#9 Off the Inside Passage to Bella Coola Again

On Sunday, with the Canadian forecasters again worked up over the weather, we decided to avoid the high coastal winds and waves by moving inland. The Seeker crew wanted to visit Bella Coola and so we set sail, aka fired up the engines, and turned eastward, up Burke Channel and North Bentinck Arm to Bella Coola, some 50 miles off the Inside Passage route.  This town of about 1500 souls has a small marina with transient moorage.  Mostly commercial and sports fishing boats fill the docks and we had a difficult time finding a place to tie up.  The best we could do was “double-park”, also known as side-tying amongst boaters.  Seeker tied to the dock, and then Wild Blue tied to Seeker, with many fenders being sandwiched between the boats and docks.

Bella Coola marina.is set under the snow-covered peaks. Of course most all of BC is under snow-covered peaks this spring!

Double-parked without getting a ticket.

The town is about 3 klicks (kilometers) east of the marina so Pat was forward with a dock tenant as he approached his vehicle, and we were offered a ride.  We visited the town, consumed a couple Sleemans Honey Browns and checked out the local hardware store, which of course was closed on Sunday.  The town was pretty deserted and looked a bit down, but the few people around seemed happy.

Sunday evening the wind blew up into the 20-knot range.  With a few additional lines run to a large steel work boat, the heavy Selenes rocked and rolled, but couldn’t break free of the dock or each other.