Author: Tessa Aydelotte

This was our first stop at Lagoon Cove in probably six or so years. We stopped in during the new owner’s first season, we said hi, and haven’t been back. Not because we didn’t have a great experience, there was a closed international border there for a couple years and when the border was open timing just didn’t allow us to stop. We have heard great things about the new owners over the years, and that they are keeping a consistently full marina throughout peak season. This had made us happy to hear, and it just turned out that time allowed us to stop this season and wait to connect with a buddy boat who was a couple days behind us.

The original and former owners Bill and Jean ran a fabulous respite, typically your first or last stop in the Broughton’s depending on if you are transiting North or South. When you had reached Lagoon Cove, you knew you had made it. The formidable Johnstone Strait was in the rearview mirror, you were now in the Broughton’s. When you hailed on vhf 66a, Bill would great you by your first name(s) and ask how you have been – even if you had only stayed there once previously (spoken from experience). He was a tetris genius, and could stack boats in the marina like cordwood. No dock space was wasted, typically less than a foot separated boats boat to stern. We had an exciting docking experience once, on the inside of the dock with “the rock” on our port side, but Bill was calmly adamant that we’d fit – and we did.

The new owners now use an online reservation system, reserving half the space available online and leaving some wiggle room for boats that want to stay an extra day or did not have the ability to make an online reservation. It makes the daily tetris game beginner’s level at best, as they know what boats to expect and not have to worry about how to fit everyone in.

Happy Hour at The Workshop is still complete with the tradition of spot prawns provided, you bring a shareable appetizer and your beverage of choice and swap stories with fellow boaters. There were passing showers all afternoon, and we made it down to The Office building at head of the dock before the deluge of rain fell from the skies. This was probably some of the most voluminous rain we had experienced here in the Broughton’s.

We didn’t try salmon fishing, but we were still able to pull in our average quota of six spot prawns per pull, and catch our first dungeness crabs of the season. Wonderful beginning to our time in the Broughton’s.

The next two nights we spent at Crease Islands, which is one of our favorite spots for salmon fishing and crabbing, and it’s a beautiful view to boot. Well we got one of the three this time, a beautiful view.

Crease Islands is typically one of our first and last stops, whether going North or South, in the Broughton’s. One last time to catch that big chinook, one last chance to catch dungeness crab. We saw one lodge boat catch one fish, out of five boats fishing Flower Island. And we only caught one keeper for dungy. The whales weren’t even present for a nature show.

Second day of salmon fishing we did have the pacific white sided dolphins play off the bow of our fishboat, going a speed of 1.4kts. We have had them play in our bow and wake of Docktails many times, but this was a first of them playing with our 16′ fishboat.

Our next challenges ahead of us are timing the rapids and favorable seas on Johnstone Strait. It was either an early morning departure, or mid-afternoon departure to time Yaculta and Dent rapids at slack. We’ve accidentally transited these rapids at 4.5kts, and it was exciting. We don’t want these rapids to be exciting, we’d rather them be boring.

It was a stunning afternoon cruise, with very few boats on the water. We failed to take into consideration that it was flooding, or coming against us, so we stepped it up from 1100rpm to 1400rpm for an hour to time our arrival at the rapids at slack. It was 78F and calm water as we transited, no oncoming traffic and only one boat following us through. We anchored in our favorite spot off the government dock in Shoal Bay, with a stunning view up Phillips Arm. It doesn’t get much candier than this!

Our next destination, Blind Channel, was just a short one hour cruise from Shoal Bay. We again had to time the current to reach Blind Channel and it was a mid-morning or late-afternoon arrival. We opted for the morning slack, to take full advantage of our time at Blind Channel. It’s always a treat to have a great German dinner looking out over the marina to East Thurlow Island. Tom was looking forward to a burger, but the lunch shack was not yet open for the season. So we purchased frozen burger patties from the store and for the first time cooked burgers with the air-fryer function on our oven. Now that we’ve discovered our oven has an air-fryer function, and that it cooks meats perfectly, I’m not sure our grill will get much use anymore!

When on the dock, it’s chore time! Tom put sanded and put another couple coats of varnish on the cockpit caprail, Tessa cleaned the Lexan windows on the flybridge and the pilothouse windows, along with spot cleaning the fiberglass hull.

