Bucket-list Adventure: Points way west

“This is not only a gripping story, but also one of the most dramatic and detailed sailing adventures of all time,” said none other than Walter Cronkite on the dust jacket of Ferenc Máté’s novel, “Ghost Sea.”
Nearly a century ago, on the wild British Columbia coast, a Kwakiutl warrior raids an artifact collector’s yacht to reclaim sacred masks. He takes the collector’s beautiful wife Kate as hostage on his 200-mile canoe-voyage home. Duger, an outlaw coastal trader (and Kate’s secret lover) gives chase in his ketch with the husband as his passenger. Day and night, they sail the uncharted islands though raging currents and ship-swallowing whirlpools, to a climax at a forbidden, hallucinatory potlatch of the ancient Kwakiutl culture.

“We have to go there, Pete,” I said to my old friend after we both finished the novel. We’d sailed together on the Maine coast, on San Francisco Bay, in the Chesapeake Bay, and across Lake Superior. But this was the big one. This was the new No. 1 on the Bucket List.

Ten years passed, and these two old polecats weren’t getting any younger. Then, this summer, Pete called. “Dave, I’m in Desolation Sound, Refuge Cove, British Columbia, onboard Sound Harbor [his Pacific Seacraft 34]. It’s time you live that ‘Ghost Sea’ book for real.”

“God, Pete, I just got back [barely! See Points East, September 2016] from my two-week cruise in Maine. I’m sort of out of vacation time and money. Plus, that’s a long, long way from Boston!” I said.
“This is it, Dave. This is the best in the bucket. Look, I got plenty of air miles; I’ll send you the tickets: commercial flight to Seattle and seaplane from Seattle up to Refuge Cove in Desolation Sound. Now what’s your excuse?”

So I had none, and communicated my plans to the boss.
“You’re going WHERE?” my wife Mary Kay said. “Well,” she continued, “then I’m going to Paris.”
Fair enough.

And this column needs to end here because I’m on deadline for both the column and my flight, which leaves in a few hours. I’m headed for Desolation Sound. When and if I return, I’ll no doubt be filled with stories of hallucinatory potlatches, Kwakiutl warriors, and heroic retrievals of beautiful women hostages.
So tune in next month, shipmates. In the meantime, here are some pictures of my landing place and what will hopefully be my newfound friends.