Last Summer I Went Swimming...

As the resident curmudgeon, I would like to point out some of the things that made my sojourn in Desolation Sound somewhat less wonderful than it could have been. If you are happy right now, stop reading!

Of course you should anchor sensibly to provide yourself with the sense of security you need, but don’t stern tie to a live arbutus tree! In fact, don’t stern tie to ANY live tree unless it is an emergency. Killing the tree because you are too lazy to tie to something else, just so you can spend 2 days tells me that you are probably a moron and I won’t get too close because you might get some on me. You will be dead in a couple of years but the tree will live for hundreds if you leave it alone. Of course, you can always burn them all down…

Don’t say anything on channel 16 except which channel to switch to. No, really, it is for emergencies only. Don’t ask for directions, don’t ask for a radio check, don’t ask if WG is active, use some common sense. Go to 83a if you want to chat with a radio operator.

Where is your flag? Fly it proudly. If you are not proud or you lost it or you are too lazy to put it up and you are a visitor, fly a courtesy flag.

Wake? I’m not even going to mention that, the water is populated by morons. Same with gensets; buy some solar panels or coordinate with the other three boats you are rafted to?

If you don’t know where my anchor is, ask me? I’m willing to show you so you don’t set yours over or across mine and dislodge both of us in the middle of the night.

If you wish to pass me from the rear in a narrow channel, that’s up to you, don’t expect any help from me if you don’t tell me your intentions. Sorry.

The rules of the road are clear, try reading them? If you don’t understand them, you are not entitled to hold your course. Or anything else for that matter because you are a moron.

When you are fishing in our waters, there are a lot of rules. Try reading those, too? You are allowed one rockfish per license and the possession limit is 2. Crab trap floats have to have your name and phone number on them or you are a poacher and you will either get reported on the Poacher Line or someone will pull your trap. Female crabs are forbidden at any time or size; pulling off their claws and throwing them back means you are a moron.

100 meters from any whale. That’s a long way away. If you can’t see them clearly without binoculars, that’s about the right distance. They live here all year round and you will be forgotten in 20 minutes.

For all you commercial whale watcher boats out there, they are not YOUR whales, your carping at a viewing site means the radio gets turned off and there will likely never be any future cooperation from me or anybody else who witnesses your nonsense.

Somebody, some selfish moronic (you get the idea) started a campfire amidst a Province-wide ban and set fire to Pendrell Sound. Why not just burn the whole coast down and get it over with? I think this is an atrocity up there with mass murder and the perpetrator should be shot or worse.

Did you know that if you do not have a permanent galley, biffy and sleeping area it is ILLEGAL to have open containers of booze in your dinghy? Well, did you? That means rafting up to another dinghy with a beer in hand can get you charged?

There is a 4 knot limit in Pendrell Sound, it says so in the Sailing Directions so ignorance of the law makes you the moron and all those dinghys that ended up on the beach, all those boats that knocked together, all those people that were tossed out of bed by your mindless actions think you are a moron.

Even though you think you are being helpful, you cannot drill holes in rock or leave "bridles" hanging in the trees in a park, even with a nice hand-lettered sign attached saying how nice you are. It is a 'park' which means you are supposed to tread lightly and take all your garbage with you when you leave. This is not a difficult concept and if you are having trouble with it, boating is probably beyond you and you should take up motorcycling.

Up until the arrival of the smoke and the burning of lovely Pendrell Sound, it was a great summer.

Looks like you are describing my area too, east or west looks like it is not so different.

L

They'll all be gone soon... I'm pretty pissed off about Pendrell Sound. Not at home now, but I can imagine the pitchforks will be coming out. Just like when the Curme Islands burnt a few years ago.

Xsbank, I’m really sorry about some of the bad behavior of my fellow US boaters. I agreed with all of your points. Pendrel sound is a great spot and I’ve really enjoyed it in the past and hope to in the future.

How is the smoke up there in Desolation this year? We were planning on spending the first 2 weeks of September in the San Juan’s and Gulf Islands, but may be just trying to find an area with the least amount of smoke.

I agree with everything mentioned.
I have one addition that does not necessarily apply to desolation sound but....

Marina's don't monitor Channel 16, so don't keep calling them there.
Switch to 66A AND for God's sake switch to LOW power or use your handheld so those of us who are miles away can't hear you !!

I definitely did not single out US boaters here, I had my worst encounter with a Canadian boater proudly flying an RVYC burgee. That one was amazing, 75’ boat passing us in Thulin Passage with 10’ to spare as we maneuvered past a tug and log tow. I sent the video to the RVYC Commodore. Even boat words failed me on that one.

The smoke is gone on the Sunshine Coast so except for Pendrell, it’s likely gone there too.

You should come on over to Florida's East Coast, you won't have any of that nonsense here.

You'll love it north of Cape Caution, especially if you like wandering off the Inside Passage treadmill.

We spent the greater part of 5 weeks in the Desolation Sound area, from the late part of June to the 1st of August. It was wonderful, as usual, though by the time we were heading down the crowding had begun.
I am with you on all of your rants, though I have used 16 to call a "Secureté" on boaters bringing a giant wash into Pendrell Sound. Likely ineffective as those morons don't listen, or wouldn't recognize that they were the boat in question.
I rarely use Thulin Passage, as it usually has far more wash than I am comfortable with. The outside of the Copelands is much less traveled.

Keith, all good comments. If Desolation Sound isn’t burnt out so much it really is desolate, we will be very picky about where we go next summer. As Murray suggests, we will likely give it all a miss and head much further up.

Yeah, it's certainly not isolated to this stretch of coast.

Is it me getting more curmudgeonly (my wife sometimes calls me "Gran Torino") or is it that there are actually more clueless, thoughtless boaters out there? I really do think that it's the latter, for one specific reason: technology. In the days of paper charts and coastwise piloting one really had to invest some time into learning how to get around by boat. LORAN sets helped the commercial fishermen but stayed pretty expensive for recreational boaters. The old transit SATNAV system was useless for near-shore work.

Ask that guy who is passing unsafely in his 75-foot Leviathan if he knows the difference between variation and declination and you'll either get a blank look or an "FU."

Not needing to invest the time and effort into learning proper piloting, he likewise has no interest in learning anything about the rules of the road or boater etiquette. Horn signals are meaningless to him, as are the uses of the various VHF channels. In the old days we would have called this guy a "yabbo" because he was merely clueless. Unfortunately, nowadays there is a meanness that has grown more widespread; rather than a yabbo he's now just an ordinary a$$hole.

Maybe I'll get a "Mean People Suck" sticker for my transom....

menzies said:

You should come on over to Florida's East Coast, you won't have any of that nonsense here.

Click to expand...

ahhhh, well FL doesn't have the live arbutus tree problem....

menzies said:

You should come on over to Florida's East Coast, you won't have any of that nonsense here.

Click to expand...

You will on the West coast. We see them every time we go out. Like the time it took my wife and I over an hour to find my anchor after a bunch of drunks cut my line with their prop as they left Ft Myers Beach. Luckily I had a spare anchor and rode. My wife found the the cut line and SS chain will scuffling her feet in the sand.