Thunder Bay to Cortes Bay

 Last night was lousy with mosquitoes. Definitely cross Thunder Bay off the list of places I want to go back to.  Before sun down Rod and I commented that it looked like rain but didn't feel like it was going to rain.  This morning it was raining when my alarm went off.  Ok, not really raining so much as sprinkling, and it stopped before we got on deck to pull up anchor and head out.

As we started north along the Georgia Strait, there was a sheet of ominous gray cloud, the kind that feels like it's pressing down upon you.  However, as we moved north we could see it getting thinner and thinner, always north of us.

The trip was pretty uneventful.  A little choppy, but nothing really to mention (except that I just did!).  We traveled outside of some islands and inside of some others before heading across the mouth of the Melaspina over to Cortes bay.  The entrance is a narrow restriction between shore and a mini-lighthouse.  Once we were inside, though, it opens up a bit and we're smack in the middle of it.

A Kenmore Air seaplane did a stealth landing.  Stealth in that neither Rod nor I heard it approach until it revved up its engine for a final bit of water taxiing.  It picked up some passengers before heading off again.

This time, my traditional plunge into the water was a cannonball at the request of Rod.  I guess he filmed it.  I basically leaped off the bow and cannonballed then swam the length of the boat to hang out a bit.  My impression?  Uncomfortable, but not frigid.

Tonight is going to be butternut squash risotto, which should be interesting.  Squash is not my favourite thing, but everything tastes better on a boat, right?  I'll let you know. 

Princess Luisa Inlet to Thunder Bay

 

You don’t really feel how big British Columbia is until you’ve done it by boat. We’re jaded by highways where we go 100kph and jet planes which go 500kph. It’s when you are in a boat moseying along at 6 knots, or even slower, and it takes 8 hours to get somewhere, that I start to have appreciation for the enormity of the land.

How big is 250 nautical miles? By car, that’s 4-5 hours on a highway. So far, on Quijote, where we are traveling every day except one, that’s 9 days. On foot, in the frontier days, or by canoe, it’s even longer.

Enough ruminating.

We hauled up our anchor on time and departed our serene anchorage. So far, of the trip, this is the first anchorage where I’m actually feeling wistful about departing. All the ones prior to this, I was eager to move on to the next destination.

We reached Malibu Rapids about 1/2 hour before slack, but it was a non-event, hardly a ripple and Quijote barely seemed to notice anything unusual. Then it was out into the wider Jervis Strait and heading south to Thunder Bay, which is at the juncture of jervis and Georgia Straits. We’re still only about 1/3rd of the way there, but already our arrival time is better than we thought – hovering around 7 to 7:30 this evening, which means we’ll arrive with still daylight. We won’t really be able to do anything, but Rod tells me that there isn’t anything to do anyway, so it all works out.

This trip is, amongst other things, a floating test bed for the software. I’m finding bugs and fixing them, slowly fine-tuning the system. At night I read myself to sleep, and have finished two novels so far. Maybe I should go back to writing my own, except that I’m spending all my computer time working on the software.  Still, it's great to get out of the house and be doing these things.

My ankle is bothering me a little today - a momento of twisting it on the trail yesterday.  It's not serious, but it does put a minor hitch in my walk and twinges.  I should be fine in a few days to a week, though, and meanwhile there are more places to go and to see!

We got lazy for dinner today - sloppy joes, most of which came out of one of those McCormick spice packets.  However, even something like this can be an adventure.  The ground beef was still partially frozen, so we put it in a zip lock to immerse the whole thing in boiling water, except... What happens when plastic zip-loc comes in contact with very hot pan?  Right.  it melts.  So that was adventure #2 - cleaning solidified plastic off of one of Rod's Magna pots.  Still, the sloppy joes came out pretty good.

We are anchor up at 7am tomorrow and i can't sleep tonight for some reason.  It's going to be a pain getting up but, as they say, Time and Tide wait for no man! 

Oh and for my traditional dip at each anchorage, I wussed out.  it was late and I was tired, so I dipped my foot in.  That counts, right? 