It turned out that there were four Tolly’s at the dock that night. One being docked right next to us, one of the first hulls of the 61. It was a pleasure to run into them, as we always look forward to seeing them every summer.

Must have been all the cleaning that made the weather turn, as we had overcast skies for our 8am departure to shoot Johnstone Strait. And shoot Johnstone we did! Running at our usual 1100rpm we typically make 10kt, we averaged 13.5kt with the current pushing us through Johnstone in 3 hours. One of our fastest transits!

… is performing boat repairs in remote locations.

We believe the majority of our friends and staff have a vision of us having a grand time cruising and enjoying the beautiful weather, sun bathing, catching fish, and all around enjoying life.

Well, this IS true, but it is only half the picture.

Boats are a lot of work on a daily basis. If at anchor, you are monitoring your batteries’ charge, always checking your swing (when we do a perfect “donut” we cheer, as this denotes a good hook), monitoring your water and fuel usage, and waste buildup, making water (we love doing this!), checking fluids on both main engines and both generators, wiping down the teak after the rain or dew in the morning, oh and then just your daily normal house chores on top of all this.

Boats are also meant to be used, and the majority of the boats out there are only used for maybe two months a year. When pumps, motors, engines sit unused, things tend to go awry. In the same breadth, if a switch, pump, motor, engine is heavily used (and then throw in there sitting for eighty percent of the time), things tend to go kaput.

We were diligent about running systems on a monthly basis since we came back from last season’s cruise. However with the age of our boat (she’s a 1992) and the fact that she sat for a couple years before we purchased her last year, is a recipe for things to fail.

It can be as simple as corroded connections (that was our bow thruster and port alternator last season). Or a fuse that may have blown (this season our macerator pump, and the pump for our reverse air system), and hope you have a replacement fuse in your inventory on board. Or a switch that went kaput because of age (our bow thruster switch on the aft steering station, the v-berth light switch), which you Jerry-rig with what you’ve got on board. A sanitation hose has failed (we now have extra sanitation hose on board). The pump that moves the davit crane left and right failed from age (and we only used it once this season!).

Let’s mount the external Iridium GO antenna, she said. Running wires after the fact on a boat is never easy. This proved to be one of those “easier said than done” projects. The motor that lifts the aft lazarette where we stow the 50amp power cable and fenders failed. Tom Jerry-rigs two switches that you press simultaneously to activate the motor, as the diodes have failed. The aft lazarette hatch is mainly rotted wood, so you have to solidify where the arm that lifts it attaches for the newly Jerry-rigged electrical to the motor to work for the whole assemble to be functional again.

As we say, there is ALWAYS something to be worked on, on a boat. And on a somewhat regular basis we ask ourselves, why are we doing this?! And then we have a speculator day; whether it be glorious blue skies and calm wind, the fishing being hot, or seeing a humpback open it’s humongous jaws right next to the fish boat feeding (their breath stinks!), or being able to share these experiences with friends. These days are the days that keep us boat owners, and make the never-ending list of projects and repairs seem like a short manageable list.

The Broughton’s are truly special. From the rugged wilderness, to the charming resorts, to the fishing/crabbing/shrimping, to encountering wildlife, we were excited to share this little slice of heaven with our good friends from Palm Desert CA who reside in Vancouver BC.

We started in Turnbull Cove, and were surprised that there were only three boats anchored in this popular spot the first night.

Glass conditions in Turnbull Cove.

We shot roaring hole rapids, on a flood and an ebb (having been through these rapids multiple times, we had local knowledge).

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We crabbed and shrimped in our “spots”, and we had the spectacular experience of seeing a pod of nine orcas transit through Mackenzie Sound up to Nimmo Bay, and being the only boat floating along with them. It turns out they were sleeping for a portion of the time we were with them – three hovered at the surface in shallow (60ft) water. There was also an adorable little baby in tow.

These whales are takin a snooze.

Tom and Venetia, Bill and Tessa, out gunkholing

And Portia, enjoying this calm anchorage in Turnbull.

Our intent was to stop at Nimmo Bay for massages and dinner, but they were booked for the month of August. We later learned from another boater that you need to plan your reservation one year in advance. In the past years, a months notice had been sufficient. Apparently we are not the only boaters who have discovered and enjoy Nimmo Bay … !

