Quartz Bay is off the radar

Each time we return to Quartz Bay, on Cortes Island, we expect to find the 36-hectare (88-acre) property that wraps around much of the bay has been sold to a developer with plans to build a garishly extravagant resort.

And each time we do return, and find it has yet to be sold, we happily drop a pick in the idyllic western cove and tackle a to-do from our boat list or tuck into a mindless whodunnit, relieved that a developer has not yet purchased this bit of paradise.

It’s only a matter of time, we suppose. The property, split into nine separate lots, seems to be perpetually for sale.

It was something of an accident that we first visited Quartz Bay some 12 or so years ago. We were researching our guide to Desolation Sound and had already decided to add a few other anchorages on the northwest shore of Cortes, so surely adding Quartz Bay would be too much.

So we pulled into the bay, intending a quick in and out to confirm that it wasn’t worth adding to the Desolation Sound guide. Five days later, we emerged, with no stories to tell, but with a few boat jobs crossed off the list, and plans to add the bay to the guide.

We did paddle about the bay that first time there, but most of those days were spent below deck, on the laptop, learning to use the elaborate content creation software that would become such a large part of our lives building digital guides.

Twice I’ve returned on my own, the perfect place to get away to do some work. Twice we have returned as grandparents looking for something, anything, to occupy children’s time, and another time as a normal couple, poking about in a kayak.

Did we take any photos? It seems not. I wrote this, thinking it was about time, before discovering we had no pictures of the bay. We decided to use it anyway, with future plans to add some photos from our next visit.

The two photos we use are from outside Quartz Bay, one nautical mile or so north, where begins the aptly-named Whale Passage through the Penn Islands. We have had such great luck over the years spotting humpbacks in the area that we have come to expect to see them rather than just be hopeful. In at least one case, the grandchildren grew bored with a madly breaching Humpback, and asked what else there was to do.

It’s rare to share the anchorage with another boat, though that might soon end, maybe with this blog, and next time we visit the anchorage will be full, and a superyacht will unload Seadoos that whump-whump as they race past.

Think of the photos we will take!