Lay Day, Princess Louisa Inlet

 

Woke up at my usual time this morning – just before 6, though I had also woken up at 2 and read for a while. A bit into the morning, Rod asked me what I’d like for breakfast – oatmeal, cream of wheat, or granola. A bit of reflection and I responded, “It feels like a cream of wheat day” and Rod replied, “Me too.” Of course, on Quijote, food is never quite that simple, so it was cream of wheat with two kinds of berries, yoghurt, banana, and something else which I don’t remember now.

A bit later in the morning we rowed the dinghy over to the dock for a hike up the waterfalls. Unfortunately, I’ve let myself go, and only made it about 1/4 of the way before starting to feel a little lightheaded and told Rod to go ahead, I was turning back. It turned out to be a good idea as I was fatigued enough to get a little sloppy on the way down, 1/2 rolling my ankle. I can’t imagine how sloppy I’d have been if I had pushed myself to go to the top.

I started a timer to wait for Rod, deciding that if he wasn’t back within 4 hours, I would see about either going up to look for him or sending up a search party.

While waiting, I enjoyed the atmosphere of the docks and the fire lodge. I also got to talk to a charming couple who had been coming here for years and were now in their 80s, plus two tour guides doing boat tours. One, a charming young lady from New Zealand was here on a work permit, and another captain, a more leathered gentleman. They both talked about what it was like to be a tour captain here, and the young lady also encouraged me to visit New Zealand as well.

Rod made it back after a few hours, so no need to send in the cavalry, and I rowed us back to Quijote. While rowing, a cruiser came along, dropped anchor and started to back into us. It was a bit concerning and we got a lungful of their exhaust, but no contact, no foul, right?

Climbing aboard Quijote, I was drenched in sweat, for it was a warm day, so a dip in the water was definitely on the agenda, despite the warning about jellyfish at the dock. It was a bit cooler than I remembered, but still a welcome refreshment.

Nap time in the afternoon – about three hours worth, and then dinner, left overs from yesterday. Both Rod and I gorged ourselves as it wasn’t really going to be enough remaining to make a meal plus there really wasn’t room in the refrigerator to put the pot.

Tomorrow is going to be a very lazy start as we can’t get out of Malibu Rapids until approximately noon. That’s an hour away, so we are anchors up approximately 10:30. After the rapids it’s approximately 8 hours of travel time, so I’ll be making dinner while in transit and we’ll eat on the go. It won’t really leave much time to enjoy Thunder Bay, but according to Rod, there’s really not much to it anyway. It’s merely convenient.

We are 5 days/4 nights from Campbell River where we’ll restock and then turn south for a faster trip back to Seattle.

Oh, did I mention that we’re sharing this inlet with not only a few other boaters, but also at least one humpback. The fluke size says that it’s a juvenile, and the pectoral fin is too long for an Orca. Humpbacks are the only other whale species that I know frequent these waters. We’ve seenit lifting the flukes out of the water and the pectoral fin, but not any of the aerial acrobatics that are so exciting to watch.

Dol Cove to Princess Luisa Inlet

 

Was running my new software today. Certainly I’ve noticed some things that I’ll have to fix, but for the most part it behaved quite well and gave us information that Rod’s chart plotter doesn’t. Nothing crucial, more like “nice to have” information rather than “must have”, such as our ETA at the rapids given our current rate of advance.

We saw several whales on our way. Looked like smallish humpbacks again. I wonder if they’re in migration now? Usually we’re keyed in to their presence by seeing a blow and then watching for them, though occasionally we’ll spot them before they blow, or when their fluke lifts up into the air. There is something about seeing a marine mammal that is just awe inspiring, and not only because of their size. Porpoises and Dolphins do it for me as well.

At one point Rod was down in the cabin and I was on watch when I saw two or three whales dead ahead at about 200 yards. We were really no danger to them, but the law says not to approach, so I turned us off to starboard and then just watched them take a few breaths and slip back under the water – except one that lifted their fluke up into the air. I realize they were just diving, but it almost felt like they were waving goodbye, as we didn’t see them again.

