Friendly Cove: Really is friendly!

Friendly Cove lives up to its name... free wifi! We have found more hotspots in the last two days than in the last two weeks.

After leaving Tahsis, we made a short hop south to Bodega Cove, just at the south entrance to the Inlet, which we had to ourselves. There were red tide warnings posted, which might explain some of the ghoulish looking water in Tahsis... all that stuff must just get shoved up the inlet by the prevailing southerly winds. We rowed around a bit but the area around the cove is stagnant and dominated by logging operations, so it was mostly just a good place to sleep.

Today we made a short hop slightly further south to Boca del Infierno, adjacent to the old village of Nootka and adjoined by a modern fishing resort. The cove was tiny and I didn't much like the set of our anchor so we decided just to lunch there and to explore the inner lagoon whose unusual geography makes the place noteworthy.

The bay gets its name from this tight constriction at the head of the lagoon; at high tide, it fills a considerable body of water in the lagoon; at low, those waters come rushing back out over rocks creating quite a torrent of foamy white spray, which the early Spanish explorers called the “Mouth of the Inferno.”

We didn't see the inferno in full raging style, but it was impressive enough as it was flooding into the lagoon... we shot a set of rapids that would make white water aficionados jealous. Once into the interior, however, the setting is tranquil. A bald eagle had ducked through the mouth just before us and he circled silently as we rowed around in the interior, exploring marshes, streams, and small secluded bays. The sun came out as we toured and revealed green fronds waving beneath the surface.

We waited until the tidal stream had abated to about the strength of your average deep mountain creek before paddling back through. I barely made it even then... our flat-bottom dinghy doesn't track well and is easily thrown off by currents, making it hard to keep stroking in the right direction.

We continued south after that hoping to anchor in Santa Gertrudis bay. Someone else got there first, though, and set their hook right in the middle without a stern tie, which didn't leave much room. I don't blame them, there aren't all that many other cruising boats up here. But that, plus a dicey, shoal-ridden entrance, kept us going, and we ended up just around the point at Friendly Cove.

As you're probably already aware, this is the location where Cook first landed on Vancouver Island and which subsequently became the center of the sea otter fur trade, as well as a venue for global incidents between England and Spain which almost led to war. Today, it's simply a picturesque place with a good anchorage. A few small dwellings occupy the shoreline, overshadowed by the large Coast Guard light station on the headland. We passed some of the Coasties out fishing on our way in. I imagine it's a pretty plumb assignment.

A launch just pulled up next to us; turns out it is the couple from the boat in Santa Gertrudis, the Canadian Sunset. They were wondering if we had seen a Dutch boat around, friends of theirs, but we told them we hadn't seen much of anyone for the past few days. We talked up Tahsis and they will probably head up there next. They finished up their circumnavigation last year at Campbell River, some twelve years after leaving Ottawa (I couldn't refrain from pointing out, in what I hope was a sufficiently joking manner, that it wasn't really a circumnavigation yet, was it? But a few degrees of longitude don't make much difference when you're talking about that distance). The boat is for sale now but they don't seem eager to give it up: they are planning to do the Inside Passage to Alaska next year.

Today's sun is supposed to be the last for a little while, and we expect to head south for Clayoquot Sound tomorrow beating into the wind and getting rained on. But the immediate destination will be Hot Springs Cove, and as Mandy pointed out, who cares if you are getting rained on if you are in a Hot Spring? Maybe the weather will keep out some of the other tourists, who arrive by air and speedboat from points all along the island.

Edit 12AUG09: Corrected name of boat