress named Madame Zee. She apparently carried a bull whip to help keep folks in line. Sometime in the 30s the couple were brought to trial in Nanaimo and were convicted of misuse of funds, adultery and attempted murder through witchcraft. But before they could be punished, they disappeared. There is a trail in the park called Brother XII Trail. As we walked along, I tried to imagine what was going on there a mere 80 years earlier... but it was just too lovely to get very carried away with that.

As usual, we had absolutely no idea what we were going to do today. Do we stay or do we go? If we go, where do we go? We were pretty far north though and we had to be in Anacortes in three days to pick up the Stevens. Every day we stayed up here meant an even longer day of motoring to get to where we needed to be. We decided to leave the park and cover some distance. So we got the boat together, pulled up anchor and off we went.