Dent Island to Shoal Bay

June 13 – Shoal Bay

Dent Island to Shoal Bay, 9.18 nautical miles
Total this trip to date: 187.78 NM

Started the day with continental breakfast at Dent Island Lodge. Had to wait until the afternoon slack at Dent Rapids before we could continue, so we read and did odd jobs around the boat until shortly after 1500 when we left. It rained hard all night and continued to rain on and off (mostly on) all day. We thought it was drying out an hour or so before we were going to leave so we wiped down the boat…however by the time we left, the rain had started again.

It was raining hard as we transited Dent Rapids and we were monitoring our course by radar. Thought that we must have taken a wrong turn and were in Alaska! Thankfully the fog cleared as we approached Shoal Bay. No other boats there, so we side-tied on the west side of the dock, looking out Phillips Arm to the snow-capped mountains of mainland BC, still shrouded in clouds, but spectacular none the less. It rained some more as we tied up, but finally cleared by 1900 so we were able to walk up to the pub and talk to Mark MacDonald (the owner). He is in the process of building a new house, further back on the property. He said he’d rather separate his living quarters from the pub, which sounds like a good idea to us.

Three more boats came in after us, so there are now a total of four.

There is WiFi here, but it doesn’t reach our boat, so we need to take our laptop to the pub in order to get a good signal. The shed where he previously had recycling bins has been torn down.

From here we will make our way to the Broughtons via Johnstone Strait, and don’t expect to have access to Wi-Fi for several days.

Dent Island Lodge, set up for breakfast

Cordero Channel, shrouded in rain and fog

Shoal Bay boardwalk leads to pub and grounds

Dock at Shoal Bay overlooks Phillips Arm
and the mountains of mainland B.C.