Telegraph Cove is definitely one of those places we feel we'd like to spend a bit more time. The setting is charming, and it has a lot to offer. If you're into angling, you can go salmon or halibut fishing, but if all you want to do is wildlife watching, it's one of the best places anywhere to see killer whales - just a short trip out into the Inside Passage on a whale watch boat. Or you can watch grizzly bears feasting on spawning salmon. There's also something to be said for just taking it easy. It's the right kind of place to do that.

As for us, we're heading south for the sun, down the Inside Passage between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. It gives us some spectacular scenery to look at, as well as the opportunity to make better speed than we would in open sea. For a while, the passage is quite narrow, and it's here we have a rather too close encounter with a flotilla of drifting logs. Exactly the kind of thing we wanted to avoid. Then where it opens out, we run into some fierce currents, and even whirlpools.

We're also heading for an interesting rendezvous, which should take place within the next week. At the end of last year, a trawler cruiser called the Nordhavn set off to circumnavigate the world, and establish a Gunness World Record for a circumnavigation by the smallest powerboat (they're 40 feet long). We first read about them in a Raffles Marina magazine in Singapore, and since then we've checked out their website - www.nordhavn.com, and we've been in touch with the boat's skippers - Jim and Jeff Leishman.

But their circumnavigation is very different in character to ours. Their average speed is around 7 knots, and they've been changing crews. They're on the last leg of their trip now, heading up the west coast from Mexico to their base at Dana Point, California, arriving later this month. So they'll have few days of glory with their record before we take it from them...

We'll be looking to meet up with them when our paths cross, and it's going to be an interesting meeting - a coming together of two very different types of boat and expedition. Like us, they've been posting updates to their website via Iridium satellite phones, but there the similarity probably ends. We suspect with just a hint of jealousy that they have rather more in the way of creature comforts on the Nordhavn. We're looking forward to seeing the boat, and meeting the crew.

Clive Tully

Copyright Clive Tully ©2002
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