Once you transit Cape Caution, it’s all about being on the hook. There are very few dock opportunities – Dawson’s Landing for 2022 they still only allowed one person in the store at a time, wearing a mask, we heard rumor that Duncaby’s was not accepting pleasure boaters this year, and Shearwater is under new ownership. Shearwater is the place to provision and find a much needed part if you had a system fail and of course didn’t have a spare.
However The Central Coast is not about the docks for us, just the opposite. The pristine anchorages with only a handful of boats, or if you are lucky all by yourself. The anchorages tend to be deep, rocky bottoms (not so good for our Bruce), and sometimes exposed, but if you get a good hook and the right wind, it is a recipe for what we love about boating.
With record high fuel prices this year, and a vaccine mandate still in place to enter Canada, we found less boats cruising the Central Coast with a higher concentration of Canadian registered boats than pre-covid years. We started mid-June with fuel prices at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes at 7.38/gal for diesel. We definitely noticed boats slowing their cruising speed down to lower their fuel consumption; we slowed down last year on our way to SE Alaska when we realized how much fuel we were burning – and diesel then was at 2.05/g!
We had almost three weeks of solid 24/7 rain, with highs in the 50s, our desert cat onboard was not a happy camper. The bimini went up on the fish boat, and the rain gear came out, and only one major leak was found on the boat. It was so wet, we ran our off-season dehumidifiers to help mitigate the dampness. When we finally saw a spot of blue sky one evening late July, we blinked. It was glorious, lifted our spirits, and gave us the resolve to not run South to Desolation for warm weather, warm water and crowded anchorages.