The transit through the rapids was a non-event – no rapids due to hitting them at exactly slack tide. We had arrived about an hour early and so just idled back and forth once or twice to kill time. The water was smooth as glass as we came through and then the area started opening up.

It’s truly lovely here, surrounded by mountains with the sound of a waterfall behind us making its white-noise sounds This is also a stern tie place and that’s a whole story I’ll tell at the end. Around us are more boats, but they aren’t close enough to feel like we’re crowded, and it seems like everyone is of the same mind not to disturb the quiet serenity here.

Dinner was Spinach and sausage soup along with cream cheese and crackers and bread and butter. Spinach soup does not sound appetizing but either the “eating on a boat” magic spell hit or something, because the soup is delicious. We both had seconds, and we’ll have it again tomorrow for dinner as well.

Dessert was pie again. Rod finished off the remainder of the apple pie while I had peach. There’s room in the refrigerator now so the pie goes in there and, hopefully, won’t get mold on it before we’ve consumed it.

We’re going to be here for another day, our first time not traveling each day. It’s kind of nice and relaxing to take a break from travel and just relax. We’ll go for a hike tomorrow morning and then do some boat maintenance in the afternoon. Plus I have to make a decision about plunges in the water. Is my new tradition a plunge in each anchorage and it doesn’t require a repeat tomorrow – not that I’m averse to it, or is it a plunge each day in an anchorage, in which case tradition demands another plunge tomorrow? I did go in today just in case, though.

Stern tieing in Luisa Inlet... I was towing the end of the line behind me in the dinghy and approaching the rock which we were to use for stern tie. There were two lines hanging down from the rock, either of which can be used. However there was a problem. We were near low-tide and in order to get to those lines I would have to stand up in the dinghy and lean on the rock since it was slightly tilted away from me. This, in turn, would push the dinghy out from under me and I’d do the cartoon thing of trying to walk on water before splashing down in shallow water with irregular (some of them somewhat pointy) rocks just waiting. So after trying to approach it from different angles, I decided to bring the dinghy to shore and try to climb the shoreward side. Someone else had the same idea and had piled some rocks against that side to give a boost.

Well either their hands were stickier than mine or they had a boost or they failed, because even with that pile of rocks, there was just no way. I ended up deciding to just wade in, geting as deep as my waist before coming up on the seaward side of the rock. Here there was a rock ledge to stand on and I was just able to stretch up and put the line through a loop. Of course now I was drenched to the waist – clothes that I had intended to sleep in, and my shoes were filled with water. Vesi claims that their shoes are waterproof, and they are. At least until the depth of the water is higher than the top of the shoe. There’s nothing to stop water from coming in over the top. Further, I can attest that Vesi shoes are as good at retaining water as they are at keeping water out. Oh well, task complete. I’ll find something to sleep in and my shoes are drying on the deck. I know, I know, SUCH problems I have, eh?

Nanaimo to Dols Cove

 

Well, all the forecasts yesterday was that it was going to be another day of wind like we had going to Nanaimo. They were wrong. There was nearly no wind and the passage was smooth and easy. Sure, there was the occasional train of waves that were so well timed that they got us rocking, but for the most part we could have been in a (very) large lake.

This was the first passage of this trip for just Rod and myself and, I believe, the first passage where it was only the two of us in the several trips I’ve done with him before. It’s always been at least three of us aboard, but not for the rest of this trip.

“Whiskey Golf” was active today. That’s an area of the Strait of Georgia that the military uses to do things like test torpedoes. When active, boats are supposed to stay clear of it. This meant that rather than a straight course across the Strait (see what I did there?) we had to run up the coast before turning to cross. It added some miles, but it sure beats arguing Collision Regulations with a torpedo (or explaining to the range officer why we ignored all the warnings being broadcast).

We also stern-tied, which means we drop an anchor and back towards shore. Then one of us (me) rows the dinghy to shore, pulls it around something and then the end is pulled back to Quijote and both ends fixed to cleats. Basically the stern tie line makes a long “V” shape where the top of the “V” are the two cleats on Quijote and the bottom of the “V” is where the line is held by whatever we’re using on shore. When it comes time to leave, we untie one end of the “V” from Quijote and pull the other end so that the free end zips back to shore, goes around the shore item, and back to us. Pull up the anchor and off we go.

