We made our way north to Nanaimo on Monday – something neither of us really wanted to do but consider a necessary evil. Not only is it a convenient stop, it’s the largest city we’ll be in for months and our last real opportunity to take care of any land-based business before we move into remote areas.
But three days of float planes and city noises was more than enough, so we upped anchor this morning and made our way up the Strait of Georgia to Jedediah Island Marine Park – our first visit. We’re not well-charted for the area and neither of the plotting programs we use, Navionics and C-Map, show much detail but our approach, through Bull Passage and into the anchorage, was straight-forward and easy to navigate . . . despite the fact that both plotters had us travelling on land.
Most of the anchorages around the island are for more settled conditions rather than the southeasterlies we’re currently experiencing, so we picked the only one claimed to have “all-weather” protection – Deep Bay. It’s really not that deep, but it is small and, with one other boat already anchored, we had to stern tie – something we pride ourselves on being able to avoid like the plague. The cruising guides disagree on the holding . . . one calling it “fair in soft mud” another saying it’s “iffy”. I believe it’s rocky . . . in soft mud. But one thing we can all agree upon . . . it is well-protected.
Once we were settled in, we were able to take a look around and really liked what we saw. It’s been close to four years since we made the point to come back to the general area and we’re not sure why – it’s very beautiful here . . . and quiet. The entire island is an uninhabited marine park and has a system of trails throughout – great for exploring. It’s also reputed to be a kayaker’s haven, which is easy to see why. But we experienced a one knot current on our approach to the anchorage, too much for our inflatables, so we’ll have to stick to land-based activities while we’re here.
Getting to shore is a little challenging. Most of the anchorage is relatively steep-to and requires a bit of scrambling up rocky hillsides to reach the top – something that used to be easy for our Sally but now requires a bit of help. Combined with the larger tides we’re currently experiencing, it’s tricky but we’ll figure it out . . . we always do.
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