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We could have started closer—Nanaimo or Vancouver—but since we afforded ourselves two weeks, we started at Anacortes on a chartered 41-foot Moody for a 300-mile round trip.
As we planned, my wife and I boned up on our tricks and tips for safe and fun family cruising—tricks we’ve used for more than six years since our daughter first cruised with us at the age of nine months. (Now we have a little boy on the family crew as well.) The strategies included a good itinerary for stopping in places that the kids would enjoy—that usually means any place they can go swimming. For safety, I purchased lifeline netting on eBay. I made sure we had kids’ harnesses to supplement life jackets. We reiterated our simple rules such as knowing where the “green zone” was in the cockpit near the companion way—the only place where a life jacket could be discarded and the place where everyone would retreat if things got dicey. We made sure we had a few choice videos and music CDs. (Tip—don’t bring anything that you don’t mind hearing over and over! My daughter played her latest obsession, the soundtrack to The Wiz, 27 times a day.) Most of all, we polled our kids on what they wanted to do. Our daughter wanted to fish while listening to The Wiz. Our little guy wanted to play with his choo-choo trains. No problem, kid. Go below and knock yourself out! Going north on the Vancouver side means mostly Strait of Georgia sailing—more direct, but more open water and not as many easy stops for the kids. So we went up through the Gulf Islands. From Anacortes, we entered Canada via Bedwell Harbour en route to Nanaimo. It amazes me how islands in the rainy Pacific Northwest can have droughts. Bedwell Harbour on South Pender Island was rationing water. This was nothing new. Over the years, we’ve experienced one island or another complaining of water shortages. Going to Nanaimo through the Gulf Islands means eventually facing Dodd Narrows, the bottleneck that requires a slack tide for safe passage. It’s always a bit unnerving to see people sitting out in lawn chairs to watch boats go through on the daily slacks. It makes me wonder if these are the same folks who watch auto racing with subconscious hopes that one of the cars will hit the wall! On a previous trip through “the Dodds,” as locals call it, we came close to providing some lawn chair entertainment. We must have gotten confused over the tide info and arrived at the narrows an hour late. We barreled on through anyway, outpacing the current by a knot or two—just a little too unsettling for my taste. Mental note—don’t do that again. This time was quite the opposite, a neap tide meant hardly any current for three hours. Setting out to cross the Strait of Georgia is always to be taken seriously, especially with family aboard. I used to think of a small craft advisory as a cause for concern. Now I regard it as encouragement that there is wind enough to blow my vessel with decent wind speed. And if luck is good, the wind will be from behind. On past trips, we’ve had the good fortune to be blown up the Strait of Georgia and then, when ready to return a few days later, discover that the wind had clocked completely around to blow the boat once again from behind, making for an efficient course and a comfortable surf. Well, no such luck this time. The day was overly nice and the 15-knot wind on our bow eased throughout the afternoon. So after a few hours of pleasant sailing off course, we headed up and motored the rest of the way to Pender Harbour in order to get there by nightfall. Pender Harbour is a good jump off point for Princess Louisa Inlet. It’s a community of several small quaint marinas spread out around a bay, all within a few minutes of one another—the last place for provisions before heading 35 miles up the reaches. Which marina would we choose? We checked the Waggoners. One marina boasted a pool. Say no more. We checked in at Pender Harbour Resort and Marina, the new name for what was previously called Duncan Cove Resort. The rustic facilities were just right: pool, playground, fire pit, and a huge help-yourself barbecue grill for cooking up whatever you may have caught or bought. Beware of wobbly fingers. I found the docks and especially the fingers in Pender Harbour to be the wobbliest in the entire Pacific Northwest. At nearby John Henry’s Marina, to which I dinghied for some supplies, I stepped out onto a finger and suddenly found myself up to my waist in water. It was a good chance to check out the water temperature—surprisingly warm! Good thing I had the passports in a zip lock bag. The next day found me excited because my family and I would finally see Princess Louisa Inlet Canadian Marine Park. No prior hype from any brochure or website could diminish the thrill. All the planning and preparation would culminate later this afternoon. Timing was once again critical as another bottleneck lay ahead. This one is called Malibu Rapids and it ushers vessels into Princess Louisa Inlet at up to nine knots. The conventional method is to calculate Malibu Rapids slack times as a plus or minus on tide tables for Pt. Atkinson near Vancouver, which seems strange since Pt. Atkinson is 80 miles away by water, but that’s how they do it. Also, it’s easy to pick up the wrong volume of the Canadian Tide and Current tables. The volumes are by geographical regions. Volume 5, which is color coded green and covers the Strait of Georgia and vicinity, will give Malibu Rapids info next to the data for Pt. Atkinson. Leaving Pender Harbour going north, it was an odd feeling to think that we’d be soon turning east and heading into the mountains. Since we were coming from the south, we took a shortcut which allowed us to avoid going up and around via Jervis Inlet. The 10-mile long Agamemnon Channel lead us more directly to the first of three reaches that zig and zag on the way to Malibu Rapids: Prince of Wales Reach, Princess Royal Reach, and Queens Reach. The direct distance from Pender Harbour to the Rapids is a good 35 miles and took us a major chunk of the day. Under sail, there’s no telling how long this trip will take. Each reach has its own manner of funneling the wind. Wind changes