Our Summer Trip to Barkley Sound
This image of Vancouver Island is a cropped
image taken by NASA and comes form the
visibaleearth.nasa.gov web site.
Barkley Sound is located on the west side of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The image to the right shows where it is in relation to Seattle, Washington. You can see a few specks in the center of Barkley Sound in the image. This specks are the Broken Group Islands. On the North side at the entrance to Barkley Sound is the town of Uclulet and on the South side is Bamfield. If you are coming from Neah Bay or anywhere in Washington State, and have not checked in to Canada yet, you will need to check in at Uclulet with Canadian customs.
The trip to Barkley Sound requires some planning. There can be up to 6 knots of current in some places on the way there. To get there from Seattle you go North out Admiralty Inlet past Port Townsend. Turn left and go out the Straight of Juan de Fuca. Barkley Sound is on the right after you leave the Straight of Juan de Fuca. We left Seattle at 6 am on an outgoing tide and gradually picked up speed. We went past Port Townsend on a 6 knot current making our speed over the ground 11 knots. The tide changed on us so we spent the night in Port Angeles. The next morning we caught an out going tide of 3 knots and were doing 8 knots over the ground all the way to Neah Bay(on the south side at the entrance to the Straight of Juan de Fuca). On the North side of the Straight the current is not as strong. The south point of Vancouver Island(at Race Rocks) seems to deflect the ebbing current. If you stay close to shore you can come back in against the tide without having to fight the current.
This picture is of an anchorage in the Broken Group in the center of Barkley Sound. The Broken Group Islands are a Canadian Park and the only access is by water. As you can see in the image that at times it is quit and peaceful here. It will not always be this nice. During some parts of the year it can be foggy, cold, windy, and wet.
This is a picture of the entrance to Bamfield. The town is to the right of the buildings. This is a small town built around an inlet. There is a nice beach a short walk from town. The water is not to cold and there is some surf so you can go boogie boarding. If you want to surf you need to checkout Uclulet. There are a lot of surfers there and they go surfing on the beach north of Uclulet.
Ucluelet now has an aquarium that displays local sea life. In the spring they collect the animals for display and in the fall they return them to the sea.
Morning Star at anchor in Barkley Sound.