So why stern tie? It limits the amount of “swing” that our boat will exhibit as the tides change. This allows more boats to use a small area. We each are kind of hung between our stern line to shore and our anchor in the water rather than (potentially) swinging in a circle around our anchor.

As usual, I took my traditional dunking into the water. Somehow it feels like the water is getting warmer as we move north. Either that, or I’m getting more used to it. The first plunge was as short as I possibly could make it – my feet didn’t even leave the boarding ladder, and even then I exclaimed rather loudly about how cold it was. Now I’m jumping off the bow and swimming along the boat and saying, “Ok, that’s cold, but not terrible” or even “quite refreshing”. This somehow feels wrong. Shouldn’t things get colder as we move north?

Dinner was cheeseburgers on the barbeque with broccoli on the side. You’d think that would be one of the easier dishes to make, but it turned out to be quite involved. First was setting up the barbeque in the first place. Then came the recipe for the burgers, which included an egg, finely chopped oats, worcestershire sauce, and lord knows what else. The broccoli was done in the pressure cooker. Dessert was going to be apple pie, but when I opened the pie, I noticed green fuzzy growth on the pie. Having had food poisoning twice already, I’m now paranoid about that sort of thing and opted out of the apple pie, instead going for the peach pie. Rod had some of the apple pie after cutting out the moldy parts and he seems Ok, but I’d rather not take the risk. It’s a shame because the slice of apple pie I had on previous nights was quite tasty. The peach pie, which we bought in Nanaimo, tastes more like a can of peaches was placed on a pillsbury pie crust. I mean it’s still pie, but not up the apple pie quality.

Tomorrow we are going to have to transit Malibu Rapids at nearly the end of our journey. There are only two times tomorrow that we can do that, and we can’t make the morning one. Thus it’s up at the crack of dawn to ensure we’ll make it to the rapids at slack tide in the afternoon. G’night!

Dogfish Bay to Nanaimo

 A very lazy morning until about 9:30, when we all decided to just go for it.  Why not?  We'd have the current behind us coming in, so why wait for slack?

Once we were out from the shelter of the islands, we were hit with pretty sharp chop.  The wind was blowing in the high teens to low 20 knots, pushing up the waves into steep sided slaps that had Quijote sometimes pitching and bringing water in over the bow.  Still we were making a respectable 4 1/2 knots of progress.

Along the way Tina pointed out an Orca and I turned just in time to see the last bit of its back and tail as it dove.  We caught sight of it once more before it disappeared into the water. It might have been a small humpback too, I suppose but it seemed orca-ish, the little bit of it I saw.

Nanaimo can be a busy harbour with not only pleasure boats, large, and small ferries, but also float planes, so it was with caution that we proceeded to our anchorage off Mayne island.  This used to be all anchorage, but they've placed a lot of mooring balls as well, which has squeezed those of us who anchor into a smaller space.  Choosing a place to drop anchor wasn't easy, but finally the chain was rattling out and we backed down until Rod decided we had let out as much chain as possible without risking that we would swing into another vessel if the wind or tide changed appreciably.

After a bit of a respite to kill time, we started getting ready to put Tina ashore since today was the last day of her voyage with us.  And here is where the adventure truly begins.

Three of us in that dinghy were definitely pushing its limits, plus we had to cross the harbour with all the above-mentioned traffic.  In addition was the previously mentioned strong winds.  Because of this, it was decided to use the outboard motor, which Rod mounted while I was working on repairing one of the safety lines.  Soon we were all boarding - Rod, Tina, Tina's bag, and me.  The engine was a little cranky about starting, but eventually it settled into a throaty purr and off we went... for about 200 meters before the engine stopped.  Rod started it and we continued until the motor stopped again.  It was on the third repetition that the motor simply refused to start again.  Looking back and forth, it was decided to row back to the boat rather than across the channel.

