Ladysmith, Vancouver island, July 4th. We dropped anchor in the middle of the "pirates" (they like to refer to themselves as such, although I disagree with the use of that term) and ended up spending the rest of the day with a few of them on the beach, sipping beer and exchanging stories. It was another hot day, the pirates were on the beach to escape the hot sun hitting the boats, between the shade of the trees on shore and the half sunken dinghy being used as a foot cooler. The rocky beach was filled with countless rusty old pieces of metal, certainly related to all the logging activity in the area. While still on the beach, another guy landed with his dinghy, proudly holding his new "drunk tester", a taser which he jokingly fired up in the air. That was hilarious. The "Dog Patch", the local name for the area where the liveaboard community was located, is quite active despite the small size of the body of water. We had a good time with the "pirates" and I am assuming they did with us as well, as we were invited to drop anchor indefinitely in the middle of the Patch. A kind offer that we decided to pass on. The next morning, July 5th, we planed on leaving early to make it to Princess Bay on Portland Island, a beautiful park island that we visited on a previous sailing trip, also a very convenient distance from Friday Harbor, where we were planning on clearing customs the next day. The anchor got stuck so hard at the bottom, on what felt like tough piece of metal. Not so surprising seeing all the rusty debris on the beach and the loose logs on the water, but that was terrifying and a first. After a good amount of motoring back and forth at a decent throttle, we finally got it out and neither the chain or the anchor were damaged whatsoever.
We woke up in Princess Bay the next day, July 6th, a very exciting spot to watch ferries go by and practice right of way rules, as it gets busy. We crossed the Haro Strait heading to Friday Harbor (on the U.S. side) going by the South side of San Juan Island, which would make absolutely no sense if it wasn't for the strong currents that were with us then. We went as fast as 10 knots, a speed we have not yet seen on Strangewaves (5 to 6 knots is usually a good speed). Customs was busy, we had to wait a while before the same officer that checked us in when I moved to the U.S./imported my boat got to us on the dock. Everything went well and sometime after noon, we were released and went back to our favorite Friday Harbor anchorage, in a primo location that wouldn't suit many other boats than Strangewaves, due to it's mean low depth of 4 feet. Stragewaves was great in that spot until Friday July 7th at 9am or so as the ebb tide (lowering) was going to drop to -1.5ft, leaving us only a few inches under Strangewaves' keel to make our way out. We left early enough to not push that too much and leaving went very well, giving us an early start to go to Center island next, to meet with our friend Kristin. Just around the corner from Center island, the Chinook, the Glacier Spirit, the Island Explorer and several other smaller boats were orbiting in a circle and barely moving. A Prince of Whales (whale watcher boat out of Victoria) came to us at high speed, while we were under sail (we have right of way and he was not yet slowing down), to finally drop his throttle and yell "have you seen any orcas?", we answered that we had not and he blasted off towards the others. On the radio, several boats were talking to each other about orca positions around them. They were there, not very far ahead of us. We debated whether we should try to see them or not, the water was rather bumpy and winds annoyingly strong, although not unsafe. We decided on chasing the orcas for a bit, going around Center island, giving us a good chance to see them. We did see a bunch, it was exciting, but too far for any quality pictures. Oh well, the pictures are in our heads :-) After we were done chasing whales, we docked on Center, where Kristin was waiting for us on the dock. We had an awesome time, walking around the island, watching the progress she and Matt have made on their house there over the last couple of months. We did cart wheel and goofy exercices with Kristin.
Yesterday, July 8th, and still today, it is blowing gale force winds in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, so we are certainly not crossing back towards PT in these conditions. Fisherman's bay on Lopez island, sounded like a nice place to go escape the winds so we sailed in. At our arrival, we looked to find a friend we met here over the last couple of visits, a guy that turns out to be friends with at least two of our friends, one of them in PT, the other in Alaska. We found him immediately. The boating community isn't that big I suppose. Anyway, it turned out to be his birthday, so we introduced him and his buddy (also leaving on a boat in the area) to Picklebaks! Our recent discovery from Vancouver, that consists of a shot of Whisky followed by a shot of pickle juice. We all had an awesome time. Today, July 9th, we remembered it was Free Store day. We checked it out and I scored a high quality ancient brightly colored wetsuit, just perfect for me! I gave it a first try in the pool of the resort, a keeper! We are still debating what we do next, our friend is staying at our place in PT until mid July, so we might wander around a bit more and improvised a couple of more stops, if the gale stops long enough to allow us to cross the Strait.
