Beales Bay to Ocean Falls
/The weather is supposed to be “no rain” today in Ocean Falls. Given that when we were there in early June, it rained pretty much constantly, it would be nice to make a second visit in more enjoyable weather. Besides, Karen called ahead to the bakery to make sure they would have Carrot Cake. Our destination is set.
We had a nice cruise up to Ocean Falls, basically retracing our steps from early June. We passed one sailboat when we were leaving Gunboat passage, but otherwise, there were not a lot of boats on the AIS. We saw a couple of boats behind us in the distance, possibly headed for Ocean Falls as well.
When we pulled up to the docks, it was much busier than in early June. That said, our preferred spot was available and we happily backed down the fairway to get it. I think this is the third time we’ve been in this spot, which on the inside of the “U” on the right hand side as you look into the docks.
ocean falls and its not raining
Because we did not make it up to Link Lake on our last visit, that became our first mission for the day. The walk takes you right past the dam. I love seeing the engineering of the dam and the powerful waterflow over the spillway. Unfortunately, there are no really great spots to take a picture of the dam and spillway head on unless you go out in the dinghy.
link lake damn spillway
Link Lake is very large — 16 miles long — and you can only see a tiny portion from the top of the walk. The Old Bank Inn offers a skiff you can rent for $250 a day and we were tempted. But after looking at Google Earth, we decided that the lake’s shoreline did not look that interesting and given our arrival time, we would not have been able to take advantage of a whole day anyway.
a great view of the damn and the power generation plant
On the way back to the boat, we stopped in the bakery to pick up our carrot cake order and added a loaf of the banana bread we rate 5 stars.
the new covered pavillion contrasting the old abandoned hotel
When we passed by the small gift shop at the marine ways, it was open for business, with several cruisers stopping by to peruse the offerings.
the gift shop is just on the left corner of the big boat shed
We spent time chatting with other boaters, talking destinations and, importantly, the goodies at the bakery. Everyone got into the act, and we saw cinnamon buns, dinner rolls, banana bread and carrot cake being greedily stowed aboard various boats.
looking back toward town and the marina from over the damn’s spillway
the marina looking back toward martin valley
the resident seals on the ocean falls marina breakwater
While most boats we see have Starlink, some do not. After talking with the crew of one boat, they desperately needed to download charts, so I gave them the password for our Starlink router. Another group was feeling the need to reach out to family, so they too enjoyed the benefit of our Starlink. This second boater group traded us homemade oatmeal/raisin/coconut cookies for internet access, which we think was a very fair trade!
We watched as many boaters set and pulled crab pots, to varying degrees of success. Karen and Crab do not get along well, so I was more than happy to watch the antics from the dock.
Later that evening, one boat had set up a tour of Nearly Normal Norman’s museum on the top floor of the ways, above the gift shop. While we have been several times and did not feel the need to go again on this trip, many first timers joined the tour and had a great time seeing all the Ocean Falls memorabilia on display.