Friday Harbor to Annette Inlet

Friday Harbor to Bedwell Harbor: 15.9 Nautical Miles (NM)

Bedwell Harbor to Annette Inlet: 10.7NM

(Karen writes) Friday dawned to a lovely day. We were up early as our bodies were not accustomed to Pacific Daylight time, and we (having previously rented a car) headed off for Roche Harbor, a pretty little town not too far from Friday Harbor. Had a nice breakfast, and then headed back to Friday Harbor to start provisioning for the boat at Kings, the fabulous but expensive island supermarket. $500 later, we were off to our boat, Best of Times. 

Up early Saturday (still glorious weather) to work with the charter company to fix all the problems we found the night before. We were rather disheartened to discover that nearly all the problems we squawked last year on this boat were still there. We held our ground and got several things fixed before we left, though not all. We didn’t get away from the dock until 1pm or so.

We headed off, determined to capture the rhythm of vacation. First stop was Bedwell Harbor and Poet’s Cove, where Bob had to clear Canadian customs. We could take some lessons from our northern neighbors. Clearance is by phone, very civilized, done in about 3 minutes. It will take many times that amount of time to clear back into the U.S.!

Poet’s Cove is co-located with the Customs dock, and is a lovely 5-star resort that happens to have some nice moorage for us boaters. We didn’t want to stay long, just snoop a bit, so we tied up at the transient dock. This is more appropriately called “The floating dock that is attached to nothing so that you have to launch the dinghy to get to shore” dock. The wind was fighting us as Bob docked the boat, but between his skill, the nice people on the dock who caught our lines, and the trusty bow thruster, we were home free. A short dinghy ride took us to Poet’s Cove, which is really nice. Certainly we can vouch for the fact that the pub was nice, as we taste tested some of Canada’s finest brew.

After some more snooping, we set off for our first night’s anchorage, Annette Inlet on Prevost Island. I had read a lot about it, and wanted to try it out.

Lots of Canadians in B.C. make their home where the granite meets the "ocean".

The entrance to the inlet is guarded by a few well-placed and unmarked rocks, so we went carefully. It is a lovely pastoral inlet that is quite shallow and requires serious attention to the depth finder. Most of the great anchor spots were taken, but Bob kept at it and found a good spot with just enough depth for us to still be afloat (we hoped!) when the tides went out around 7am (just a small 10 foot drop).

Tranquil evening at Annette Inlet.

We had a great dinner, courtesy of Bob and some red wine and we were sure that our vacation was on track and that we were off to a terrific start!