Sullivan Bay was next on the itinerary; Debbie, Laura and Cody were welcoming and remembered us from previous seasons. They still do orders for turnovers and sweet rolls, as well as happy hour but they ran out of golf balls. One of the highlights for us was taking a swing at a floating green (depending on the tide and current, closer or farther away) at the end of happy hour for a free night’s moorage. Since we had a scratch golfer amongst us, we thought we’d have a good chance. They also do dinner M/W/F, make a reservation in advance as they fill quickly, and new this season lunch daily.

Golden Hour and Sunset at Sullivan Bay.

Of course to round out our cruise for our friends new to the Broughton’s we went to Pierre’s for the famous pig roast. More shrimping and crabbing, gunkholing and a walk to see the legend Billy Proctor, and the highlight of the cruise: spending a day with Survivalist Nikki Van Schyndel.

We have been cruising up in the Broughton’s for eight years, have been to two of her talks, have read her book, and kept somewhat up-to-date on her blog. She was most recently on the TV series Alone Season 6, surviving in the Arctic. We have talked with boaters over the years who have done an eco-tour with her, and said it was an amazing experience. What better fun than to do a tour with Nikki with our good friends?

Tessa inquired with Tove at Pierre’s Echo Bay if Nikki is still doing tours, and the answer was unfortunately no because the First Nation have shut her down. The gist being they do not like her having more knowledge about their area than them, and giving tours based on this local (First Nation) knowledge. This was truly disappointing, especially on the heels that Nimmo Bay was not accepting anymore boaters for the month of August. However Tove sent Nikki an email with Tessa’s contact info on the off chance she would like to spend a day with us.

And as it turned out, Nikki contacted Tessa, and the one day she was available was the first day we were at Pierre’s Echo Bay (she lives around the corner). Tessa emphatically responded to her, and we were truly happy and honored that she reached out. We downplayed spending a day with Nikki to our guests, but made sure they had read some of her book, read her blog post about her TEDx talk or watched her TEDx talk, and also had read some of Billy Proctor’s book about the history of the area.

And what a blast we had. We foraged our own ingredients for lunch at non-First Nation owned land. Nikki describing the plants and seafood as we foraged, along with other plants that we did not forage that can be used for medicinal purposes, nature’s toilet paper, or nature’s facial. She also gave us some background on the local Echo Bay bears, pointed out the beach where Captain Vancouver first stepped ashore in the Broughton’s and was greeted by the First Nation, as well as other former First Nation village settlements (all but one there is nothing left for the naked eye to see), and some of her favorite spots to explore in the Broughton’s.

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Nikki was the one that squealed with excitement and exclaimed that the orcas we saw were sleeping, after we described their movement (or lack thereof). And also was super excited to hear from us about a former Neighbor of hers in Echo Bay’s new residence: at Jennis Bay.

We happened to chat with him on our day trip up Drury Inlet, we popped into Jennis Bay to see how things were going. He told us to watch out for a momma grizzly with three teenage cubs. They had been roaming around the property a couple days ago, and he pulled his gun out for defense and it only had four bullets. The rule of thumb is you always have one bullet for yourself, but with four bears he was short a bullet. So he decided if he missed a bear, only being able to kill three of four, and if the one disgruntled bear left alive happened to catch him and start gnawing on a limb, he’d use his pocket knife to go through his own temple and twist.

As Nikki was picking some spruce tips to boil in water for tea, she had a fond story or two to tell us about her former neighbor. And maybe she’d have to make a trip over to Jennis Bay to see him on her day off. This gave Tom a chuckle, and he said, wait, what do you mean your day off? Which caused her to erupt in laughter, because, it’s not like she has a set work week and “days off”.

As we cruised around the Broughton’s with Nikki looking for a coarse sandy beach (you could probably count them on two hands) to cook lunch on, she told us some history about the Broughton’s and the current political situation. After three tries for a vacant sandy beach (she couldn’t believe there were people on all of the beaches), we shared our beach not with other humans, but a black bear. We heard him a couple times, Nikki saw him, but he never came over to cause us ill will.

As Bill picked soon-to-be “crab croutons” from the water, and Tessa and Tom stripped cedar bark for fire starter, Venetia with Nikki’s help made fire. Bill then kept the fire stoked as Nikki prepared a fabulous lunch from the greens we foraged, with the addition of coconut oil, brown rice, dried berries and kelp.