We had to wait another day before we sailed off from Heriot Bay, winds were not good, so we spent the 28th still in Heriot Bay. A great thing in retrospect as we got to wander through a beach with five different epic looking steel bilge keel (type of boats with two keels, making it possible to beach them) sailboats, standing on the sandy beach at low tide. They were all Brent Swain's designs. A man that we have certainly heard about a bunch around, as he is based out of Heriot Bay. Later on in the day, Jon recognized a man sitting on the patio outside the Heriot Bay resort office, it was him. We met and talked about boats a little bit. He is an interesting character, with some unusual ideas about sailboats but quite inspiring. After the beached boat watching adventure, we walk to Rebecca Spit, a nearby park, where we spent a few hours with a beautiful view over the Strait of Georgia.
June 29th was finally a good day to leave and sail up to the Octopus Islands, on the North Side of Quadra Island. Slack tide in Surge Narrows (the one rapids that needs to be timed heading up) was at around 9 am, and very calm this time. The Octopus Islands were quite deserted and we had a large beautiful bay, that could hold many more boats, to ourselves. We could howl and hear our echo back. At the end of the bay, Waiatt Bay to be more specific, was an amazingly gorgeous trail of 2.5 km (1.5 miles) leading to Newton lake, a fantastic swimming lake, clear, warm (enough) and with a large rock to jump into the water.
The next morning, June 30th, we worked our way down to Whaletown, on Cortes Island, with the goal of meeting up with our two friends Jack & Carol the next day. Underway, we were lucky enough to be in the middle of a serious whale show, with pods of whales diving, jumping and showing off on both sides of Sutil Channel, as if they were talking to each other across the water. I was able to catch a video of two whales fairly close to the boat, check it out here. After a couple of hours letting ourselves drift and watch the show, we left the whales and kept on sailing to The George (beautiful well protected harbor next to Whaletown). We found a spot to drop the hook quickly and easily, and since it was so incredibly warm, jumped in the water immediately after the anchor was dropped. Near our spot were two familiar boats. They were those of sailing friends that we have met in our recent sailing. It was good to see them again and hang out for a bit.
For the first of July (Canada Day), there was a sweet little party going on at the Gorge Resort (an unusually nice and friendly place to hang out), the owner (we think) was there serving free pancakes, music was being played, it was awesome. Our friends Jack and Carol arrived sometime around noon and I could recognize Aurora, their boat, in the distance as they were coming in. We hung out onboard of Aurora later in the day, in was great to see friends from home in such an exotic place.
The sad part now is that the 1st of July had been set as our turning around deadline, we have to start heading back South to Port Townsend, to be there at least between July 20th and mid August. This trip has been incredibly fun and we are considering extending after that. Maybe. Our most recent idea is to head back to PT (Port Townsend) as fast as possible and do days on the water as long as we physically can... Because if we can do it quickly, return could be a 4-5 day trip, which would make it possible to come back later in the summer (one of our latest crazy ideas), but only if we prove to ourselves that we can make it this fast first. So yeah, we are basically rushing South trying to prove to ourselves that we can.
Yesterday, July 2nd, we covered about 43 NM, our biggest day sailing ever yet, from The Gorge/Whaletown on Cortes Island to Deep Cove on Vancouver Island. Today, although we had a later departure due to early strong winds, we still covered 40.5 NM, and made it back to Nanaimo
We successfully made it to Squirrel Cove on June 22nd, passing by the Copeland Islands leading us to the beginning of Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands. The scenery and the wildlife around us has changed quite a bit, there are tons of creatures in the water that we have never seen. There are still some of our old friends the dolphins around, we were glad to see some again that day. After many hours on the water, we made it to Squirrel Cove general store, where we had ice cream (when the universe gives you ice cream in the middle of nowhere, you have to take it) before we went for the Salt chuck (a salt water creek coming from a salt water lake that floods at high tide and drains at ebb/lowering tide), that Jon remembered from his previous trip this way in 2014. That is also where we anchored for the night and we watched bald eagles fish from the chuck.
The next day, June 23rd, we made it to Cassel Lake, at the end of Teakerne Arm (an inlet on West Redonda Island). We had read about the lake and the waterfall in a good book of recommended anchorages in the area. Indeed the lake was epic, beautiful and fairly warm, to Canadian standards. Surrounding the waterfall (sea level), the rocky cliff drops incredibly steeply and anchoring with a single anchor isn’t an option there, it was our first experience with the sketchy stern anchor tied to trees (we tied a line from the back of the boat to a solid tree on shore). A little bit nerve-wracking at first to stare at a massive rocky cliff that we could basically high-five from the boat. It worked out beautifully though. We met an interesting couple of young folks traveling by Zodiak (rigid inflatable with a 20 horsepower engine), their stuff, camping gear and such. Something that we had never seen but seemed incredibly fun, fast and a cheap way to travel by water. They were just on a weekend trip, hauling ass on the water and camping in beautiful places. It is also from those two that we heard about some rave-like party going on in Carrington Bay (Cortes island) the next day.