The blade on one of the oars was slipping and would keep feathering itself, which would then require that we stop rowing, readjust it, and then continue.  Progress was slow and about to get slower.  You see, the blade that was feathering itself?  It decided to go on vacation and slipped off the shaft, floating off for some other destination.  We were now down to the following resources:
 

1. overloaded dinghy
2. three passengers
3. one working oar
4. the shaft of an oar, but without the blade
5. Non-working engine.

So we started paddling for all we were worth towards the oar blade, still floating on the surface.  Over the next 20 minutes we made, perhaps, 10 feet of progress towards that blade as we were paddling upwind in a dinghy not designed to be paddled, with an oar not designed to be a paddle, in steep chop and heavy winds. And both the blade and us were losing ground to the boat.  There was simply no way we were going to make it back to the boat without that second oar, and we weren't going to make it back to the oar, never mind figuring out how to temporarily fix it.

Fortunately, the small water taxi that plies back and forth between Protection Island and the mainland spotted our troubles and came to investigate.  They couldn't actually help, but they stood by until another boat towed us back to Quijote.  Once there the problem with the engine was diagnosed, corrective action taken, but it was decided instead to motor to the nearby Dinghy Dock pub, throw ourselves on their mercy to allow us to tie up to their dock, and take the water taxi to the mainland.

All this time, one of Tina and Rod's friends were awaiting our arrival at the Lighthouse pub as well.

Eventually we made it there and had a nice early dinner with them.  Tina bid her farewells to us and went with them for a ride to Victoria and thence a ferry homeward.  Meanwhile Rod and I did a little provisioning, took the water taxi back to the dinghy, cast off and made it back to the boat without any difficulties.

Tomorrow, conditions are supposed to be much the same.  It will be just Rod and me for the rest of the trip, and we've prepped the boat to sail across the Georgia Strait back to the mainland for a few days of travel up the east side and into Desolation Sound before crossing back over to Campbell River, the point at which the trip turns and we head back towards Seattle. 

Bedwell harbor to Dogfish Bay

I was awake at 5 this morning, woken by a rather insistently full bladder, but then couldn't get back to sleep.  I knew this was a "sleep in" day with a late start, but I just couldn't, so I lay in my berth and read the last of the book.  Maybe I dozed too, but if I did, I was unaware of it.  Then, around 1/4 to 7, I grabbed my computer and wandered up on deck to do some writing.  Not long after Tina was up and eventually Rod.

The morning was quite breezy and we were all wearing light, but warmer, clothing as we pulled up anchor.  This one came up quite clean, as opposed to yesterday where I felt we were actually dredging up half the bottom mud and it took a boathook to dislodge some of it and send it back to the green depths.

The reason for the (planned!) late start was to take advantage of favourable currents.  We wouldn't be able to get through Gabriola passage until early evening anyway, so there was no real reason to rush.  In fact we throttled down and let the current furnish 1 to 2 knots of our speed over ground.  Despite that and a brief stop to view a rookery, we were still going to arrive almost an hour early.  More throttling down plus a nap by the captain, after he turned the watch over to the crew, two idling rectangles to burn off more time, and we went into the passage about 20 minutes early.

The passage was mostly uneventful, though eddy currents did push us around a bit, with our nose pointing almost 20 degrees off our direction of travel at one point.

Arriving at our destination, we settled the boat.  The sun was high and warm (we had shed our warmer clothes a long time ago) and so there was every reason to do my ritual plunge into wherever we anchored.  I don't know if I'm acclimating to the water or its getting warmer, but this time rather than calling upon a deity, I confined my commentary to a mild, "Oh my."

Dinner was left overs from the last few nights - walnut chicken, thai basil rice with chicken, and beef stew, clearing out some room in the refrigerator for laying in more supplies at our next stop, Nanaimo.

The rest of the evening was occupied with reading, writing, a few boat repairs such as re-affixing one of the navigation lights to its mount and changing out the zip tie on the anchor shackle as a just in case.  So now we're sitting in a quit anchorage, our last with the three person crew.  Tomorrow is another late start to take advantage of currents as we motor around to Nanaimo to debark Tina, lay in some more supplies, and then it's just Rod and me for the rest of the trip. 

