Shearwater Resort and Marina

Setting off early once again in bright sunshine we made way through a number of tight passages on our way to Shearwater.

Fun navigation in tight passages

Shearwater marina and resort

Shearwater is a small resort and marina on the other side of the bay from Bella Bella. It has everything a cruiser would want: A small but well stocked grocery shop, a marine shop, a fairly large marine yard, a restaurant, all at the top of a pier from a well protected marina.

Di coming back from taking Princess ashore while I prepare the boat for the day

A small private marina next to the ship yard

With all this convenience, and the short summer season, we found the marina's prices a little high for our liking, so elected to set anchor a way's off and use the tender for our shore trips instead.

At some point, when a marina dock starts costing more than a hotel night, we tend to shy away if there are alternatives. We're happy to help local businesses, but we are on an overall budget where staying in marinas every night would be prohibitive. We didn't seem to be alone with that line of thought. The much larger Nordhavn next to us, a multi million dollar boat, also chose to anchor rather than head for the convenience of the marina.

We anchored in a very safe anchorage, a short tender ride away from the resort.

Enfin at anchor with a much bigger Nordhavn (N68) as our closest neighbor

I used the long day to work on my mast navigation light: During the passage I noticed our navigation lights' breaker was resetting. With the numerous fog banks we may encounter on our way North we must have all navigation lights in full working order. It's not only the rule, but also our safety.

So up the mast I went. I chose the easy and safe way, using a bosun chair and our electric winch to get up. Di was in charge of the winch's remote.

Whilst up there, I checked all the rigging as well

I can't say I ever expected I'd be climbing up my mast when buying a power boat. I used to climb masts regularly when I was a kid racing sailboats in the Med.

I suspected the culprit was the white mast navigation light, and my hunch proved correct. A quick disassembly, cleaning and ensuring all connectors were tight and sound and we got our navigation lights back.

A short night and Enfin's crew was ready to leave Shearwater. We'll remember it as a good logistical stop. We'll keep in mind for the return if we need anything.