Not every charter route offers perfection, but you’d have to go an awfully long way to improve upon our sheltered berth tied stern-to at the base of the 95-foot Cassel Falls. There are numerous waterfalls to visit on a cruise along the coast of British Columbia, but this one—with a fine swimming lake at the top and a protected cove at the bottom—really is ideal.
In truth, it was just one of the many ideal anchorages that sailors can find in the Desolation Sound Wilderness, an oasis of tranquility situated along the Inside Passage, the protected marine route that stretches from Seattle to Alaska. Desolation Sound lies less than 200 miles from Seattle, one day’s passage north of Vancouver, and an afternoon sail from the waterfall at Princess Louisa. This shallow network of waterways offers the warmest swimming waters north of Baja. As the Pacific’s flood tides wrap around 300-mile-long Vancouver Island, they converge here with little cold-water interchange.
British Columbia’s most popular Marine Provincial Park features multiple coves with breathtaking rock faces, dramatic boulders, and conifer forests surrounded by an amphitheatre of jagged peaks. The area attracts sailors on charter boats with its peaceful anchorages, hikes to freshwater lakes and waterfalls, and intimate inlets where crews always linger longer than they’d planned.
The beauty of the Pacific Northwest’s choicest summer destination has seduced countless cruisers on their way north to Alaska. Despite plans for adventurous odysseys, they often get sidetracked by the siren song of Desolation Sound’s multitude of hidden coves, and before they know it, they’ve passed an entire summer there. For good reason.
You can easily sail from one end of Desolation Sound to the other in a single day—or take three weeks and never anchor in the same place twice.
The Inside Passage winds through British Columbia’s coastal maze of forested islands. The waters teem with salmon and are wedged with rapids and whitewater tidal rips. The spectacular scenery was created by the same glacial carvings that fashioned a landscape offering some of the best sheltered cruising imaginable and ideal sea-kayaking conditions. These waterways aren’t for the faint of heart: tidal currents can rage at 15 knots, depths plunge to 600m (2,000ft), and the swirling surface waters are littered with timber and sprawling kelp beds. Both power and sail charters carry a variety of sea kayaks on-deck, for sailors to gunkhole around anchorages, up rivers and streams, and to paddle their way through pods of orcas or schools of salmon.
North of the town of Lund, we cruised through the Copeland Islands Marine Park and into Malaspina Inlet, where we dropped anchor and hiked up to twin swimming lakes. The forest hikes are soft and quiet along spongy, mossy trails beneath forests of cedar and Douglas fir. The trail heads are rustic, park-like wilderness retreats with a quaint dinghy dock, a posting with a trail map, clearly marked trails, and, in a few instances, a toilet, water, and a tent-camping site for those boaters who choose to sleep among the trees. We cruised past the shadow of Mount Denman’s 2,000m (6,600ft) high ridgeline tooth, passed by Mink Island, and threaded our way through the gauntlet of Annie’s Pass.
We eventually reached Prideaux Haven and Melanie Cove and spent a few days there. We cruised up Waddington Channel to Walsh Cove, where we piled into the dinghy for a closer look at the pictographs at the northern part of the anchorage, first discovered for Europeans by Vancouver’s botanist, Archibald Menzies, in 1792. Similar archeological sites can be found throughout the Inside Passage. We went deep into Pendrell Sound, where the water reaches 80 degrees in summer; oysters lined the entire shoreline. From there, we headed up to Teakerne Arm, Cassel Falls, and the swimming hole at Cassel Lake.
We rafted up as usual, trawler to sloop, below the waterfall that had remnants of a logging flume nearby. We nestled here for a few cozy nights, spending our days hiking, swimming, and toying about in the dinghy during lazy afternoons.
Just another perfect anchorage in Desolation Sound, where light winds permit rafting and tying off to trees ashore.
It’s easy to see why many cruisers, headed for Alaska, pass an entire summer in Desolation Sound.
Chartering as a group of six adults and six kids spread across three families, we shared a 36-foot trawler and a 44-foot sailing yacht as we cruised in tandem for 10 days.
Grizzlies stalk the shoreline; in the distance, on the mainland, lie the 6,000- to 10,000-foot peaks of the Coast Mountains.
In Pendrell Sound, where the water reaches 80 degrees in summer, oysters line the entire shoreline.
History
Desolation Sound was named in 1792 by the depressive Captain George Vancouver in a moment of bleak, overcast weather, and the Marine Park was established in 1973. The park today lies within a large region speckled with parks and idyllic charter destinations offering tranquil escapes. Prideaux Haven and Melanie Cove alone, entered on the tides through a narrow passage flanked by boulders, offers a calm-water protected anchorage for up to 70 yachts of all sizes; each ties stern-to in relative privacy nestled among saltwater lagoons and tidal pools.North of Desolation Sound, the Dent Island Marina and Resort is at the confluence of the Arran Rapids and an inside passage near Butte Inlet.
Weather
These shallow-water anchorages and light summer breezes make kayaking one of the best activities for cruisers exploring the region. Kayaks bring you close for intimate interactions with the tidal pools and saltwater lagoons that are bathed in waters 20 degrees warmer than any elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The bays are filled with salmon, the skies with great blue herons, bald eagles, loons, ravens, osprey, and assorted waterfowl. The rocky shores host deer, mink, martins, and oysters. The Canadian government set aside nearly 15,000 acres of upland preserve, and half that again along the shore—and that remains just a small portion of a region that lures fleets to these coastal waters each summer. Every inlet in summer is calm, filled with a few soft breezes at sunset and only rarely a squall, and even then there’s little fetch to build any size of sea. There’s no humidity in the Pacific Northwest summer, only a perfect, 70 to 83 degree average; July and August are dry and calm and offer more solitude, with only the slightest chance of rain in June. September’s fine, early fall weather make it one of the Pacific Northwest’s best months of all. Most boats anchor stern to with a line to a madrona tree on shore. The only civilized outpost in the area is Refuge Cove, a store built in the 1920s that now thrives for four summer months a year as the main supply source for every visiting boat; it retreats, during the rest of the year, into a very quiet country store.Kenmore Air offers crew and supply deliveries for yachts up and down the inside passage.
