Photo Journals
Click the underlined link below to view the full Photo Journal of each location.
Yesterday we pulled anchor from Roche Harbor and pointed the bow north toward Stuart Island — the wildest, most remote corner of the San Juans. Just under an hour later, we dropped anchor in Reid Harbor, surrounded by Douglas fir hillsides and the kind of silence that only exists this far out.
Welcome to our home port.
Every Knotty Celebrations Couples only Charter begins right here at Roche Harbor — where couples board, champagne opens, and lines cast off toward the San Juans and beyond. We thought you'd enjoy a look. If the idea of a voyage like this ever crosses your mind — for yourself or someone you love — we'd be honored to be part of the story.
We slipped across the border into the Canadian Gulf Islands and dropped the hook in Winter Cove for two nights — a wide, protected basin tucked into the northwest corner of Saturna Island, ringed by Douglas fir and an open grassy meadow that runs right down to the water and a view into the Strait of Georgia.
Some days you don't have to go far to find perfection. No itinerary, no schedule, nothing on the calendar but a single, simple plan. We'd spent the night aboard at our home base in Roche Harbor, woke with the water flat and the coffee hot, and decided the whole day would be given over to one thing: a slow ride out to English Camp and a quiet dinner back on the boat.
Some anchorages you drop into for a night and move on. Others you settle into, drop the hook, and let the days unspool. Quadra Island was one of the latter. Tucked behind the long protecting hook of Rebecca Spit, just off the little village of Heriot Bay, we spent three unhurried days swinging on the anchor, wandering ashore, and falling into the easy rhythm of one of the loveliest corners of the Discovery Islands.
Every so often you find a place so quiet, so tucked away, that it feels like it belongs only to you. Thurston Bay Marine Park, on the wild northwest shore of Sonora Island, is one of those places — a boat-access-only wilderness of islets, reefs, and hidden coves with no docks, no facilities, and, for two glorious days, almost no one but us. We dropped the hook, and the whole place went still.
Not every night has to be spent on the hook. Every so often it's good to tie up, plug in, and be looked after — and there's no finer place on this coast to do it than Gorge Harbour Marina Resort on Cortes Island. We came in off the water for two days of pure comfort: massages, a heated pool, live music under the trees, and a night sky that stopped us in our tracks.
Two very different stops, one wonderful stretch of the Sunshine Coast. First the Lund and Okeover Inlet area — the tiny, historic corner at the literal end of the road, where Highway 101 finally runs out of continent after 15,000 miles. Then south to Powell River, a place we'd never visited and knew almost nothing about — and which completely won us over.
Some harbours introduce themselves all at once. ḵalpilin — Pender Harbour — makes you earn it. From the outside it's just a notch in the Sunshine Coast, easy to run right past. Inside, it opens up and keeps opening: bay after bay, cove after cove, reaching five kilometres inland and unfolding more than sixty kilometres of shoreline.