Day 49 July 3 --- Shearwater to Ocean Falls part 1

Day 49  July 3 ---  Shearwater to Ocean Falls   part 1

The cruise from Shearwater to Ocean Falls was quite nice.  At one point Glen called back to the group and warned them that the water was getting rough.  The chop was now about 4 inches tall. 

As we approached Ocean Falls there was quite a wind which could make tying to the dock interesting.  There was plenty of room at the dock however.

The m/v V6 was pulling out of the area as we pulled in; what a beauty.  49 meters long with gray hull, cruising under a Cayman Islands flag.  It was towing a very long shore boat.  It’s stern deck was large, flat and empty, likely the shore boat sits there.   I went online and looked up the boat, normally there is a helicopter along with that shore boat on deck.  It has a cruising range of 11,000 NM at 13 knots on one tank of fuel; that is long way.  In talking to the boaters on the dock who had chatted with some from the yacht, they were from Sweden, and some of the crew were German.  From the yacht tracker I found that it has been seen in San Diego – June 8 (1 day), Seattle – June 14 (10 days there), Sidney BC – June 25, it's next stop port of call will be Prince Rupert.  Clearly headed to an Alaskan adventure.

 

 

We moved Drag’n to our side and then Glen maneuvered Magic to the inside dock (U shaped docks) and  backing all the way in past several other boats and slid her sideways into a spot between two sailboats.  There were other boaters on the dock to catch our lines.  Once tied down, a couple of them made comments about how easy Glen made that look – impressive.   We then went over to the outer dock and helped our other four boats get on tied up.  Time for a walk around Ocean Falls.   We have been here before and know much of the story, history.  It was for the most part ‘normalized’ (buildings and houses torn down and burned) in about 1986 by the Canadian government.   It is a ghost town of sorts with a few people living here.  Beautiful area, huge waterfall and powerplant coming down from Link Lake.  A fish hatchery which processes Atlantic Salmon eggs for much of BC in on the far shore.  The very large two-story building to the right of the falls was once part of the Paper plant has a machine shop of some sort (or remains of one) on the first floor and the upper floor is now a Cryto Currency ‘Bitcoin’ Mining operation.  There seems to be more people and more activity in town since the last time we were here.  There were people working with heavy equipment on roads and clearing the brush from the sides of the roads.   There are a few (very few) houses that appear to be occupied, but most of the old houses are either fully gone or fast decaying into nature.  We went to the ‘Licker Store’ in the building that used to be the bank and got ice cream cones.   This ‘store’ is a one room place connected to an old building which was the bank and apartments.  We rang the bell for service and a lady from the ‘firehouse’ across the street called out that she was on her way.  Shortly after her husband also appeared to give her a hand.  He had been watching their three children in the pool.   The community has built a park like area with a swing set, an above ground swimming pool.  There are seven young children and two teenagers living in Ocean Falls.

 

Crown Zellerbach ran a large paper mill in Ocean Falls until the early 1980’s. The dam and power plant are still working and providing power to Ocean Falls, Shearwater, and Bella Bella.  The power plant was installed in about 1925 and we were told that most of the equipment is the original stuff still working.  Ocean Falls gets over 200 inches of rain each year.   Back in the days when Ocean Falls was a going concern there was a building with an Olympic sized swimming pool.  The story goes that the government sent their Olympic swimming and diving team here to train; apparently they needed to be isolated from the outside world.  The large hotel had a bowling alley and 400 guest rooms.