Swing? Or Tie Up?

We've been able to do a lot of swinging but last night was my first tie up. Behind Jean Island we dropped our anchor in a 25 foot deep hole very close to shore and just swung with the winds, currents, and tides. The next morning we got up to find ourselves surrounded on three sides with small islands - or rather a bunch of drying rocks - some 7 feet high - that appear at low tide. Over coffee we realized that from time to time something resembling thunder was coming from the v-berth. Ah ha! The grumbling rumbling was just the anchor chain echoing up through the locker as it dragged over rocks protruding from the muddy bottom over which we were swinging in a complete circle.

But swinging doesn't always work. Prideaux Haven is a much coveted anchorage where snow capped peaks preside over a series of small sheltered coves. As we searched for the entrance, we could see masts above the hills and boat through the nooks and crannies. We would have to anchor and then tie up using a stern tie. For the first time.

Without a nylon stern tie per se we'd have to use a length of line that we'd dropped on the very bottom of the starboard lazarette to create a floor for the fenders, tie lines, extra life jackets and bike. Out everything came and then the line. Oodles of it. Obviously it had been purchased on the drum wholesale; it's already being used for the jib sheets. Fortunately, the task of unsnarling the 3/4 inch line and laying it out on the deck was quick and easy. I counted approximately 275 feet of the stuff which I divided into three bunches.

Finally we were entering Laura Cove, which was already busy. The crew of an anchored sailboat guided us to avoid a mid channel obstruction while some kayakers suggested laying the hook toward in the middle of the cove. Once I'd dropped the anchor and let out some rode as Jack motored slowly toward shore, I had to do the stern tie. Under the eyes of everyone of course. Just getting a hugely slippery skein of 3/4 inch line into the dinghy was a challenge. Then after tying the bitter end to Aurora's stern, I had to row to shore, climb up a cliff of slimy rocks, haul the line up to a tree, loop it around and get it back down to the dinghy. By that time an oar had gone AWOL so I returned to the Aurora by pulling one half of the line while letting out the other. Tied up. Made. We only needed about 80 feet but - this line worth a small fortune - we don't want to cut it. After paddling out to retrieve the wayward oar, we sat down to bowls of chili, feeling rather proud of ourselves.

Here is a picture of our next door neighbor, properly tied up with a thin stern tie. This great old wooden vessel was the biggest boat in the cove and could only get in and out on high tide.

There will be more stories of anchoring to come, I'm sure. It is something fraught with challenge, always an adrenalin rush. Much can go wrong. So far, nothing has.

Gunkholing in Desolation Sound

We pulled up anchor at the crack of dawn to sail up the the Sunshine Coast and into the wilderness of Desolation Sound. Normally the winds tunneling through Malespina Strait between the mainland and the spiny baked monster island of Taxeda are from the North, but on this day they were with behind us. We flew north on a broad reach slowing only at the top of the Strait, where we got a nice look at the historic town of Powell River, a few miles beyond its bustling, mundane sister, Westview. The whole town of Powell River has been designated a National Historic District, one of Canada's very few. Through binoculars we could see the rows of pretty craftsman houses and the town center with churches and schools. The lumber mill of this company town founded in 1910 still billows steam and all the houses appear tidy and inhabited This is a place we need to visit. Powell River has a history museum, a logging museum and a fully restored theater which dates from the days of theater organists accompanying silent and still shows movies every night.

Civilization ends at the Swedish settlement of Lund, whose majestic old hotel overlooks the water. It's here that Route 101, already patched together by ferry crossings, peters out in a brief dirt track.

Desolation Sound, so named in 1792 by the gloomy George Vancouver, combines grandeur with a cozy intimacy with the natural world. While snow capped peaks drop majestically into the Pacific, endlessly winding miles of shoreline shelter tiny all-to-yourselves anchorages. We found one such behind Jean Island near the entrance to Grace Harbor in Desolation Sound Marine Park. We could not believe the silence. Loons crying from miles away. The ripples made by a family of a yet to be identified family of ducks. The flap of the wings of a bald eagle as he left his forest perch above our mast.

In the daytime there are the sounds of oyster farmers' boats, the occasional float plane reuniting a passenger with family or colleagues, and other cruisers. But there are no overhead wires or signs or mooring docks and buoys or even navigational aids apart from an occasional plastic ball marking an obstruction. Gunkholing is the nautical equivalent of backpacking before the days of permits and designated campsites. On Cortez Island, we returned to Gorge Harbor, where we'd been with Acquitted in 2006. It's a large bay all but enclosed save for a very narrow but deep and safe set of cliffs. This year we again entered in low tide and were treated to a a show of jewel tone colors: bright pink, purple and orange starfish on a bed of bright green seaweed on the rock.

