A Strange Little Island

From the archives, a wonderful essay by Philip Teece

By Philip Teece

Regular readers of SCA will perhaps already be familiar with Galadriel (now 42 years old), my homebuilt 18-foot Caprice class pocket cruiser. During quite a long span of her earlier years she was engineless, almost totally dependent on the wind and auxiliary-powered only by a 12-foot sweep oar.

In one fascinating way this engineless style of cruising differs from sailing with even the smallest outboard motor for backup. A typical day’s passage has no specifically pre-planned destination—at least, not a goal defined by the sailor. During those years, the place where I fetched up at sundown was more frequently decided by wind and tide than by me.

Once quite a few years ago the vagaries and vicissitudes of a day’s run brought me to an evening’s shelter in a place that I had never before considered as an anchorage. It was one of those tiny, craggy little islets where nobody would think of dropping the hook, except perhaps the skipper of the smallest kind of sailing craft.

A Run up Haro Strait

I had set out from my home at Victoria, BC, in a brisk southwesterly wind for a run up Haro Strait. As she winged her way through Baynes Channel and into the southern reaches of the Strait, Galadriel surfed on a tumble of foam at hull-speed-plus. A few days ago, when fellow passengers on a 35-knot water taxi exclaimed about the high velocity feeling aboard that powerful vessel, I tried to convince them that a tiny sailing boat surfing down wavefronts at six or eight knots actually gives a much greater sensation of speed. They laughed at me; I guess you have to experience it for yourself.

For the first few miles my passage was like a fast run in the region of strong trade winds. Despite her waterline length of only about 16 feet, the boat spilled along on a cascade of foam at much more than her theoretical hull speed. But, as always happens on that waterway, the farther I sailed away from the boisterous influence of Juan de Fuca Strait to the south, the calmer Haro Strait became. Eventually I was ghosting along with Galadriel’s largest genoa winged out to catch a hot, gentle whisper of summer breeze. Still she rippled along, and I was content. Her twin keels were immersed, after all, in a fine northward-running flood.

Farther north, however, the sea became increasingly glassy as the breeze weakened to a fitful zephyr. As the long, long shore of Sidney Island inched slowly past I realized that the final hour of my favoring tide was drawing to its finish. In keeping with my usual practice in those younger, more athletic days, I lifted the long spruce oar from its perch in the rigging. Standing in the cockpit and rowing with the 12-foot sweep oarlocked on the starboard rail, I kept Galadriel moving at perhaps two knots. (Once steerage-way was achieved, firm knee-pressure against the helm nicely balanced the turning-moment of the single oar).

Unlikely Haven

Moving slowly ever northward I began to notice how closely the sun was now approaching the western horizon. Soon I would have to anchor somewhere. But where?

When I had left a couple of possibilities astern, there seemed to be only one option left ahead. It was a craggy rock pile to which the chart attached the name Reay Island. As I inched closer, its aspect became increasingly fantastic: a tiny knoll whose approaches were guarded by an encircling fence of high sandstone pillars. Among these obelisks lay a small basin, wide enough and (I hoped) deep enough for a minimalist cruiser like my Galadriel.

Close behind one of the sandstone slabs my anchor found good holding ground in a mud and gravel bottom. My twin-keeler’s two-foot draft was comfortable in waters shallow enough to afford me a crystal-clear view of my CQR and its chain deployed on the ground. For good measure I laid out a light kedge to restrict the boat’s swing.

On that first evening Reay Island was a haven of last resort. In subsequent years it became one of Galadriel’s destinations of choice, for it turned out to be a surprising little paradise. My dinghy brought me ashore on a little swatch of pebble beach. Above the beach I discovered a small, elevated mesa where wildflowers glowed in the evening’s bronze light, and song-sparrows gave voice among low bushes. The place was not a barren rock pile after all, but a lovely little world, fragrant with its own rich flora.

During following days (for Reay Island derailed my plans to press farther north into the “real” Gulf Islands) I explored separately each of the slablike islets that comprised the basin’s surrounding fortress. I rowed around their bases and climbed to their spiny tops. Explored at close range they were a gallery of abstract sandstone sculptures and intricately detailed works of art. It was in some ways a strange place, like a science fiction landscape by space-artist Chesley Bonestell.

Over a period of many more recent years I have returned periodically to Reay Island, attracted especially by the solitude that its difficult little anchorage guarantees. Its difficulty includes a more hazardous holding ground than I first imagined: twice I almost had to abandon anchors that had become irretrievably (I feared) locked among a complex jigsaw puzzle of rocks.

Yet again and again the island’s dreamlike aspect and its quietude lured me back. I spent many long, hot summer days simply lying in the tall grass atop the mesa, lulled into a happy stupor by the sleepy hum of bees and the sweet music of birdsong. In that lonely little place I found peace enough to relax and enjoy the slowly changing theatre of cloud patterns overhead. Once I spent an evening there babysitting a seal pup on the beach while he bawled in distress until his mother returned. A friend once told me that there is no sight more wonderful than a view of your own little boat lying quietly at anchor above an inverted image of herself in still water. In hours of just gazing at Galadriel I found this to be true.

Meanwhile cruising folks in their larger craft sailed past on their way to the “serious” Gulf Islands. None of them ever seemed even to glance in the direction of my speck of land.

The Island’s Fate

Many of the small islands that were once my favourite anchoring places during 50 years of sailing on British Columbia’s southern coast have nowadays disappeared from my cruising charts. After long years of being empty and unoccupied, these places have been purchased and are now private lands. Lovely little Reay Island, however, has enjoyed a very different fate. In recent years the Canadian Federal Government has established a unique national marine park in British Columbia’s southern Gulf Islands. This widely scattered string of ecologically sensitive islets includes my beloved Reay Island. Anchorage (or kayak visiting) is still permitted there, and careful exploration, but not camping ashore. With a sigh of great relief I realize that my special micro-paradise has been saved. Now it can never fall into the dreaded category of “Private Property: Keep Out!” •SCA•