from moment to moment and from place to place along the way. We figured the best idea was to make some distance under power and then enjoy a nice sail once we knew we were in striking distance of Malibu Rapids, all the while keeping an eye on the clock for when the next slack was occurring. Well before Princess Louisa, the scenery delivers plenty of warm-up. Fjords begin to increase in size. Each turn reveals a set of snow-capped peaks. En route, my handheld GPS tells me we just crossed the 50th parallel. I thought that was really cool. Others on board are less impressed. We continue to ease on down the road. On Queens Reach with sails trimmed and wheel balanced, I reflect on why I love to sail. Three thoughts come to mind. One is the perfect metaphor that sailing is for life. As Alexander Pope once wrote, “The sail is passion and the rudder is reason. We need both to be in balance.” Another perfect expression was once quoted by rigger Brion Toss who said that, “To sail a yacht is to be around a thing of beauty.” And finally, sailing affords me the time to slow way down and timelessly do the things that I’m normally too much in a rush for, like in-depth flossing—I keep a roll of mint flavored floss in my pocket next to my handheld GPS. Nearing the Rapids, it’s important to get the timing right because once you get there you are all alone. Civilization is way behind. Cell phones don’t work. You’re in the spectacular wilderness, but since there’s nowhere to pull in or anchor—except possibly Deserted Bay near the beginning of Queens Reach—it wouldn’t be wise to miss the last entry into Malibu Rapids before nightfall. Fortunately we didn’t. At 3:45 pm on August 3, we enter Malibu Rapids—which ideally is not rapid at all. The first things we see are the wooden structures of Malibu Club. Once a resort for the rich and famous, hosting the likes of John F. Kennedy and John Wayne, it has long since been a Young Life Camp for teens. I recalled friends of mine from high school back in Tacoma raving about going to this Malibu camp. Today, decades later, I finally see what they had been talking about. The camp consists of several buildings surrounding the entrance. Swiss Family Robinsonesque, it’s a surprising anachronism in an otherwise desolate and undeveloped wilderness. Unlike the Dodds, where traffic is thick and boats line up on both sides awaiting slack tide, here at Malibu Rapids we were the only vessel entering. Even though there was nobody to hear us, the short passage through the Rapids has a blind turn and typical protocol is an announcement on Channel 16. Once inside, we sail the 4-mile inlet. On the way, we pass MacDonald Island where several boats are anchored. We continue to the end where the famous Chatterbox Falls pours fresh runoff from sources that begin thousands of feet straight up behind it. And that’s the whole point—to look up. Normally one looks up only to check the wind vane on the mast. But here in Princess Louisa, it’s all about the towering cliffs and snow-capped peaks. We find ourselves among a small and privileged group of boats ranging from 22 to 122 feet. There are three ways to moor the boat: grab a spot at the limited dock, stern tie to the nearby rocky shore, or drop anchor in the shallow sand just at the mouth of the falls and let its current keep the boat set. The problem is that the shallow sand drops off in a hurry. After two attempts to scoot our boat right up to the sandy shelf, only to have the hook drag off into the deep, we tried a third time and ventured almost to the point of touching sand in order to get the hook far enough into the shelf to hold. This time it worked. But by morning low tide, one could walk over and pick up the anchor. It was only the quick drop-off that kept the boat well afloat. On this sunny August morning, I look up to see the earth rise out of the water and continue thousands of feet into the air. Web photos just can’t convey the feeling. All senses work together as I inhale the misty air, listen to the waterfall, and gaze at the rugged peaks of the Canadian Coast Mountains. Oh yeah, the kids. What do kids like at Princess Louisa Inlet? They like climbing around in the flowing streams and pools at the base of falls. They like to dinghy around the shallow waters of low tide. They like to explore the wooded hiking trails that reveal various views of the falls. And they like to fish. My daughter caught the first three fish of her life on the dock using hot dog bits. Even my son put down his choo-choos to play in the water. I watch my kids’ natural interest in rocks, dirt, water, and sea life and I want to keep them there and delay as much as possible any obsessions with things that plug in or run on batteries. The one drawback to coming in August, we discovered, was that all the secondary falls were dry. Only Chatterbox Falls kept on chattering. Had we come earlier in the season, we would have seen dozens of falls along the cliffs of Princess Louisa Inlet, now just watermarks on the rock walls. On the third day, it was time to sail homeward with the mid-morning slack. If we hadn’t had 150 miles ahead of us, we would have stayed longer. We could have read a few books here, taken a steep 2-hour hike to Trapper’s Cabin, or gone off to explore MacDonald Island. We could have practiced our stern tie anchoring, gone fishing, or maybe, best of all, continued where we left off, spending countless hours hanging around the pools of Chatterbox Falls, ankle wading, sunning ourselves, and appreciating that our family can be together in such a serene and calming place. Nonetheless, as we exited Malibu Rapids and hoisted for an exhilarating sail down Queens Reach, I looked back with the good feeling that I had satisfied my urge, certain that we would be back. Mark Herlinger is an independent media producer – mherlinger@aol.com ...back to 48° North title page.
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The Herlingers at Chatterbox Falls. Back: Eri and Mark. Front: Mia and Ben
We enjoyed many idyllic hours just hanging around the pools of Chatterbox Falls, wading and sunning ourselves.
Chatterbox Falls
Such a serene and special place
Heading down the reaches for home, certain that we’ll be back.