Favorite Anchorages - Cullen Harbor, Queen Charlotte Strait

It's rainy, windy, fall mornings like this that have me dreaming of summer cruising both past and future.  As I sip my morning coffee I can imagine myself sitting in the MV Independence at some remote anchorage and watching the rain come down.  The image that many times comes to my mind is the anchorage at Cullen Harbor just at the entrance to Fife Sound at the far northeastern corner of Queen Charlotte Strait.  For all the anchorages between Puget Sound to Alaska this has got to be one of, if not my most favorite anchorage.  Oh so many memories of fishing nearby, playing in the tidal rapids in Booker Passage, exploring the many islands and bays, scuba diving, seeing wildlife - dolphins, whales, seal lions and bears, and meeting friends here.  How many times we said, "Let's just stay another day here."

Click on above to enlarge

Cullen Harbor is a great all weather anchorage.  Depths average around the harbor at 30'.  The bottom holding is good with a hard but pliable clay bottom with kelp that will really allow the flukes of your anchor to dig in.  I've never dragged anchor here.  The harbor has room for about 20 or more boats but I've never seen that many here.  It's especially well protected from any stormy SE winds.  We've hunkered down several times here to escape some pretty nasty blows.  If you want privacy there's a few little nooks you can anchor in.  If you really want privacy or protection you can anchor in nearby Booker Lagoon too.  No wind or swell will enter the lagoon.  And, not too many folks are willing to navigate Booker Passage to get into Booker Lagoon.  Traveling Booker Passage is easy during slack tide and you don't have to worry about any shoal water.  I've scuba dove the entire cut and the shallowest it gets is 40'.  There's four good anchoring areas within the lagoon, the prettiest being the far western bay.

inukshuk

Booker Lagoon offers great gunkholing for those days when the weather "outside" in Queen Charlotte Strait is nasty.  The lagoon gets filled with moon jellys during the summer.  We fully explored the many islands in and around the lagoon erecting inukshuks on them and searching for trinkets and treasures.  Some of the islands made for a great picnic spot or sunny spot to read a book.  We've done crabbing and shrimping in the lagoon too.  For many summers a pair of white-sided dolphins lived in the lagoon entertaining any visiting boater with jumps and tail dances.  We even snorkeled with the dolphins and that was an adventure that will live forever in our minds.  The dolphins would come at you out of nowhere and quickly turn just inches from you.  They would jump over you.  And sometimes would stop and hover close to your mask to get a good look at you.  It was fantastic.

Snorkeling in Booker Passage

If you're a scuba diver or a snorkeler, diving Cullen Harbor and Booker Passage is world class.  There's plenty of exotic underwater wildlife and things to see... Puget Sound King Crab, octopus, rock fish, basket stars, anemones, tube worms, kelp forests, and so much more.  Diving here is not to be forgotten, as it is one of the best dive sites on the west coast.  Many times you will see dive charters from nearby Port McNeill diving Booker Passage during slack tide. (Contact Sun Fun Divers in Port McNeill to book a charter)  When boating make sure to give them wide passage.

There's plenty of good fishing opportunities just outside of Cullen Harbor in Fife Sound.  Note that all of Cullen Harbor, Booker Lagoon, and the islands around Booker Passage are all protected as a Rockfish Conservation Area.  However the steep north and south shores along Fife Sound offer good fishing for ling cod and salmon.  Try trolling the tide rips that form at the entrance to Fife Sound and chances are you'll get coho or pink salmon when in season.  Early mornings trolling very slowly along the rocky steep  walls might even get you a nice sized Chinook salmon.  We've even caught halibut just outside of Cullen Harbor.  Large balls of herring or eulachon or pilchards will enter Cullen Harbor too.  Fish around these and you might get lucky with a big fish - we have.  If you want shrimp and prawns you'll need to travel farther down Fife Sound as the currents just outside of Cullen Harbor are too strong for good shrimping.  Although there's a few shrimp in Booker Lagoon.