49º37.69 N 124º01.31 W and how we got here

Provisioning aside we're making steady northward progress. On Friday, July 18th at noon we crossed Juan de Fuca on a dependable breeze and a beam reach. Nice sun. A dearth of 1000 ft cargo ships in the lanes. The wind calmed down as we approached the San Juans and we found Cattle Pass calm as we motored through. The bouys on Turn Island being all taken we pulled into Friday Harbour for the night. The next morning we sailed up the channel to the northern most of the San Juans and stopped at Sucia Island. Yes, sucia is dirty but in a nautical rather than en environmental sense: you need a good chart to get into safe harbor.
When we arrived there were already a bunch of boats in Echo Bay - some folks we met from [the Portland Neighborhood of] Goose Hollow counted 99, most all sailboats. We dropped the anchor with the expected trepidation and when it took hold we were within closer spin range of a fine Vancouver 45-footer than we'd have liked. This led to much interrupted sleep between 11 pm and 5 am but to very good sleep between 5 am and 11 am, by which time we were able to nab a free buoy. To our delight another Valiant pulled up near by, the pilothouse version, of which fewer than 20 were built. Though lacking our extra space on deck and below, this is really the ideal boat for the Inside Passage and Alaska. And compared with the Hunter moored beside it, it clearly performs better under sail.
Dawn rose rosy as we pulled out and hoisted the sails. A nice southeast wind and on a broad reach gave us the chance to read and bliss out on the vast horizon of the middle of the Straight of Georgia. Kindle in hand, Jack even bought and received a new book and got a free sub to the Washington Post.
The sun calmed the wind just as we met the outflow of the Fraser River. Finally we were motoring across English Bay. As we rounded Stanley Park and headed into the First Narrows, a huge cruise ship suddenly appeared; no sooner were we under the Lion's Gate Bridge than an even larger container ship charged forward, squeezing us to one side. Although trained harbor pilots are aboard these vessels, it's strange that they are not required to be escorted by tugs. (The 60 mile fetch of open seas just beyond the narrows can bring unpredictable seas and winds.) But it must keep shipping costs down.

Customs was a snap - a phone call with boat name and number and our names. No passport info requested; they seemed to know us - homeland security everywhere, I guess. We simply write 20082030675 on a piece of paper and scotch tape it to a porthole. Upon tying up at Coal Harbor Marina next door to the customs dock, we called Frances Dodd but she was already en route home and was off the next day with sister Kika from Amsterdam to join the family in Williams Lake for Skander's wedding. Checked email, announced safe passage, and invited local friends to an on board pot luck on Wednesday.

The next day Emily Coolidge, whom we'd last seen on Prince Edward Island, came by and over a bottle of Oregon wine let us know that Vancouver is even cooler than we'd suspected. She lives on the west side in Kitsilano and once sister Amanda leaves Nairobi, she'll probably be her neighbor.

With duty keeping us close to the boat, we didn't get out to visit friends or tour. But we had a wonderful reunion with Habib, Gulalai and Saeed who showed up our last night in Vancouver with a wonderful fish dish and a bag of goodies for the cruise. After supper, we pulled out our maps and guidebooks as they are going on vacation soon and we'd hoped to rendezvous. Lo and behold, reality set in! There are no roads reaching the coast where we'll be sailing! Route 101 stops in Lund, just a few miles north of where we are now.
Right now we're anchored in Garden Bay, in Pender Harbor, inside a maze of islands and inlets on the Sunshine Coast. We've finally got the dinghy in the water and will try to find a some wifi on shore. That's it. This lovely wooden yawl just sailed past - time to be out on the water. (Wait a minute, we ARE out on the water.)

More Provisioning: Four batteries and a raw water pump

We are now richer by four large wet cell batteries and a new raw water pump, acquisitions that were not on our list. Indeed Aurora's house power system and engine have functioned flawlessly from the get go.

We've always used all the batteries at once, recharging them with solar and with the engine. Recently we realized that each of two banks (of a pair of batteries) also functions independently. And when you're on a long cruise, it's nice to know that if one bank dies, the second is ready to back it up. But there seemed to be problem with the switch to switch between banks so when we got to Coal Harbor we asked the marina shipwright to have a look.

The batteries have been my job. After I crawl into the engine room, Jack hands me a mirror and flashlight so I can check the water levels and add more if necessary. Unfortunately, I knew nothing else about batteries until yesterday when Bob McKnight took the "last legs" meter reading, showed us how they were bulging and explained the counterproductive electro-physics of mismatched brands (which just might be explained by Aurora's 14 year circumnavigation of the globe). Within minutes he'd measured battery racks and made a couple of phone calls to order four new batteries.

Then exiting the engine room Bob took a quick look around at the raw water pump and groaned. This pump circulates sea water to cool the engine and contains the impeller, which every novice mariner knows you need to change when a jellyfish gets caught in it. Well our pump was wiggly, misaligned and had a loose belt. So we closed the throughhull so Bob could get the pump out out as he phoned up a marine machinist on the other side of town, who promised to have it rebuilt by the next afternoon.

And it was and immanent crises were averted. Vancouver was the place to be. Bob and his colleague Rick Robinson did this caper with such elegance, speed, wit, and charm that we dedicate this posting to them.