That is how we ended up in Carrington Bay on Cortes Island the next day, June 24th, suddenly in the middle of a large party forming in the woods, with boats anchored everywhere in the bay. That was unreal. Between the loud music going on all day/night, a crazy beautiful lagoon where people swam and wakeboarded when the tide reverses (when the water starts flowing into the lagoon), tents everywhere packed like sardines, crazy outfits and so on. It was such an awesome unexpected party, in the middle of nowhere. Music kept going all night, but we paddled back to the boat at some reasonable enough time to get up in the morning, after chasing funky little fish in the water.
The next morning, June 25th, we went back on our previous path to go check out Von Donop Inlet (still on Cortes Island), that we had wanted to check out as well. A dang long inlet (to our standards) where we felt like we were in a lake at the end of it. The tide was one of the seasonal extreme-high tides, about +18ft (that is insane). It was impressive to see the water go a few feet over sea weed that appeared to have been drying for months, but also evergreen branches suddenly touching the salt water (Uh oh, probably not good for those branches).
Yesterday, June 26th, we decided on going from Von Donop Inlet to Waiatt Bay (inside the Octopus islands Marine Provincial park, on Quadra island). Every way to get there involves some crazy currents that need to be carefully timed. We decided on going North of Read Island, then went down White Rock Passage (one those narrow passages where you must make sure to stay within the narrow channel or you end up on the rocks all around you) and be out of it by 2pm to get the right currents with us, then wait five hours at the public dock near by (on Read island) for the slack (in between flood and ebb tide, where the currents are near nothing) and cross Surge Narrows at 7:40 pm to make our way North to Waiatt Bay. Well, the public dock turned out to be full... We decided on dropping the hook by Sturt island, a fairly exposed anchorage for an overnight stay but given the winds (Northwest) and that we were there only for five hours, we figured the sandy bottom would hold us fine there. Five hours later, we are excited to finally go across Surge Narrows, where the current can get easily over 10 knots. But we timed for slack, the safest time to cross. As we were making our way to the narrows, we experienced some pretty serious unexpected wind on our nose. Hmm. We talked briefly, and feared that those winds were too strong, and that if we went, we would be stuck facing them all the way through, since the current will pick up too rapidly to make it possible to turn around, and there are no safe anchorages half-way. That was an easy decision: we get the hell out of there! Underway, as we were heading away, we consulted the charts to pick our next anchorage. We had an hour and a half until sunset, so we decided on using all the light we had to get further to a quality anchorage. We decided on Heriot Bay, and that is where we still are right now.
We are watching the winds carefully and tomorrow isn’t planned yet, nor the day after tomorrow. We are hoping to get to Whaletown (Cortes island) for the first of July to meet with two friends (Jack and Carol, also from Port Townsend), sailing the area as well, if weather allows, and start heading back South right after.
It has already been three days since we got here, at the marina in Powell River. We left Lasqueti island one day later than expected in previous post, due to strong winds. We arrived to Powell river on the 19th. Our first welcome to town was pretty hilarious, we called the marina on the VHF radio toward the end of the day (as there are no safe anchorages anywhere near and this stop was needed to resupply the boat before we continue), we followed the instructions of the marina attendant on the radio, who let us know that it would be tight but they would wait for us and give us a hand on the dock (very unusual in our experience so far). Indeed, it was incredibly tight! Outboard kissing the fishing boat on our stern (back) and bow (front) kissing the stern of a large sailboat in front of us. Jon did that amazing parking job and everyone congratulated him for it on the dock. The whole marina is packed in like sardines the same way we are, and many boats are rafted together. Great use of the space, keeping the doors open to more people and making the docks far more social, we love it. As far as the other part of town, the land side, we were very pleasantly surprised by how awesome it turned out to be, in a fun, useful and not too cheesy way. It is cool but not too cool, it is pretty but not too pretty, houses are fine (not ridiculous mansions), there are two ferries going back and forth all day every day. The town has a view over the Strait of Georgia that is incredible, people are very nice and food is very affordable. Anyway, it turned out to be a good stop, better than we imagined. We want to get going North, but winds are dang annoying (too strong and on our nose to go North). They have been against us for the last couple of days and might be for a few more days, but we are hoping to catch a window of lighter winds, hopefully tomorrow morning (crossing our fingers) to make our way to Squirrel Cove (Cortes island). If it all goes well and winds are not too annoying, we are hoping to visit these places before July 1st: Squirrel Cove, Teakerine arm + waterfall below Cassel lake (West Redonda island), Von Donop inlet (Cortes), Waiatt Bay (Quadra island) and Menzies bay (Vancouver island). The goal is that on July 1st we will start heading back South, following the coast of Vancouver island this time, but our itinerary might have to change based on conditions.
