Captain
Wake departed Nanaimo, in the early morning of
January 16, 1880. He sailed his small wooden
sloop alone. He stowed boxes containing precious
family goods which had arrived at Nanaimo from
England. His destination was his Valdez Island
homestead.
His
sea route is unknown. False Narrows? Dodd
Narrows? It is also unknown how his sloop became
dismasted, how its wreck came to rest at a north
bay at Thetis Island, how the reported robbery to
the sloop took place, and how Captain Wake
disappeared forever.
Assuming
Wake's
transit was through Dodd Narrows, with current and tide conditions for January 14, 2001,
and January 16, 1880 similar to one another, four curious
Gabriolans decided to set to sea, aboard the
small sloop, Shearwater, to ponder
the fate of Captain Wake. On January 14, 2001,
Captain Keith Poulton and wife, Lynda, Navigator
Nick Doe, and wife, Jenni, worked their way up Stuart Channel to Dodd Narrows,
against a strong
south-east ebb current. Shutting down the engine,
on arrival at the Narrows, the sloop spun around,
quickly travelling south, back toward Stuart
Channel. Cliffs and rocky bluffs rushed by.
Turbulence seemed alarming. After passing Round
Island, Shearwater began to drift more and more
slowly as Stuart Channel widened. The air seemed
colder, the sea and sky were gray. While eating
stew, and sipping tea, thoughts and conversation
were about Captain Wake.
After
drifting in Stuart Channel for six hours, and
while nearing Ruxton Passage, the tide turned. No
conclusions were drawn about the sea journey of
Captain Wake, and of how his sloop was discovered
on Thetis Island.
Wake
met his doom in some undetermined manner, his
sloop had been through some misadventure never to
be known, and robbers handling the precious cargo
are only remembered by sand and sea.