It was pretty spectacular and special to spend the day on an uninhabited island with a view out to Blackfish Sound, eating a meal mainly from ingredients we foraged, and talking with Nikki about her experiences. This is something we’ll talk about for many moons in the future. Thank you, Nikki, for choosing us to spend a day with!

Nostalgia, Luck, Insanity

These words all describe Rivers Inlet.

Historically, River’s Inlet has been known for their big fish. This stock of Chinook salmon is so special, that about a decade ago DFO Canada made a Special Management Zone at the head of River’s Inlet. Here you cannot use downriggers or flashers, and instead of two and four, it’s one Chinook a day and two annual. It is not uncommon for a boat to fish five rods from sun up to sun down, and not catch a fish. It is also not uncommon to release fish, as you’re only allowed two for the year, hedging your bet that you’ll catch “the” big one on your next hit.

For us this is our first time here since 2012, seven years ago. Dawson’s Landing has barely changed, just aged. There are still crazy fishermen, three to four living on a twenty foot boat, that leave at first light and come back at dusk. The fish caught are still few and far between, just smaller in size.

Fishing River’s Inlet brings back nostalgia for us. Tom’s Father brought us and Tom’s brother and his wife up for a fishing trip to River’s Inlet Resort a few years before he passed. It was Tessa’s first time fishing, Tom’s Father’s last time fishing, the awesome float plane flights over BC’s beautiful coastline, and of course the luck of catching “the big one”. From hospital visits to visitors at home in hospice, Tom’s father proudly talked about and showed photos our big fish. It drove Tom’s brothers’ crazy that all he talked about was that damn fish.

Our first time here was in 2008, at River’s Inlet Resort, which no longer exists. The alders have taken over, and only a discerning eye would be able to see that eleven years ago a resort existed at the head of the river.

Back then, 40 and 50 pounders were common. 30 pounders were considered small. This was Tessa’s first fishing experience, and she came out the other side a fisherperson. We caught the largest salmon in Canada in 2008, an 80lb white Chinook salmon. In a ten foot Livingston, no electronics and a nine horse kicker. We just won the jackpot.

This was the largest fish in twenty-three years, and the next 80lber was caught five or six so years after. These are special fish.

Everybody told Tessa at the resort she should stop while she was ahead, she’d never catch a bigger fish. But she was hooked. Once you hit the jackpot, even knowing your lesser than slim odds of a repeat, you continue try because of how sweet it was.

Gone are the days of “combat fishing”, only one of the four resorts in operation in 2008 are still here fishing the head. The last resort, Good Hope Cannery, is now a private fly-in resort for friends of the owner.

The talk on the dock at Dawson’s Landing is that the first week of August is peak. Tessa mentioned the full moon was not until about August 16th this year. They responded it didn’t matter, these hardcore fishermen were set on the first week of August being the prime time. Dawson’s was booked full for this week. We were here days before this and only about ten boats were working Marker 16, about a quarter of the docks were full. We remember when it’d be fifty boats, all vying for “the spot” to hook a fish.

Now, it’s all about luck. Being in that right location, at the correct depth of the thermocline, at the exact right time, to convince a big ol’ lazy Chinook that it’s hungry and wants to eat. There’s a lot of dragging cut plugs in the water, and not much action.

The fish we saw caught were all in the 20s. That is small for this “big fish” fishery as we remember it. As we were mooching along, intimate with every nook and cranny South of Marker 16, Tessa paraphrases a passage from Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux to Tom.

Theroux ultimately does the most touristy African thing you can do: he goes on a safari. The owner of the particular safari he went to used to operate it as a big game hunting resort. He then saw his operation as not viable, as the hunters prized the biggest specimen of each species. Leaving the smallest, weakest to survive and reproduce. For each of the species to thrive, they needed the strongest and largest alive and breeding. So, he shut the big game operation down and turned it into a wildlife preserve. And he was successful, not just monetarily but in helping the all the species thrive.

This is exactly what the River’s Inlet fish needed, but twenty years ago. The largest Chinook needed to be released so the population could thrive. Instead, the largest fish we pulled from the gene pool leaving the smaller fish to reproduce. Thus, Tessa believes that the population has shifted to smaller fish.

Tom calls the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Well, we did that three days in a row. We tried afternoon fishing, Gentlemen’s morning fishing (not getting up at oh-dark-thirty), and then getting up at oh-dark-thirty. We worked the holes where in 2008 you were guaranteed to pick up a hit. We tried everything. And at slack on the third day, Tessa got a fish on.