Steller's sea lions just off of Screen Island in Fife Sound

For wildlife, many times you can find humpback whales just outside of Cullen Harbor.  Blackfish (small pilot whales) will enter Cullen Harbor to feed.  Just south of Cullen Harbor, across Fife Sound you will see a large rocky island (Screen Is.) that is popular with very large Steller's sea lions.  You can hear them barking and growling on quiet mornings while anchored in Cullen Harbor.  If you motor or kayak by this island you will see them swimming about, or sitting on the rock, or if lucky jumping off the rock and into the water.  The bulls weigh as much as 1,000 pounds and they'll make a huge splash when jumping in.  You can see killer whales in the area too.  One year, late in the season, we were entertained with hundreds of white-sided dolphins.  They were jumping, tail dancing, and splashing about just off of Eden Island.  It was quite the spectacle.  Of course you can always get a chance to see black bears.  If you are lucky you'll see them swimming from island to island looking for food.

Boys going exploring in Cullen Harbor

Finally one of the best features for my adventurous boys were to play in the tidal rapids in Booker Passage.  During large flood spring tides the current will create a large overfall and standing wave of about four feet and a subsequent whirlpool of about 10-15' in diameter.  If you have a dinghy with an 8 HP motor or larger you can safely navigate these tidal rapids.  I wouldn't try the rapids in the MV Independence though.  One year we had all of us in our dinghy and we couldn't make it out through the tidal rapids - the current was just too strong and it was not safe with the waves.  So we retreated to a small rocky island, had a snack, went beach combing, and waited three hours when the current was much less and then we easily made it back to the MV Independence anchored in Cullen Harbor.  But oh how the boys loved the adventure and the thrill, and it made for many long discussions of "how we were stranded and may never make it back."

If you need provisions Echo Bay is an easy 13 nautical miles away.  Port McNeill is about 25 nautical miles away.  You can use Cullen Harbor as a base to explore the many islands and bays around Eden, Mars, and Bonwick Islands just to the south of Cullen Harbor.

For me, Cullen Harbor and Booker Lagoon are small pieces of heaven on earth.  So many wonderful memories occurred in these places.  I think I'll take another sip of coffee, close my eyes, and enjoy the memories a little bit more.  Did I say it's raining, windy, and gray outside?

Want to read more about shrimping or crabbing or fishing?  Or cruising to the Broughtons?  Try visiting these previous blog posts:

• Summer Trip Planning - Catching Shrimp
• Summer Trip Planning - Where and When to Catch Fish
• Destination: The Broughtons
• Summer Trip Planning - Johnstone Strait

A Few Photo Memories

One of the things about cruising our beautiful coast are the many memories you gain.  Those perfect sunrises and sunsets, the times before and after a storm, peaceful anchorages, wildlife, and more.  If you are lucky, you'll have a camera handy and take a picture that will last a lifetime.  However, other times you won't have a camera handy and the images and the moment will live in your mind forever.  Unfortunately, only you can remember these sights, sounds, smells, and the moment, but still how rich you are to have these memories!

This year was the 21st year of cruising the beautiful BC coast in the MV Independence.  Twenty one years ago there were no digital cameras and those pictures I took then are fading in a box somewhere or becoming lost in my mind.  I never been much of a photo album kind of guy.  Luckily I invested in digital photography many years ago and I can easily retrieve the hundreds of photos I've taken by putting them on a screen saver, making a slide show, or by putting them on my computer desktop.  These photos then bring back to life those moments in my mind.  Oh, what a beautiful coast we have.

I thought I would share a select few of my favorite and best photos.

Indian Passage, Fife Sound

One of my favorite anchorages was a small bight on west side of Baker Island, in the narrow passage between Insect and Baker Islands.  The archipelago is called the Benjamin Group which are located in the Fife Sound area of Queen Charlotte Strait.  We would anchor here and get up early to fish for coho near Penphrase Peninsula in Fife Sound.  One of the short cuts to get to our fishing area was to go down Indian Passage between Davies and Baker Island.  On this morning the sun was just rising over Gilford Island and it was oh so still out. I can remember we got our limits of coho salmon that day.

