Hot Springs!

Where did we leave off again? Ah, yes, we were at Ucluelet, were we not? And we didn't say much about the town. Right, then. Ucluelet. Um, small town, lots of sport-fishing, whale-watching, and surfing, industry based on German tourists (yup, and don't ask me why... Whale-watching tours, in German), drunk fishermen handing out Kokanees at the dock. M saw a sea lion romping around next to our boat (see picture below). Frankly, the better Ucluelet stories are those when we stopped on the way back south, and we'll hit those later.



We left Ucluelet early on Thursday, August 16th. Dare I say that a better day of sailing has not been had, anywhere, ever. It started out by trying to scare us off; as we pulled out of the Ucluelet inlet, we hit a squall. At first, we had maybe 15 or 20 knots of wind on the beam, and we were flying along under main and staysail, but then we started hitting gusts of 25 or so, and then a sustained 25. The boat heeled way over, and we pulled up into it, sails flogging, to reef our mainsail. Of course, as soon as the sail was reefed (and it takes a while, when the sail is slapping violently back and forth) the wind slackened. But it turned into 15-20 knots on the aft quarter, and we enjoyed a downhill sled ride all the way to Hot Springs Cove. Not only that, but of several squalls that passed through, they all missed us (or we them), in front, to the side, behind. We didn't get rained on again the whole day.

Nature, who I think was feeling a bit remorseful for trying to blow us over earlier, decided to treat us to some fabulous displays of the sort of raw beauty that an engineer like me can only estimate would inspire a poet or philosopher to write something interesting. A gray sky may frequently be gloomy, but when the sky is gray, and the sea gray and frothy; yet a hole opens in the clouds, and lights a tract of green forest, or a far-off rocky isle, the contrast is... well, is... um... heck, I said I'm not a poet, look at the darned photos and see for yourself. And for good measure, Nature also threw in some whales, several of whom were eating, or playing, or doing various whale-like things as we approached Hot Springs Cove. Whales are (loosely) like lightning, in that they never appear twice in the same spot. "OK, I just flopped my tail really hard on the water, and what that means is I'm going to flop it again really hard on the water in the same spot, so get your cameras ready." Nope. You get your one tail-flop, you get the camera ready, and then nothing, until five minutes later he spouts on the other side of the boat. So, no pictures of whales doing "Free Willy"-s over the boat, however we did get a couple of dorsal fins to prove we saw them.

Now, on to Hot Springs Cove. What a place! We could easily have spent another week, and it was a sad day when we had to pull up anchor and leave. It's really a quite simple place, offering, yes, a cove, and, right again, hot springs. But these have been done so well!

The cove is pretty, surrounded by dense forest. There's a small Indian village (not like the movies, just a normal-looking small town of houses, but happens to be an Indian reservation) on one side. On the other is a short dock and a campground. There's no road, all access is by kayak, boat, or seaplane (more on seaplanes in a minute). The no-road part is key, otherwise this place would be just another overexposed tourist attraction where the big crowd and accompanying vendors would prevent anyone from having a thoughrougly enjoying and relaxing experience. Even though several tour boats and planes provide a steady stream of people between about 10am and 6pm, we were able to have the place mostly to ourselves when we went outside of those hours. The only conveniences available associated with the hot-springs is a boardwalk all the way from the dock to the hot springs about a mile through the rainforest preventing your feet from getting muddy. The hot springs themselves, were pretty unique, water welling up from the ground cascades over a rock wall (a perfect shower for those of us who like it HOT!) to feed a number of small rock pools (50 degrees C or 122 degrees F) before it runs into the ocean. Depending one the tide, the bottom pools are partly fed by the hot spring and partly by the waves rushing in from the ocean creating a pretty interesting effect. For a really refreshing experience, you can jump into one of the ocean pools to cool off to a mere 15(?) degrees C before jumping back into one of the hot pools. All with a magnificent view of course.

Yow, there's pretty ladies at the hot springs!

Forsooth, it burneth thy nether regions!

Although, some can take it better than others...

Look. What is that? There on the rock? Is that... a Merman?

We went back in the morning. It was still hot.

Here are some pools where the ocean water and hot springs water mix alternately.

And here's a rocky channel where the waves roll in. At the level of the tide, you could sit on the rock as the cold waves washed over you.

Looks like our Commodore just can't be satisfied.

The boardwalk itself is particularly cool, as yachties who have stopped by the cove have carved their boats' names into the planks. And yes, naturally, Almost-Master-Woodcarver M and Definitely-Amateur-Sketch-Artist K combined efforts to immortalize Ho-Beaux. Step aside, Michaelangelo!

If you want to stay at Hot Springs Cove, but don't have a boat, like we said there's a campground. But there's also the InnChanter (www.innchanter.com), an old wooden freighter that Shaun, the proprietor, converted into a bed-and-breakfast(-and-dinner) inn. Shaun was a super nice, interesting, easy-to-like fellow. He invited us to tour the inn, and we had tea and cookies with the guests. 'Course, we forgot our camera, but we have an exterior picture (check the InnChanter website for interior pictures):

He had the best plank, too:

Amazingly (because the interior was so nice), Shaun had bought the boat about 15 years ago, when it was decommissioned as a freighter, and converted it himself to an inn, constructing the above-deck level that extends forward from the pilothouse. I highly recommend grabbing your nearest romantic sweetie and making your way up there. Sure, camp for a few nights if you like, but stay at the inn for at least a couple, 'cause it was pretty swank. Also, you get to borrow the inn's kayaks and such, to go explore other coves, rivers, and such nearby. Shaun pointed out his favorite places, but in the end we didn't have time to take our dinghy out there.