When you have had a drought of bites for three days, you’re almost in a daze what’s happening. Tessa is typically the first to the rod, but in this instance she just stared at it in disbelief and Tom was the one that grabbed her rod. He then handed it to her, she was uncertain if she had the fish or the bottom, and then it ran “deep” (well, down as we were in 40ft of water). She let it run, but then it ran to towards the boat. As this fishery takes finesse and knowledge that we were rusty on, we couldn’t get the boat in gear fast enough to help keep the line taught. And also possibly in conjunction on not “setting the lure” strong enough, the fish spit the lure and had a tasty cut plug herring in its stomach.

You had your bets laid on the craps table, and won a small side bet. It was enough to keep you playing for a while longer. Then you cashed out. Until next time when you’d try your hand again, seeking that right roll of the dice and the correct bet played. Which keeps you coming back again and again. Darn it.

In three full and two half days of constant rain, our rain meter (a pickle bucket in the cockpit) showed 3.5”+ of water. That’s a lot of water.

As we waited out the liquid sunshine and Gale force winds, we thankfully had the foresight to put the bimini up on the Riverhawk. So we tinkered about our anchorages, mapping the bottom (as the charts need help, and we can submit our data to Navionics who will then update the charts), dabbling in fishing, a little crabbing, and exploring lagoons.

The first morning after a steady twelve hours of rain, Tom said, that sounds like a river behind us. But we had gone gunkholing the afternoon before, and neither of us saw a river. Did the southerly Gale winds materialize, and that’s what we heard? We poked our nose out to try some salmon fishing, and it wasn’t the wind. A gunkholing trip later on showed us a rushing waterfall fall at the head of our anchorage. Tom was correct, there WAS a river in our backyard!

A solid period of rain like this also alerts you to the leaks in your boat, as water always has a way. We were looking like Swiss cheese; the two known leaks were leaking, and Tessa found a third in the v-berth (Tom deduced the starboard forward cleat was leaking) which also led us to see that our winch was leaking ever so slightly into the anchor chain closet, the mid-ship stateroom had a failing porthole (which led us to check every other porthole for leaks), and there was a mysterious drip above the TV in the cabinet in the salon. Nothing we could do but damage control while we had another two and a half days of rain. But glad we were aboard when we did have a serious amount of rain, so we knew the extent of the holes in our Swiss cheese. It has made us re-think the order of our major projects we have lined up for the next two years.

Day 4 started out like the last three, but it was supposed to clear mid-morning. Well, that didn’t happen. But it did clear by mid-afternoon, and boy, were all three of us in serious need of Vitamin D.

We started out in the sun stopping the leaks through the forward starboard cleat, which also led us to identifying some stainless rails that were loose that we tightened, followed by stopping the mid-ship stateroom aft porthole from leaking. And then for our poor “lettuce paddies”. There were no holes in the bottom of the planters, so they looked like rice patties. Tom had Tessa near tears laughing from his reference, as it was true. So we drilled holes in one end near the bottom and angled them so the water would drain. Even they needed some Vitamin D.

Feeling good about our productivity, we decided to take on one more afternoon task: tightening a bolt on the guest head vacuflush motor. Well folks, one bolt opened up a can of worms. It wasn’t the loose bolt, it wasn’t the duck valves (Tom replaced one for good measure), we (as in Tom) had to remove the 1.5” semi-hard plastic piping from the vacuflush motor to the holding tank and have sewage splash in his face, along with the foulest stench that initially sent Tessa running. She couldn’t open up enough portholes, hatches and doors fast enough for a cross through wind. We had a blockage compounded by an old pipe having calcified fecal material constricting the inner diameter of the tube.

Nurse, prepare the coat hanger. A combination of high pressure water, a coat hanger, a half inch diameter tube, physical force, Tessa turning up empty handed with draino, no cell service or WiFi to google homemade draino, and no spare 1.5” tubing, what do you do? A little bit of baking soda, two ounces of Coca Cola, a little time to for the reaction to occur, then repeat steps A, B, C and D. And after an hour (baking soda and Coca Cola being towards the end of this hour) of wrestling with a blockage in a 2.5ft long tube, voila! This shitty blockage is cleared!

Not exactly how we planned to spend the better part of an afternoon, in a shitty situation, but we still were able to get in some gunkholing to map this anchorage early evening.