We finally left Schooner Cove. The town was sort of interesting but mostly bizarre, and as happy as we were to be there during the storm, we were glad to be out yesterday. The town, a golf resort town, has a feeling that I describe as "pasteurized nature", where the landscaping and way things look win over everything. Sort of pretty, but not our thing. Anyways, yesterday was a fabulous day for some great slow sailing (light winds) and we very much enjoyed it. We did a stop in Squitty Bay Provincial Park and hiked around. We were hopeful to stay for the night but the tiny dock was full and there was nowhere to anchor (too tight, rocky and shallow for my taste) so we moved on to Scottie Bay. Underway, we met some hungry hilarious people on an unprepared spontaneous adventure in a half custom row/sailboat. They yelled from across the water "do you guys have cookies?". We thought about that one for a sec, food being so incredibly precious on a boat (and we only have one bag of cookies) but I decided to tell them the truth, yes we do have cookies, and we will share them with you. The group of three were hilarious and immensely grateful for the cookies that we gave them. That was our first welcome to Lasqueti by Lasquetians. From them we were informed that the first Saturday market of the year was happening this Saturday (today). Hell yeah! We hiked to the market earlier, through "no trespassing" signs, a fishing port in action, boat yard, power tools, running generator, boats on the hard with years of blackberries growing through their hulls, people just milling fresh lumber, barges way up on the land (no idea how the heck they did that), and so on. About fifteen mins or so on that walk we were at our destination, the market, where tons (for a small quiet island) of rusty cars were parked together. For your information, no public water, power or gasoline comes to this island. We bought a few Lasqueti coins from the dude making them, but also some home made bread and ciders. That was lucky timing (first market of the year) and a great way to check out the island that feels incredibly private otherwise. The winds predicted tomorrow appear to be ideal, so if they hold up to predictions, likely we move on to either Powell River (but since there are no safe anchorages anywhere near, we would need a slip at the marina, which we will call for under way tomorrow) or Sturt Bay (Texeda island) if Powell River did not work out.
We are still planning on going to Lasqueti island next, but we have to wait for this gale warning to get past us first. What was predicted to be strong winds turned into a gale warning today. We spent the night of the 12th (after leaving Nanaimo) in Nuttal bay, as we figured that our original plan of anchoring in Hammond bay wasn’t compatible with the winds shifting to the Southeast. Maybe you saw our silly video from yesterday, but we did see a bunch of whales on Monday (12th) while under way. It was great and definitely the closest that I have seen them yet. The pictures and videos that came out were pretty bad, I was on the helm, trying to steer and record those guys. Did not do so well. Hopefully we see some more and get better photographs out of our next encounter. Anchoring wise, we found a great little pocket in Nuttal bay, protected from Southeasterly. Let’s just say that winds were not from the SE at the end, and we did not sleep much (lots of rocking around, all night). We started making our way to Lasqueti yesterday morning, conditions were rather shitty so we decided to turn around and find a safe spot for the next few days (at least 2 days of strong winds starting then) and this is how we ended up in Schooner Cove marina. That’s right, first marina since May 1st. Oh well, sometimes you got to do what you got to do and “schling schling” (sound of credit card being swiped). Gale warning coming, we don’t mess with that when there are so few protected anchorages around. John (from team Adventure II of the Race to Alaska) pulled in earlier in his sailing row boat. Wise man. Predicted winds look pretty bad for tomorrow (30-40 knots in the morning) and possibly all the way thru Saturday. Dang. We might be here for a bit...
