I am planning to sail from Victoria, BC to Barkley Sound for a couple of weeks this July. Plan to explore the nooks and crannies of the Sound and do some fishing. Any suggestions or comments from those who may have done this trip? Peter
Barkley Sound, British Columbia, Canada
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Great Cruising Grounds!
Barkley Sound is a terrific place to cruise. We've been there three times and are going back for a fourth trip this summer. It's only disadvantage is you have one very long day on the way out and one very long day on the way back. We sail to Victoria to do some post customs provisioning and then head to Sooke. There we wait for a good weather window, because you don't want to make the 85 mile run to Bamfield through Juan de Fuca Strait and out onto the Pacific in gnarly weather. There is no good place to stop. Port Renfrew doesn't afford much protection and we bypass it. Barkley Sound has many good anchorages and they are mostly empty because not many boaters are comfortable making the exposed run out onto the ocean. Ucluelet is by far the best base of operations with an excellent small boat harbour run by a character named Steve Bird. If you can access a copy of Sail Magazine from December 2002, I wrote a five-page feature for them called Graveyard of the Pacific that was all about our first trip to Barkley Sound. I have lots of information on this to share with you. If you're interested, please email me at gwyngarden@rockisland.com. Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust h37.5
Barkley Sound is a terrific place to cruise. We've been there three times and are going back for a fourth trip this summer. It's only disadvantage is you have one very long day on the way out and one very long day on the way back. We sail to Victoria to do some post customs provisioning and then head to Sooke. There we wait for a good weather window, because you don't want to make the 85 mile run to Bamfield through Juan de Fuca Strait and out onto the Pacific in gnarly weather. There is no good place to stop. Port Renfrew doesn't afford much protection and we bypass it. Barkley Sound has many good anchorages and they are mostly empty because not many boaters are comfortable making the exposed run out onto the ocean. Ucluelet is by far the best base of operations with an excellent small boat harbour run by a character named Steve Bird. If you can access a copy of Sail Magazine from December 2002, I wrote a five-page feature for them called Graveyard of the Pacific that was all about our first trip to Barkley Sound. I have lots of information on this to share with you. If you're interested, please email me at gwyngarden@rockisland.com. Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust h37.5
Go early
We did the trip last year - Go early as the don't call it Fogust for nothing. Radar is a must as well as a decent GPS system. Unlike Gary we did a full day run from Victoia to Port Renfrew and found reasonable protection in the bottom of the bay. We worked our way north to Hot Springs cove and spent a few days touring Clayquot as well as Barkley. Good crabing throughout but we don't fish a lot.
We did the trip last year - Go early as the don't call it Fogust for nothing. Radar is a must as well as a decent GPS system. Unlike Gary we did a full day run from Victoia to Port Renfrew and found reasonable protection in the bottom of the bay. We worked our way north to Hot Springs cove and spent a few days touring Clayquot as well as Barkley. Good crabing throughout but we don't fish a lot.
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