As mentioned before, you can get there from Tofino, or if you are extremely brave, by seaplane. In Canada, if you are too aggressive to be trusted with a sport-fishing boat, they send you to seaplane school. Picture an entire cove, with only a few boats anchored near the dock, and a rather vast open area of calm water. Where do you think, as a seaplane pilot, you'd choose for a runway? If you said "right between the InnChanter and that sailboat, and a foot to the left of that old mooring buoy," you're already halfway to your pilot's license!

Here's a photo of takeoff. Fly with this guy, he wasn't one of the crazies.

Well, we've been at Hot Springs Cove for three days, and it's time to leave. Sigh. Actually, we hadn't been planning to stay the third day, but did because we liked the place a lot, and also because the winds were against us. The wind usually blows from the Northwest, but since our great sail up there, they'd kept blowing from the Southeast. Well, after the third day they were still against us, so we had to motor all the way back to Ucluelet. (Sure, you can tack a sailboat slowly upwind, but we are now unfortunately on a schedule, in order to get ready for the long leg to California. To make Ucluelet in a day, we had to motor.)

Back at Ucluelet, we wanted to check our email. This time, we didn't stay at the marina, we anchored in the harbour. So, we rowed our dinghy into the marina. Aw, chickenlips, we forgot a rope to tie off to the dock! No problem, let's row into this shallow corner of the bay and haul our dinghy up on the grass there, by the campground.

OK, dinghy's ashore. We went into town to find Internet. We'd heard of this place, the Driftwood, a restaurant that also had Internet access. This they did, although unlike real civilization where they have wireless, here they have a coin-feed Internet station. You drop in a Loonie ($1 Canadian coin) and it starts counting down from 10 minutes. The computer was all sealed off in this metal box, so we couldn't upload photos, which is why we couldn't post this blog earlier. (For contrast, here we are at the marina in Port Angeles, and there is free wireless at the dock.)

I can't be too negative on the Driftwood, though. To make up for the limited Internet access, they had THE BEST FISH-AND-CHIPS OF ALL TIME. Since they transcended words (and I'm not a poet, remember?) I won't insult them by trying to describe them.

Well, OK, at least we checked email and let folks know we'd be in Seattle this weekend, and had a yummy dinner and a cold beer. Yay. Back to the dinghy. Well, of course the tide had gone out, and the shallow corner of the bay was now a muckfest 300 feet from the water. We tried carrying the dinghy around to the docks, but it was too far. Squish! Squilsch! Mish! Ewww... (For those of your in Norway reading this, the tides here in the Northwest USA are on the order of 3 meters twice a day, so we really should have known better than to pull up on the shallows.)

From Ucluelet, we went to Port San Juan again. Motoring again, because now there was hardly any wind at all. Pretty uneventful, at first:

Who said that "pride goeth before a fall"? That was Apu on The Simpsons, right?

Clunk! Screeeeeeeeeech! Smoke! From under the sink! Aaaaaaaaa! Stop the engine! Is something on fire!?

Well, it smelled like rubber, so I knew it was a belt burning. Not oil or gas, at least, which was a good thing. After the engine stopped, the smoke cleared out, and I went to investigate. Well, well, well... Guess who decided he wanted to be in our blog again. Yup, Mr. Alternator Bracket snapped, this time while the engine was running, at the hole drilled by the Hot Machinist; and the alternator fell down onto one of the belts, the friction burning the belt and creating the smoke. At this point, I could launch into a lengthy discussion about moment arms, belt tension, engine vibration, and metal fatigue, but then I'd have to phone to wake you up afterwards, so let's just say that I fixed the problem temporarily. I bolted a padeye to the wall by the engine, ran a shackle through the bolt hole in the alternator that used to bolt to Mr. Bracket, and ran a bunch of twine loops between the alternator and wall. The twine flexes a bit to give with the engine vibration, but is stiff enough that it keeps sufficient tension on the belt. How do you like that, Mr. Alternator Bracket? Replaced with a bunch of STRING! Ha!

So far, the fix has got us to Port San Juan, and then to Port Angeles (again motoring for lack of wind). On the way, we saw some Orcas. And this one crazy little bird landed on the boom right above our heads, looked at us, then started pecking his way up the sail cover. Mmm, canvas.

Now we are in Port Angeles. (USA! USA! USA!) I was a bit worried that clearing customs would be a pain in the rear, but it was actually not hard, although they did charge us $27.50 for a yearly boat ID sticker. They drop by your boat at the dock, and the customs guy was very courteous.

We'll be spending Wednesday and Thursday here working on the boat. Friday we're going to rent a car and go to Seattle for the weekend. Then back here on Sunday, and hopefully to Neah Bay on Tuesday or Wednesday. We'll probably do another blog update before we leave Port Angeles. Looks like there might be a few things in town worthy of a closer look. Primarily, there's a mega-yacht manufacturer (Westport) around here somewhere, that I hope gives tours. We are parked right accross from some of their latest products, incuding a huge 50-meter tripledecker. Also our neighbour is an artist who gave us a walking map of all the sculpture art in town (including several of his own pieces), so we may check that out as well.