Our stay in the Nanaimo/Newcastle island area is complete and we are ready to move on. We had our nanaimo bars, filled up on food, had showers, did laundry (to boat standards) and had the computer time we needed. We made it far enough North to change to a new set of charts as of right now, hurray! We are actually covering some distance! The forecast appears to be good for the next couple of days and we plan to make it to Hammond bay (only 6 nautical miles North from our current anchorage) tomorrow if weather holds up. Departure should be around 3pm, in order to have the currents in our favor. The Race to Alaska (R2AK) departure was earlier today, at noon from Victoria, so maybe we get to see the faster boats passing us tomorrow! Hammond bay is quite protected to the Northwest but not so much to the East (and being this close to the Strait of Georgia, we don’t mess with that), so if winds hold up, that’s where we are going. As we get further North, resources diminish (gasoline/water/food/internet/power) but also hospitable bodies of water to safely anchor at night. The water gets extremely deep, too deep to anchor in many cases, but also tides and currents get pretty wild. Therefore, we are planning things carefully, finding lots of back up anchorages and giving ourselves very reasonable expectations for distances to go within days (perhaps we are even a little conservatives about it). We are thinking Hammond bay because it shaves a good amount of distance for Lasqueti island, our next defined stop. On the more fun side of things, there is a small island called Shack island (unofficial name, does not show up on any map that I have found) within Hammond bay, an island with an interesting history of squatters from the 30’s with houses, abandoned, still standing. Speaking of interesting small island history, the island we are standing on right now, Newcastle, has a long interesting history, but one part blew our mind especially, it’s the sandstone quarry that was running for about 60 years on the island. They would cut huge cylinders out of the rock, in mass quantities, and sell them for pulping wood (breaking wood into fibers to make paper). The machinery used to cut those gigantic pieces of rock is still present on the island and the most impressive (I thought) were all the cuts-offs of rocks with concave shapes, also just sitting around on the island. Fascinating stuff.
Last Wednesday, June 7th, we left Vancouver and made it to Nanaimo (Vancouver island). Our time in the city was wonderful. Our funny side adventure week-end trip to PT was great and worth it. We did the road trip with our buddy Carl and saw an amazing group of acrobats perform their new show for the first time (incredible!). We hung out with our friends that night until 2-3am, slept in our workshop because we have a friend staying at our place while we are out and drove back up to Vancouver the next morning. In Vancouver, we got a few nights of almost no sleep paddling around False Creek nearly all night, including underneath the Science World (structure on a pier) where Jon discovered a serious water leak of which he informed the people the next day. We watched cops on ATVs bust people for drinking beer on "Beer Island" (a beautiful small peninsula in a quiet spot, facing the big city) while sipping our beer peacefully drifting on the water in front of the crack-down. During our stay, we discovered Picklebacks when we accidentally ordered some in a bar (shot of Whisky fallowed by a shot of pickle juice). They were a great discovery. Last Wednesday, our anchoring permit was near its end, the anchor chain had a slight layer of green growth on it, we already had tons of sushi, and the winds were predicted to be too strong to sail the next day, so it was time to go. We picked up anchor Wednesday morning, and started crossing the Straight towards Nanaimo. The crossing was good, although we were quite tired (hung out with some awesome people until sometime past 3am). There was a great number of huge logs and trees floating randomly in the Strait, it was some exciting log sightseeing activity. At this point we are anchored next to New Castle island (all park), facing the city of Nanaimo on the other side. We will likely go on a quest for the best Nanaimo bar sometime soon and let you know what the heck we decide to do next!
We have been struggling about two events that both sound amazing, unfortunately happening on the same week end. One is a serious acrobats/ninja show by our friends in Port Townsend, happening on Saturday (June 3rd in the evening), in PT. The other is the IOS Open house (Institute of Ocean Sciences) on the Saanich peninsula. Such a hard choice. But because of the recent storm, we stayed in Montague harbour longer than expected, made it to Van later than we thought... and crossed the Strait of Georgia, on a schedule for the weekend, seems logistically difficult. Port Townsend, on the other hand, is further away, but like every city, Vancouver has tons of car rentals and it turns out the drive isn't bad (3 hours with the Coupeville ferry)... So we will be driving down tomorrow morning! I won't be able to get my Current Atlas signed by the old guys who created it at the IOS, boo hoo, but we will get to see one show that we have every reason to believe should be very amazing. We will pick up the car tomorrow morning. Actually our plan is kind of funny, Jon and I will paddle back from the boat (with the folding bike onboard) to the public dock, Jon will then ride to the car rental and pick it up, put the bike in the trunk and drive back, I will head back with my kayak and tow Jon's kayak, then put one deflated kayak inside the boat, come back with the other kayak, deflate it, and put it in the trunk as well. Sounds silly but then we don't pay the over priced marina for Saturday night or worry about the kayak getting stolen. The boat is in good shape and we won't leave it very long as we will come back Sunday late afternoon/early evening.