Provisioning

Are we ready to sail yet? No matter, we're on our way. But our provisioning was so fast, complicated and incomplete that we've been at it ever since!

A week ago we started the major feat of packing our Honda Civic for the drive to the Aurora. Not only did we have groceries - some swept off our own shelves - and gear - "dinghy dogs", a deck hammock, scads of charts, chart holders, scooter, bicycle - but also stuff we had removed from the boat for previous expeditions - life jackets, foulweather gear, pots and pans, folding chairs, binoculars and sleeping bags. Yes, this month we've already sailed the Columbia and gone over the Bar into the vast Pacific, did four days of Waterfront Blues Festival and pitched our tent for a family reunion in the California Redwoods.

No sooner did we roll up to the boat with our first cartfull of stuff when we ran straight into a lovingly caught crab feast. Yep, just like last year when we left with Kinza on board: Nikki and Al interceptd us even before we went aboard and fed us.
Day one of our cruise would be last Thursday when we motored through thick fog to the Port Townsend work dock. There Bob from Goldstar Marine linked our cheap fix AIS (see previous post) to the main electrical panel. Lisa and Dan of Port Townsend Rigging sent Josh up the mast to install a new mainsail track, lazy jacks with clever snaplocks and a cunnungham. Then Carole Hasse of Port Townsend Sails showed up with a spectacular state of the art mainsail.
No sooner had everyone left than Vicki Phillips of the Coast Guard Auxillary showed up. We'd taken her up on her offer of a free safety inspection and her checklist hit all the pre departure essentials, from documentation to the active status of chemicals in our lift jackets, flares, and fire extinguishers. We did quite well but lo and behold could not get the all important anchor light to work until after Vicki left and we figured out the magic combination of switches on the electrical panel.

When Vicki left, we finished cooking a copious bottom-of-the-Flanders-fridge beef stew and Felicia and Steve showed up to spend the night along with Rich and a friend. Then Roland, Rose and Fleur, also en route from a couple of coolish nights camping on the Olympic Peninsula, called but opted for the Aladdin, a bargain motel right on PT's working waterfront. In the morning Felicia met me at the Safeway to transport a supply of canned and bottled goods, which Rick and Lucas carried below deck to add to the mounds of chaos already there. It was a bit before noon when I threw my bike on the deck, a farewell delegation of Roland, Rose and Fleur untied us and Jack and I were off across the Strait of Juan de Fuca..

Jack the Skipper boards La Niña

Jack emailed this after visiting the faithful reproduction of the famous ship while it was tied up on the Willamette.


This was the best boat show I've ever been to. As an avid armchair sailor, I had enough reasons already to visit what is called the best reproduction ever of one of the three boats in Columbus' first fleet. But I am also reading at this very moment the new book by Tony Horwitz about Columbus and all the other early visitors to the Americas.

Anyway, La Niña is moored on the Eastbank Esplanade just north of the Hawthorne Bridge. Several times I almost turned back before arriving because I couldn't see it and was sure they had got the dates wrong in the paper. You
can't see it at any distance at all because it is incredibly small - just 66 feet long on deck, with 17 feet at the beam (think a mere 1 1/2 times Aurora). Its color is dark and dull, and I doubt its masts go as high above the water as ours does.

Keeping our beloved Valiant 40 in mind again, "primitive" does not even begin to describe La Niña. Of course no head, propane galley, diesel heat, VHF, GPS, roller furling, winches, cabins, or berths. This very heavy tub (200,000 lbs, almost 10x our displacement) can not even dream of sailing to windward. With its square-rigged sail plan, it can only run with the wind. In fact, lacking a serious keel with any bite to it, La niña can't even take advantage of winds smack on the beam, because the boat gets pushed faster to leeward than it can move forward. I also noted that the boat, for all its weight, still rocked around a lot on the quiet Willamette mooring. "Oh yes," said one of the crew members. "She bobs like a cork."

So, my respect for all the early explorers is only greater seeing what they had to work with. And I also now appreciate that, even setting aside diesel engines, GPS, and the like, modern sail boat design extracts so much more performance out of the wind than was the case in the old days.

Rail (not ours) in the water

May 11, a short Sunday morning sail into a good stiff wind. The only other boat out was a neighbor's ketch from Port Hadlock which flew past us with its rail in the water most of its length.

This was a much anticipated weekend with Kinza. On Saturday hiked the Dungness Spit, getting distracted on the way by an intriguing logging festival in Sequim, featuring a very long community parade with floats from all the little festivals around Northern Washington and the Olympic Peninsula. The Dungness Spit Light - only 5 miles out in the ocean - is really far you walk on soft sand. The lee side of the spit is an off limits nesting area, and you need to make periodic jaunts to the highest part of this very narrow spit, to see the birds on in the calmer water. We painstakingly identified a duck with a headdress and a gull known to interbreed with another in that area. But I can't remember their names!. Driving home through Sequim we also saw a herd of Roosevelt Elk right in a semi residential area at the foot of the mountains.