Foggy morning in Cullen Harbor

One of our most favorite anchorages in the Fife Sound area of Queen Charlotte Strait is Cullen Harbor.  The whole harbor area is a good safe anchorage with excellent holding.  There is so much to do here.  There's excellent fishing for both salmon and bottom fish nearby.  Lots of wildlife - sea lions, whales, dolphins, bears.  You can play in the tidal rapids by Booker Lagoon.  Or explore the many islands and bays.  There is world class scuba diving here.  And the scenery is always changing.  On this morning after a night of rain a low fog was dissipating to reveal this tug anchored nearby.  My boys commented, "It looks like a ghost ship."

Before the storm in Turnbull Cove

Environment Canada had been forecasting a serious low approaching the coast and warned all mariners to find shelter.  Turnbull Cove in Grappler Sound, just off of Wells Passage in the Queen Charlotte Strait area is the perfect "bomb proof" anchorage to wait out a storm.  As the storm approached the proverbial "calm before the storm" was very evident.  As it turned out, all we had was some rain and light winds, but other locales in Queen Charlotte Strait were being pounded by the storm.  We spent our "stormy days" fishing, shrimping, hiking, and just enjoying the scenery.

Sunrise cruising down Spring Passage

Our time in the Broughton archipelago was coming to an end.  We weighed anchor early, just before sunrise - it was still dark out - and started our trek home.  I was the only one up as the crew slept.  As I cruised south past the Fox Group of islands I noticed a pink and magenta glow on the waters before me.  I peered out the side cabin door and behind me to see this beautiful sunrise.  I put my coffee down, set the autopilot, grabbed my camera and enjoyed the sunrise out on the deck.  It had been a successful trip - plenty of fish, crab, and shrimp.  Lots of adventures and good times.  And no problems.  I remember thinking how lucky I am to enjoy and experience all this.

After the storm in Crease Island Cove

Just off of the end of Knight Inlet are the Indian Group of Islands.  Two of the prominent islands are Crease Island to the west and Village Island to the east with at least a dozen small islands in between.  Just off the east end of Crease Island is a popular cove and it is a great anchorage.  We often used this anchorage as a "jumping off" spot when heading back to Port McNeill or when starting our trip back home.  On this occasion, almost all night long a storm raged with wind, rain, thunder and lightning.  When morning came the storm was heading inland and there was the calm that comes afterwards.  You could still hear thunder far off in the distance. Otherwise it was eerily quiet; so quiet you could hear the water dripping off of the trees on shore.

View from Althorp Point.

A little known anchorage is the small one-boat nook just by Althorp Point at the confluence of Wellbore and Sunderland Channels.  Most boaters head into popular Forward Harbor but I prefer this scenic spot.  It's well protected from the westerlies that blow down Johnstone Strait and you can go fishing right by your boat.  On this morning after days of stormy weather up north we woke to see better weather to the south.  When you looked north it still looked like rain and bad weather.  Shortly after this picture was taken we hit the slack at Whirlpool Rapids and traveled through the Yuculta's to anchor in Squirrel Cove. 

Sunset from Jedediah Island

One of our common stops as we cross Georgia Strait is to anchor in the many bays around Lasqueti, Boho, Bull, and Jedediah Islands.  Its a great way to break up the trip from Nanaimo to Desolation Sound.  There's some great gunkholing here.  On this evening we were anchored just off of Jedediah Island in "Little Bull Passage."  If there's any kind of northwest winds you can't anchor here, but you can if a southeast wind is blowing.  So many times we have experienced unforgettable sunsets here. One of the funny things about this anchorage is that in the evening the feral goats living on Jedediah come down out of the woods and graze.  You can hear them bleating.

These are just a few of the many years of memories gained from cruising the beautiful Salish sea.  We are so lucky to be able to have some of the best cruising grounds on the planet.

If you want to learn more about these photos and others you can visit my Panoramio photo site by going to: http://www.panoramio.com/user/nakwakto00.  Here you will find not only the above photos but the Google Earth location of each too.  Enjoy.