We arrived as expected on the 27th after a long crossing of the Strait of Georgia. The water was flat or near flat most of the way, we had some usable wind on which we sailed, but it was minimal so we had to keep the engine running to keep up our speed (we would arrive behind schedule otherwise, therefore counter current). Not good. It was incredibly sunny and warm, and at one point, we decided to stop the motor and jump in the water, which turned out to be much warmer than expected. There was a funny stretch of extended seaweed and debris, so I turned off the engine (to prevent all that stuff from getting stuck on the propeller) and we got our two canoe paddles out, in the middle of a shipping lane. It was pretty funny, but we worked it out. The arrival in the city was interesting, after days of not many people at all, suddenly we were in a Walmart-like parking lot of huge freighters, a large number of Aquabusses running fast between traffic, dragon boaters and their coaches yelling, motorboats, sailboats, stand up paddle-boarders, kayakers, tourists on BBQ boats and so on... We found a good spot to anchor in the middle of this mess, out of the channel, inside of False creek. Man, the boating scene is something out there. We were so wiped at our arrival, after several hours of attention on the helm and warm sun. I did the last before-bed check at 11pm, ready to go to bed... I then saw, all of our neighbors (except one) exactly in the position we would expect them to be, we were as well, but our most forward neighbor (should be forward at all time) ended up only a few feet alongside Strangewaves. Jon hopped in the kayak and knocked on the hull to see if someone was home (we would let them know that they have WAY too much anchor rode out and that it is incredibly rude and disrespectful to everybody around and that they should pull some rode back in). I tried to talk myself into staying there over night and watch the damn boat for a while, but it was wrong, too wrong to not move... So we motored out around midnight to a new spot. I stayed on watch for a while, and at around 1am we finally went to sleep, only to get woken up at 6am by another dude dropping his anchor way too close to us. Sigh. We talked to the guy, he seem to have his shit mostly together, but most importantly, we got a phone number and permission to adjust his anchor line if it was posing a problem. About 2h later, another dude shows up awfully close to Stragewaves and dropped anchor. Damn city! Same deal, talked to the dude, and decided it was okay, he is closer than I would like, but at this point our 3 boats are so damn close that nobody else can even attempt coming closer, and since we have been this close for a couple of days, we know it works... Ah, city drama. We are now at the Vancouver public library, downtown, trying to catch up with our last week of very little computer time. We got to meet with Jon's old friends from Portland, Jack & Jordanna who happened to be on a short vacation up here, Jonathan 2 (let's call him 2, because there are too many Jons on this page) a Toronto friend who now lives here, and finally yesterday with our old friend Carl, through who Jon and I met here in 2013, who spends a lot of time here but is based out of the West Coast, all of it. We went for sushi together, because Carl always knows the best restaurants around. It was fantastic :-)
Sorry for so few updates, we were stuck in beautiful places without power to charge my laptop. We made it to Montague harbor (Galiano island) ahead of the predicted storm that happened on the 23rd. We were there from Sunday the 21st and stayed through Thursday (25th), because the winds were still annoyingly strong and perhaps unsafe to cross the Straight of Georgia, which we need to cross to go to Vancouver (our predicted next destination). The island was beautiful, phytoplankton/bioluminescence (however you want to call them) were amazing and bright. I tried several settings to capture the light of the water glowing with my camera, but got black screen at every attempt. Oh well, I guess it has to be experienced in real life. Then we changed plans several times, so did the weather predictions... We ended up doing a stop on Mayne island and met the person behind these awesome current tables (ok, maybe we are water geeks) after writing him a fan letter. He and his wife had us over for dinner at their place and we all had a wonderful time. Friday morning (26th) we went from Mayne island to Gabriola. Had a great day on the water and covered some distance :) We anchored on the South side of Gabriola first, while waiting for the right currents to get through Gabriola Passage (they get wild and way too strong otherwise) before we anchored for the night in Silva Bay (N side) in a mean low depth of 1 ft (high enough tide until the morning for our tiny draft Strangewaves) we are the only boat in our little paradise spot. Tide is going down, I am watching the rocks around the boat carefully, but we are fine. Will be starting to make our way toward Vancouver around 11am.
We had an awesome time on Salt Spring island. The boat punk community is quite extraordinary out here. Our spot near the military barge has been a good anchorage. I scavenged a tiller extension (the actual thing sold in marine stores for too much money) from one of the old wrecks on the beach. Score! Also, we got to meet a bunch of the boat punks, young kids on free boats as well as old folks, just living the dream in shanty boat city. It reminds me a lot of Slab City in California, but floating. Seeing the number of boat wrecks underwater and discovering parts of them at low tide and also random ropes half floating in the water, we are hoping to paddle Strangewaves out of here (with our two crappy unmatched canoe paddles), sounds like fun :-) We got to stick around for the Saturday Market (a big deal) and play some disc golf on the awesome course. We went in with one pizza pan hoping to share it as our one frisbee (all that we could find frisbee wise) but one awesome group of people that we met on the trails let us use two of their actual frisbees instead, and even keep them! Hooray! More frisbees on this trip! Predicted winds out of the NE tomorrow at 10-15knots, seem like a good day to move over to Galiano!