Alec's Bay to Bedwell Harbour

Another (intentional) late start today to let the opposing current mellow out a bit before we breast into it.  A short day, 25-ish miles, but we still don't want to push into a current that might cut our speed and half, wasting fuel.

The course chosen by the skipper took us through the northernmost of the the U.S. San Juan islands up a scenic channel, finally ending up at Bedwell Harbour where we checked into Canada.  Strangely, they didn't really seem all that interested in our passport information or anything official like that, but c'est la vie. They're the experts on this stuff.

Most of the day was motoring along on the autopilot.  Rod prefers to use the heading hold mode of it rather than the course following option.  In some ways I suppose it would be easy to become complacent and just let "George" do all the work, lowering the guard and watchfulness.

After we checked in, we motored away from the customs dock to a little nook that Rod uses every time he comes this way and we anchored.  It was a warm day, perhaps the warmest we will get this weekend, so I decided to be brave and take my obligatory/traditional plunge by jumping off the bow of the ship.  I knew once I said it that I was not going to be happy with this decision, but a commitment is a commitment so in I went and HOLY SWEET BABY JESUS IT'S COLD!  It took an effort not to gasp since my head was underwater from the jump in, and it seemed to take forever to reach the surface where I could gasp and complain and kvetch and then make my way as fast as I could to the stern-mounted swim ladder without putting my face back in the water.

I've never climbed a swim ladder so fast.

I had staged my towel to be waiting for me right there, but as I'm standing on the swim step, I realize that it's actually quite comfortable.  The sun's heat and the water's chill had somehow found a happy medium, so I stood there, dripping, and enjoying both.

Tonight was a two-cook effort with Rod and Tina doing the cooking.  Walnut chicken, which looked and tasted very similar to the chicken dish last night, but we wanted to cook the raw chicken and, honestly, both nights were delicious.  We've now accumulated enough left overs to make tomorrow's meal a left-overs meal.

Rod and Tina went ashore and I elected to stay on the boat, as is often my wont.  While they did a bit of hiking, I did some programming, some writing, and was just considering doing reading when they returned.  Tonight is blog writing (obviously) and then probably some more reading before turning in.  I'm sure tomorrow is another late start of a day, though I'm not entirely sure, nor what the destination actually is. 

Port Ludlow to Alec's Bay

We couldn't have asked for nicer conditions for crossing the San Juan de Fuca strait.  We started out with a current helping to push us along, building until at one point we were making 10 knots speed over ground on a motor that normally pushes along at about 5 1/2 knots.

We did encounter a patch of rough water, but it was more likely due to a currents  - a wind on tide situation.  However, once we got abreast of the San Juan De Fuca, it was smooth as a pond.  However, that also marked a demarcation between a current that was pushing us to a current that we were fighting, and our speed dropped to 3 1/2 knots, taking us a while to do the last bits.  Still, we arrived just after noon to a beautiful bay at the south end of Lopez island, which we have almost entirely to ourselves.  Two other boats, and the nearest has to be 200 meters or more away.

Rod and I inflated the dinghy and then he and Tina rowed ashore to hike and see the progress made on their friend's house.  Meanwhile I stayed aboard and took a dip (and I mean dip - the water is just too cold for me to actually go even for a dunk!) into the water as is my custom since Florida, then read and contemplate taking a nap.  This contemplation was interrupted by the return of the captain and crew, at which time it was decided that a nap really was a good idea and I read myself to sleep for a good siesta.

Upon waking it was sprung on me that it was my turn to cook.  I was presented with a recipe card and a salon table full of materials - Thai Basil Rice.  Chop this, dice that, sautee those things, etc.  I felt I was working in a chemical plant.  As is usual with me, nothing actually did what the card said it should be, so there was a bit of on-the-fly improvisation.  In the end, though it came out acceptably.

Now the sun is going down, the temperature is gradually dropping, and soon it will be time to put sweat pants and a fleece back on.

Tomorrow will be a relatively late start as we head to Bedwell Harbour to go through border into Canada, where we'll be for most of the rest of the trip.  A somewhat short day awaits us, about 24 or 25 miles. 