The reviews in Navionics left by users and the information given in Waggoner’s Cruising guide are all lies. Goldstream Harbour maps mainly at 80ft of water, not 30ft. We had thrown the hook down close to shore in 40ft of water, hoped for a bite on a rocky bottom, and sat in 85ft of water. Not ideal, but with us being the only boat in the anchorage (again!) if we dragged, it wouldn’t be that big of a problem. It potentially could be, as previously noted it IS a rocky bottom, but, hopefully we’d catch our drag before we were in any danger.

Four days ago, after dragging anchor in a crowded anchorage, failing to set the anchor in another, and setting it in tight quarters between shallow rocks on an uncharted bottom, all in rocky bottoms, we would have freaked out about our current anchor situation. Now, well? Let’s see what’ll happen. And yes, Mark, we even dusted off Chapman’s to make sure we were properly anchoring. And the answer was yes, we were.

We weren’t sure how far North we would go this summer, we knew it would be at least the Broughton’s. When we were at the Cortes Outstation in Desolation Sound, two boats were headed to the Central BC Coast. Come on around (Cape Caution), they said. It’s beautiful, the fishing’s great, you’ll be fine, they said.

After provisioning in Port McNeill, the weather forecast to transit Cape Caution looked candy. Tessa convinced Tom to go North.

We weren’t quite as prepared as we expected. The charts for the Broughton’s and points South are pretty well charted. Up here on the Central BC Coast, not so much. In our Navionics charts, users can leave public notes about anchorages and narrow passages. Almost all said something to the effect: rocky bottom, not at all what the chart says.

Great. It was like being back in the Bahamas. No local knowledge, and untrustworthy charts.

Tessa kept hearing Don Douglass’s name being mentioned. He must have wrote a book about these waters. With no cell service or WiFi, she couldn’t Google him. While she was reading the introduction in Waggoner’s Cruising guide (typically she just flips to the cruising area of interest), she saw an inset that talked about Don Douglass and Reanne Hemingway-Douglass who spent 35 years cruising the West Coast and the PNW waters, and recorded what each bay looks like and the best anchorage spots. This was the book we needed.

The Environment Canada weather forecast is for McInnes Island to Pine Island, a large area of coverage. We’ve learned that the wind and weather can be completely different than forecasted. As we were leaving Shearwater a Gale warning was in effect. The guy at the marine store didn’t flinch, he said, we don’t pay attention until 60 (kts). We like to pay attention so we don’t get blown out of an anchorage, being able to use Windy or PredictWind in addition to Environment Canada’s weather forecast would be a nice to have.

As there are limited docks, you are doing a lot of anchoring. Which we love. When we are able to get the anchor set. The majority of these bays are rocky bottoms, and/or depths beyond 60ft. We tried four times in two different locations in one bay to set our anchor, just to watch and feel it bounce across the bottom. Three hours later, we ended up in a different anchorage, equally rocky a bottom, but were able to get her set (we think). We watched ourselves do donuts on our Navionics for the next 36 hours. A pattern that was comforting to see.

After we got passed popular Hakai Institute and Codville lagoon, we have been the only boat in the anchorages we’ve chosen. To have whole anchorages to ourselves to enjoy the natural beauty around us, we have truly been spoiled.

There are nice to haves, that would make cruising up here much more enjoyable and less stressful for Tom. Satellite TV – being able to watch the weather, the British Open, the Tour de France, maybe the news once in a blue moon. A cell booster, so we could pick up cell service in a bay where we had none, but it was close by. And a fixed antenna for our iridium go, so we could at the minimum still be reached if necessary by our staff and family when we were completely off the grid.

One thing that caught us by surprise was the water temperature. In Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, it averages 58F. In Desolation Sound, where the water does not flush, the average is mid-60sF and if it’s a hot summer can push into the 70sF. It’s not unusual to see people jumping off their boats into the warm water. The Broughton’s water temperature is cold, low to mid 50sF. And this was what we were expecting on the Central BC Coast. We were shocked to see 64F water temperature. We also noticed just about everywhere had a thermocline- a distinct layer of freshwater on top of the saltwater. After a couple days of Tessa reading through the Waggoner’s Cruising guide section for this area, she put two and two together. It’s not glacial water here, it’s hot springs water! The hot springs in this area are plentiful. Thus her conclusion why the water temperature is so warm, sometimes warmer than the air!