We arrived in Ganges, Salt Spring island yesterday evening (Long harbor). We tried several anchoring spots before we were content with ours. There is a very large amount of boats anchored, on mooring balls and at anchor, tons of shanty boats (that means boats typically in rough shape, used by live-aboards, not moving in most cases for a very very long time), some anchored since forever with mussels growing on their anchor line (not even chain), some rafted together like entire small towns, wrecks of old shanty boats washed on the beaches around, a weird giant barge with a military vehicle, floating homes attached to docks barely floating, of those homes, many that appear to be built of plywood likely stapled together with serious openings in between walls and windows, with solar panels crazy glued over their roof. No surprise we were welcomed by the Port master saying in the most welcoming way “fuck off, can’t use our dinghy dock”. Oh well. The beach is fine to land too, it turns out.
Last night was beautiful. Satellite Island turned out to be private so we did not check it out, but right across, an easy kayak paddle away, was Stuart Island State Park, where we went for a sweet little hike. We got up early this morning to pick up the anchor by 7am, to catch the morning tide reversal. We made it to the customs dock, here in Bedwell Harbor (Canada!) at 8:30 am or so this morning. Clearing customs with our Canadian boat (made in Quebec), registered in the U.S, with a U.S flag made in Canada, the Canadian and the American. Was easy like usual. We are now officially and legitimately in Canadian waters. We will be heading to Brackett Cove in a bit (2 pm departure to get the favorable currents), very close by if you look on the map, but it is a tricky spot to get through. The Pender Canal, separating North Pender and South Pender island, is connected by a bridge, with about 4.25 meters of clearance at high tide. We carefully measured the mast height earlier by running a measuring tape up the main halyard and estimating an extra couple of feet for the wind vane and antenna. It would be a terrifying idea, even with the clearance, it would be so close that I would probably pass out, and Jon would need to take over with a passed out Steph. But hey, after checking numbers carefully, we very certainly can’t get through (hurray for me!), so we will go the long way! We are sitting in a sweet coffee shop now, my computer remembers the wifi from a long time ago hehe, we are looking at the boat and the water... waiting for the tide, once again :-)
Alright. The boat registration issue is set (much easier than expected) and although we like it here, it’s time to get back on the water! Well, technically, we kind of get in the water every day (kayaking to town and back to the boat), but I mean, in the water, further! Our next goal is to make it to Pender Island (Canada) for Friday (meeting up with our friend Robin for the weekend, hooray!). We are looking to sail to Satellite island in the next hour (waiting on the currents now) and spend the night there in order to get an easy crossing the next day to clear customs early on Pender Island. Winds are quite light at the moment, it is raining, oh well. Still a beautiful day ahead!
We arrived in Friday Harbor earlier this morning. Since our departure from Lopez, we spent a night in East Sound (Orcas island), where we got to check out Mt. Constitution, by which we were absolutely blown away (we had no expectations, did not know much about it and were quite surprised of such a gorgeous view up there). It is a decent hike to the top, from the boat to the bottom of the mountain first, plus the actual climb, the way back down and back to the boat. We ended up hitchhiking to the top, hiked down, hitched a quick ride and walked the rest of the way to the boat, just in time for a quick stop at the grocery store and a paddle back to the boat as the sun sat. Last night, Sunday, winds were predicted to switch to S winds so we sailed to Shaw Island (Blind Bay) to anchor for the night, we met some interesting locals, got to play ping pong at the community center with some old folks, had a drink on the beach and paddled back to the boat. I forgot the boat's registration sticker for the upcoming year likely in Port Townsend, so a visit to Friday Harbor is kind of obligated to fix that (only department of licensing in the area). We are now anchored in about 4ft of water, because Strangewaves can do this kind of thing!
We arrived in Fisherman's bay (Lopez Island) yesterday evening and anchored for the night. Winds were mellow and conditions ideal. One of the coolest libraries we know of is located only a few minutes walk from our current spot. So yes, that means internet and power easily accessible, therefore we have a cubicle for the next couple of days! Our next destination isn't decided yet, we do like this current spot and will likely stick around another day or two? We will let you know how things go!
