8/2/11 Left DeCourcy and anchored at Deep Bay, Jedidiah Island

Our two days at DeCourcy were just perfect, as is typical of time there. Endless play and gorgeous scenery with great weather. Now we were settling into the groove of the trip. We left there at 11:30 am to time the slack water at Gabriola Passage and had a smooth trip through the lovely gap. The forecast was for SE 10-15 and that is what we saw, so up went the sails once outside the pass and we began a perfect broad reach straight across the Strait of Georgia to our destination at Jedidiah.

Underway to Jedidiah in the Strait of Georgia

Those quiet hours of sailing in the middle of the Straits are the closest thing to an offshore feeling you can get in the Salish Sea. You become far enough from land on several sides to see the curvature of the earth on the horizon of the sea, and it inspires visions of longer voyages and farther shores. My friend Bill is never so happy as when the sails are up and she is going along by her own accord. He is like a little boy at those moments, just happy in a simple and uncomplicated way. And that, my friends, is a right and wonderful thing for any of us.

Approaching Texada and Jedidiah from the south

We did 4-5 knots in the light wind on this sunny, warm day and made our anchorage at 7:20pm. Bull Passage and the environs of Jedidiah are exquisitely beautiful. Steep sided cliffs and a jumble of granite shapes makes it eye candy everywhere you look. It is right around this latitude that you leave behind the sandstone of the Gulf Islands and San Juans and approach the granite that predominates the north country. There is something special about granite that will always captivate me. A purity. Perhaps the knowledge that it is igneous, and born of a deeply molten past, is what makes it so striking, besides it's white brilliance. My many years in the Sierra Nevada might also bias me toward a reverence for granite. Likely.

Moments like these...

Deep Bay is aptly named and like most everywhere up here you must stern tie. It is a lovely spot, and quite well sheltered from all directions except perhaps a howling northwesterly. Best of all is that you are at Jedidiah Island, a place I first fell in love with on my month-long kayak trip in 1999. No sooner had we dropped anchor than the boys got out and began to swim. The water was so warm that even after a long period of swimming the boys did not even have goose pumps. Surface temperatures were well into the 70's.

Amazing approach to Texada and Jedidiah

Deep Bay. A stern tie is required. Some rude guy dropped hook in the middle and kept many other boats from using the anchorage.

Late that night the meteors were streaking their stories across the sky and a behemoth cruise ship passed by in Sabine Channel and the Texada shoreline. It was lit up like a Xmas tree and had a movie screen on the top deck so large we could clearly see the show from a mile away. Such a contrast to our little wild place on Jedidiah!