Sailing Adventures Aboard a Westerly Discus

With all 32 episodes of my 2022 Inside Passage series now completed and available to view on YouTube, here is a post showing the path that we travelled in each video for the northbound part of the trip, along with lists of key navigational considerations, geographical features, and anchorages we used along the way. It is my hope that these videos and blog posts will be useful resource for fellow sailors when planning their own journey up the spectacular Inside Passage to Alaska!  The northbound journey in May and June 2022 If you would like more details about the locations covered in any of the episodes, feel free to ask questions in the comment section of the episodes on YouTube and I will do my best to answer or clarify.  This was the first time I consistently made videos, and I am pleased with what I learned and how my editing improved throughout the episodes. It is fun to look back on the first ones and see how far I came over the 32 episode series. I hope you agree! ...

 Alert Bay - Beaver Harbour - Cape Caution - Hakai Institute  In this one, we depart Alert Bay and enter Queen Charlotte Sound where we experience the Pacific Ocean swell for the first time on this trip. Heavy squalls allow us to make great progress to Beaver Harbour near Port Hardy, and then the next day we sail past Cape Caution, which is the most exposed section of the Inside Passage that everyone must pass to get to Alaska. With disagreement between the Environment Canada forecast of 30 knots southeast, and other forecast models that say the wind will max out at 20 knots in the area, we go for it and get rewarded with excellent and very fast sailing. Afternoon squalls soak us again, but keep delivering strong southerly winds that push us all the way to the northern end of Calvert Island. After sailing 65 or 70 miles, we anchor in Pruth Bay in front of the Hakai Institute. The next day, we visit beautiful sandy ocean beaches that are a short walk away on the west and nort...

Otter Cove | Port Neville | Growler Cove | Alert Bay In this episode, we continue north from Otter Cove at the junction of Discovery Passage and Johnstone Strait up to Alert Bay. As we sail off the anchor, Alex's shoe goes overboard! Ellis documents the skillful recovery of this critical piece of gear, and then we set off up Johnstone Strait with some fun strong NW wind and an ebb current in our favour helping us along. We spend the night in the Historic Port Neville, and then in the morning, Trevor goes for a swim to clean some growth off of the prop. We mark the new anchor chain and rode setup, and Trevor give a little tour around the grounds at Port Neville. The next day, light winds increase to a perfect breeze, which carries us to Growler Cove. Before we reach Growler Cove, a pod of Pacific White-Sided Dolphins come play on the bow of Sea Dream of Clyde. Finally, we get some good SE wind and enjoy a quick run up to Alert Bay to do some town stuff. Alaska Bound! | Ep. 3 ...

Jedediah Island - Comox Harbour - Campbell River - Seymour Narrows - Otter Cove  In this episode, we continue north from Jedediah Island to Comox, Campbell River, and into Discovery Passage. This one has lots going on as we continue north to Alaska! On the fly sail repairs, goofing around in brutally light winds, prawn fishers rick-rolls us, night sailing, tacking through a tidal rapids, and a visit from the famous Snow Birds Squadron doing wild aerobatics around us, plus a fighter jet buzzing by us! After leaving Jedediah Island, we decide to sail through the night, but just as it gets dark, strong winds send us running for safe harbour in Comox. The Salish Sea is hesitant to let us leave, as dead air turns too strong squalls, and current against us makes for another late night. We finally make it to Campbell River, then tack straight through the tidal rapids that is the wild Seymour Narrows. Discovery Passage delivers strong winds on the noise, but we work hard to make it up ...

Cowichan Bay - Sansum Narrows - Ladysmith -  Dodd Narrows - Nanaimo- Jedediah Island  Here is the first video of 2022 Alaska! We set sail from Cowichan Bay on May 1st, provisioned in Nanaimo, then set off across the Strait of Georgia to Jedediah Island. We had everything from dead calm, to a gale! Setting Sail to Alaska! | Ep. 1 | Flat Calms to Rough Seas, Plus Engineless Docking

With the pandemic greatly altering our life plans, instead of moving to Vancouver for Hannah to attend Simon Fraser University, we decided to rent a lovely cabin in the woods near Duncan. Like many others, Hannah has had to start her MSc online. While we love living aboard Sea Dream of Clyde, it became clear that with no offices away from the boat to go work at, living and working aboard was just a bit to cozy. After a month of cruising around the Gulf Islands while working remotely, we got a month of moorage in Nanaimo for Sea Dream of Clyde to rest as we moved into the cabin. In the meantime, we organized moorage in Cowichan Bay near our cabin. With the month of moorage in Nanaimo coming to end, a good forecast, and perfect tides, my friend Kyle and I set sail south to move the boat down to Cowichan Bay. Wind forecasts for the Gulf Islands are very often suspect, and for this trip, they turned out to be flat out wrong. The route down from Nanaimo to Cowichan Bay is a...