So we left as expected earlier this morning, and started to make our way to Rosario beach. We made it almost halfway and decided to turn around. The winds turned out to be more than expected and not reducing at all (was originally predicted to do so), standing waves were uncomfortably big and against us, our guess would be maybe 5 feet, so heading back the way we came (with the waves) definitely felt like less of a struggle (even though we had to fight current on the way back) but that was a good decision overall. The boat is fine and did great, we are fine, although a little sea sick. We made it back to Port Townsend around 2 pm and will now carefully check the marine forecast for the next days and leave on next window of good sailing, possibly tomorrow (destination still to come).
It is 11:37 pm PT, Jon and I are both on the boat, at our usual slip in Port Townsend. After a few days of work, cleaning, running around, prepping, doing laundry, going back to get things forgotten, organizing the boat, and reorganizing it... we are finally laying down and ready to go. We are taking off tomorrow morning, around 8:30am to catch the favorable current and make it to Rosario Beach (Fidalgo Island) plenty of time ahead for our two dear friends' wedding ceremony. We will likely anchor in Bowman Bay for the night. Strangewaves (the boat) is more loaded than she ever has been in the time I have owned her (just over 2 years), but everything fits nicely, or mostly and the water line is still happy. This is the beginning of the adventure!
The vision for this trip has changed quite a bit over the last couple of months but at this point we are planning on sailing around the Salish Sea for a while, spending some time on various islands of the San Juan Islands (U.S), the Gulf Islands (Canada), Vancouver BC and hopefully Lasqueti Island (BC). The route is still very open, actually we haven't figured out much of it yet. We are hoping to sleep mostly at anchor, with some exceptions for cold nights, storms, need to recharge the batteries (which we will find out how long they last) or too many days of rain in a row (requiring an electric heater to dry off our clothes).
As Jon will still be working on his current software project, we will be exploring libraries a lot and hunting for cafes, wifi and power. As of for me, having started learning html/css and basic programming recently, there should be plenty of opportunity for me to put to practice my, surely minimal at this point, programming skills through this blog and implement silly new features but also keep all the awesome people in our lives updated about our adventure.
Equipped with a 5 gallon water tank, no heater and about 33L (8.75 gallons) of fuel, we are ready for the challenge! If winds go as planned, we are leaving Sunday April 30th early in the morning and coming back sometime in July. This is going to be by far our longest trip onboard Strangewaves!
That's me. I am the captain, blogger and the one mostly keeping this blog up to date. I will try my best to put updates about where we are and what we are up to every week (depending on internet connection, power and motivation). My experience with sailing is still relatively recent, but to draw the big picture I had the chance to crew a few times between 2014 and 2015 with a few friends on their sailboats during day-sail adventures. Having not grown up in the marine environment, that was a very new and fascinating thing to me. Late 2014 / early 2015, after a long bicycle trip from PT to San Diego, Jon and I had a great opportunity to live on a boat for a few months, which was a good occasion to meet the boat people around and learn more about sailing indirectly. That was a lot of fun and the idea of getting a boat grew from there. I moved to Victoria in March 2015, started reading more about sailing... and searched for a boat to buy. This is how I found Strangewaves <3 Getting her was a good challenge to take on, first to learn everything I could about the boat, but also about sailing. That said, it has been worth it and a lot of fun.
Ship's engineer, first mate, husband, ninja leader of the boat, computer geek, goofball and much more. Jon, as I am sure you already know (not many people will read this blog is my guess) grew up sailing with his dad on the East Coast and has had an interest in sailing for a long time. During those sailing years with his dad, he mostly sailed a J24 and a Shannon 38, in the waters between Connecticut and Nova Scotia. More recently, in 2014, he had the opportunity to crew with a good friend of ours from Port Townsend to Petersberg, AK on our friend Michael's Atkin Jonquil, a wooden boat originally started in 1937 but launched only in 1987 (check out his pictures). With his great skill at convincing his friends to get boats (so he gets to crew and not have to maintain the things) he was definitely a significant part of the beginning of my quest to find a sailboat. That said, I am glad he did and sailing with such a goofball is quite a wonderful thing. Silly when conditions allow it, serious/cautious when needed, and so far never seasick (in my experience with him at least), it's a lot of fun to cruise with him.
The Boat is a Tanzer 7.5 (stands for 7.5 meters, so just under 25 feet), built in 1978. She is a sloop and was designed by Johann Tanzer. The 7.5 model was designed with two different keels, the fin keel and shoal keel (the one Strangewaves has), with only 2.67ft of draft. She is equipped with a 9.9 horsepower 2012 Yahama outboard engine (kick ass little thing), 5 (19L) gallon water tank (that's right, but we do have extra gallons stashed everywhere), about 33L (8.75 gallons) of fuel capacity, and no source of heating at anchor. We are not sissies (we hope)!