Seattle to Port Ludlow

Well, so far so good!  We successfully went through the locks and drawbridge, wended our way up Puget Sound and are set in the Anchorage at Port Ludlow.

I don't think I truly realized how much water has to come through these channels each day to fill and empty all the way down to Seattle, but I got a good feel for it as we were bucking the tidal current coming south as we were going north.  our speed over ground dropped to just a bit over 1 knot despite our normal cruising speed of over 5 knots.

There are parts of Quijote's operation that I still remember and parts I don't recall.  Light switches are easy.  Just keep finding them and flipping them until the light I want is on.  Making sure the plumbing valves are correct, not so easy.  I might have, accidentally, been sending pee through the wrong pipes, unfortunately.

Sleeping last night was easy.  I always sleep well on a boat, especially when I have no worries about the next day.  As I said before, Quijote is impeccably maintained.  Sure, something can go wrong.  It's a boat, after all, but it's not because something was neglected.

Aboard we have the owner (Rod) and Tina, his long time girlfriend (long time as in they've been together for as long as I've known them).  We originally were going to have more, but emergencies knocked it down to we three, and Tina is only aboard to Nanaimo.  After that it will just be Rod and myself up to Campbell River and then back to Seattle.

It will be mostly motoring.  That's just a fact here in the Pacific Northwest where the winds hibernate in the summer.  We're not averse to sailing, but there has to be decent wind for that, otherwise we motor along.  This follows on the heels of a month of motoring the previous delivery sailboat.  One of these days I'll be on a boat with sails up again!

It was a beautifully clear day here - bright sunshine.  The day was warm, but with the breeze, it was cool enough that we were all wearing light jackets or fleeces on and off, depending on whether we were sheltering behind the dodger or standing out in the wind - a wind strong enough to bring white caps to the winds at times.

Dinner was a fabulous stew that Rod normally makes in an Instapot.  We don't have the power to run an instapot, but it adapted marvelously to a pressure cooker over the propane stove.  Dessert was a slice of Marionberry Pie.  Tomorrow we raise anchor and head northwards some more, though we'll spend the night still in the U.S.  Meanwhile more familiarization with the housekeeping routine on Quijote since it's been 4-ish years since I was actually aboard her, maybe more. 

A new travel on Quijote

 After several years of absence, I'm once again embarking on Quijote under her owner/captain Rod.  My first trip aboard her was a month-long excursion along the west side of Vancouver Island back in 2017.  We had connected through a crew board and I had driven down to spend the day with him and get a feel for him and his boat.

Rod is a soft-spoken man behind which is a huge amount of competence, and Quijote is maintained to impeccable standards.  Based on that one day, I signed on for part of a Vancouver Circumnavigation, expressly the western (ocean side).  That was a month-long enjoyable trip and began years of association.

My next trip with Quijote was helping to transport her from Seattle to San Diego in preparation for the Baja Ha ha, though there was a 5-day workup cruise on her a month before that.  During that trip we made port stops in San Francisco, Monterey, and Catalina Island, before setting her to bed in San Diego until it was time for the Baja.

Returning to her, 4 of us participated in the Baja Ha Ha and ended up taking first in our division.  That was the first part of a planned Pacific circumnavigation which got cancelled due to the Covid catastrophe.  Eventually Rod brought her back to Seattle via Hawaii with a paid skipper and crew.

Then there was the trip up to Prince Rupert.  I didn't crew on Quijote, but we buddy-boated up, sailing and motoring independently, but meeting up each evening, often rafting together.  At Prince Rupert, we went our separate ways.

And now here we are once again.  This time it will be only three of us for part of the trip and then two of us.  Rod and I get along.  We're neither of us loud brash people, neither of us party people, neither of us drinkers.  We prefer the quiet of our own thoughts.  Companionable silence, in essence.

I drove down today so that I can be aboard and ready to go bright and early, even though we actually aren't departing until 9am.  It makes for a calm departure rather than trying to rush and get there in time to help prep the boat.

Can't wait.

Oh, and this time, unlike before, I get the Vee berth!