March 30 – 31, 2016
Our next stop was a place we visited on the mail run: the Bay of Many Coves Resort. I’ve noticed my Frommer’s guide falls short of mentioning most of the resorts in the sounds, and our cruising guide was written before most of them existed. Most of what I knew came from poking around on the internet. When I poked around this resort, I looked at the dinner menu. The prices weren’t listed; they didn’t need to be. You could tell from the selection that it would be a very expensive meal.
And so I’d written it off until, as we were pulling up to the resort’s pier on the mail boat, Hsuen mentioned that the restaurant here is Really Good. She’d come for lunch and loved it. She also mentioned that a lot of celebrities stay here because it’s very removed. (Many of the little lodges are pretty much on the Queen Charlotte Track , but this one is more removed.) Hmmm, incredible food and celebrities. I don’t need to see celebrities, but the places they chose to visit generally don’t suck.
This place was certainly impressive, beautifully done units tucked into the natural vegetation on the hillside, large windows on the main restaurant, and a cafe right on the water, all with a view of the wide stretch of mountains across the placid water in the Bay of Many Coves. It was actually much prettier than it looked on its website, which is unusual, and we noticed they had a few moorings. I got back online, looked at the menus, and saw that breakfast was affordable. Decision made.
Rich phoned the resort as we arrived, saying we’d like to come in for breakfast tomorrow and could we take a mooring? They couldn’t have been nicer as they told us we were welcome to come in for a meal and to pick up whichever of their moorings we liked best. (It’s always so nice when places really welcome the boaters!)
Later, we sat out in the cockpit to get a good look at Arthur’s Bay. I’d been so focused on the resort I hadn’t really looked around. The bay was actually very nice, surrounded by hills with covered with native bush, and a tree full of nesting cormorants right on the shoreline. Later we saw a fur seal swim by. This seems like a great place to enjoy the local wildlife; people who choose to stay here have chosen well.
The next morning we headed into the cafe for breakfast, tying up to their dinghy dock. The cafe was so pretty, all wood and glass with a deck perfect for basking in the morning sun. It seems the other guests were either getting room service or eating in the main dining room; so we had the place to ourselves. We started with flat whites (coffee with steamed milk), then I ordered a Japanese breakfast of udon and dumpling soup, and Rich got the continental platter. Thankfully we split these, because Rich’s continental breakfast was amazing: homemade bread and a good croissant, spreads, smoked salmon, cheeses and cured meats. My soup was great, but his breakfast was out of this world.
We’d be moving on again today; but we didn’t have very far to go. We were glad; we wanted to linger on this wonderful deck as long as we could. Below, a gallery of photos from Arthur’s Bay and the Bay of Many Coves Resort. Click to enlarge and scroll. –Cyndi
