The waiting game: Passage from the Lake to the Sound

Last week, Scott and I pulled out of our Lake Union slip to begin this summer's adventure northward. Never before have I been as personally, mentally exhausted at departure time as I am this year. My final day of presentations for work was the day before. We've hired someone to take the summer schedule for us and it'll be the first time I'm not personally teaching for our most important client. I'm still not actually completely finished getting him ready to go, yet. Then there's the general final-projects-before-leaving stress--this year the biggie was replacing the gearbox in our windlass. Other small projects were ongoing for the few weeks before. I was exhausted.

Fremont Bridge opening

Leaving on a Sunday, we hoped for quick passage through the Ship Canal that connects Lake Union to Puget Sound. The car bridges have no rush-hour restrictions on opening and there wouldn't be commuter trains in addition to the regular freight trains forcing the train bridge to stay closed.

We got to the Fremont Bridge and Scott gave them a hearty long, then short toot on our air horn. The bridge replied with three short toots. We looked at each other. What the hell does three short toots mean? A reply of a long and a short would have told us that he was going to open for us, five shorts would mean he wasn't. But three shorts?

We waited.

Eventually, hovering in front of the bridge, we saw boat traffic coming toward us from Ballard and figured the bridge operator was waiting for them to get to the bridge to save opening for us separately. As a small sailboat got closer, we expected to hear the signal to open. Nothing. The little boat kept right on coming, easily clearing beneath the still-closed bridge and passing by us. Show off.

Finally as two large power boat approached, the bridge operator signaled to open, eventually dropped the bars to keep foot and car traffic from crossing the bridge, and then, after a bit longer, opened.

Ballard Bridge opening

We passed under, tootled along the Ship Canal, and got to the Ballard bridge. We signaled the operator: one long, one short. The reply: five shorts. We would wait. Before too excruciatingly long of a wait, we received a long and short and the bridge opened.

As we came up to the locks, Scott noticed an Argosy ship coming up behind us. As a commercial vessel, we knew our place in line for the locks would get bumped for them to pass first. We tied up to the small locks waiting area and waited. Though I've heard parts of Argosy's tourist spiel many times before, but this time learned that not only is the large locks 800 feet long, but that the Space Needle would fit lying down in it. Huh.

We looked ahead to the train bridge just past the locks, our last obstacle to Puget Sound. It was open. I crossed my fingers that it would stay that way.

Argosy locked through the small locks as the large locks filled beside us with small vessels. We got our large locks line ready, in case we ended up in there instead of the much more comfortable and fast small locks. Argosy dropped with the water, the locks operators brought the water back up to lake level, the locks doors opened, and we got the green light to enter the small locks. Finally, a bit of good news!

Tied up in the small locks. You can see the 22' drop to salt water and the train bridge, open, ahead.

We locked through with only one small runabout for company. By this time the train bridge was closed again. Bummer. Before departing the locks, one of the locks attendants told us we were at a negative tide and we'd have 52' of clearance under the train bridge. Even with Mother Nature supporting us to her fullest extent, our 55' mast still would not pass beneath the bridge. We would wait.

Exiting the locks, a seal greeted us, lazily looking around, checking things out. Before long, the train came, then passed. Scott signaled one long, one short, just in case the bridge operator hadn't seen us hovering below. The reply was five short toots. We would wait. There was apparently another train coming…

After what felt like plenty of time for the bridge to have open and closed multiples times, the next train finally arrived, slowing as it crossed the bridge, until it stopped, just past the bridge but with apparently not enough clearance between the end of the train and the opening portion of the bridge. We waited.

Finally the train cleared, the bridge opened, and we were free of all the troubles of living on the lake. We pulled directly into Shilshole, our home of 2 years before we moved back to Lake Union in 2011. We emptied our holding tank and pulling into a sturdy slip in their ample off-peak season guest moorage section of the marina.

Even though Scott did all of the work of getting us to the marina, I feel into a deep sleep and napped while he cleaned the decks in preparation for our upcoming haul out. I never even heard him scrubbing away on the decks 3 feet above my head. I woke up long after he'd finished.

Shilshole's forest of masts.

I thought the different noises the boat makes when we're moored in a different place would keep me up that night. The wind patterns are different, stronger, out on the sound. When the wind catches the boom of the jib differently, the rattles and pings of the hardware are different. The rub of fenders against Shilshole's concrete dock would be different than the rub against the wood of our lake dock. Also, the fenders would be higher against the hull at Shilshole as well. All of that stuff sounds different from inside the cabin.

None of it kept me awake as I thought it would. I guess I was too tired for that.

Scott was up at 6:00 the next morning, stowing, preparing, doing all those things he does. He let me lay in bed extra long, until I felt too guilty for not buzzing around like I usually am the morning of our first sail of the season. We wouldn't be going far, just Everett. And it looked like it would be a calm, downwind sail, which was good. The boat is full of extra things for the haulout: the buffer for waxing, and a sander and giant shop vac for getting the old paint off the bottom before new paint is added this year. So heading downwind, keeping the boat mostly flat, was good for all of those extras and for all the stowage I was sure I had overlooked.

As we pulled out of Shilshole at 8:00 sharp, I could feel the low swell of Puget Sound the instant we passed the breakwater. More than any aspect of the lake, that low swell felt like home to me. We put Seattle behind us.

From Hot Springs Cove

I find that I am very much crimped in my choice of subject matter by not being able to look and see what I have already written about.

Anyway, these past few days have found us at Hot Springs Cove, north of Tofino, the prime destination of most West Coast cruisers. We're happy to get here; our luck with the weather has been not great and the sailing has been pretty lousy for the last few legs. Well, everything south of the Brooks Peninsula has been bad, really... we left the Klaskish Basin (a lovely spot, if I haven't already mentioned it) on a day that was dawning sunny and forecast to have moderate winds--just the thing for rounding Cape Scott. We were leaving early to make a long hop to our next destination, because we had already waited a couple extra days to avoid gales.

Almost as soon as we got out the entrance, though, we got into heavy fog, and a sloppy swell with hardly any wind to speak of. And that pretty much describes everything since: motoring or motor-sailing or sitting almost becalmed in a lumpy white nether-world where no one and nothing else was to be seen.

Beyond that, out of poor planning or tenacity, most of our anchorages in the interval have been marginal and rolly. We didn't mind so much, since the weather is pretty settled, but it's nice to get in here finally where not a tiny little lump of ocean swell can penetrate.

We stopped off at a place called Rugged Point which is a marine park that was pretty neat. There were miles of interesting beach to explore on the outside, and we did, walking all the way down to where a small stream comes out of the mountains and into the sea. We spent a lot of time poking around the tideline and found some (possibly) tsunami debris... plastic bottles with Japanese labels, and, more disturbing, lumber that looked like it might have at one time been the frame of a house. But strange stuff from distant lands washes up out here all the time so who is to say when and whence this came? We also found two oil barrels from Korea. Empty, fortunately or not.

After Rugged Point we jumped to the aptly named Rolling Roadstead. It's a vast, safe anchorage that is right out on the ocean, protected by a longish island but otherwise open to wind and swell. Despite that, there's absolutely nothing to hit in there and very firm holding, so we were fine for the night, despite bouncing around a bit.

We had planned to continue south for Hot Springs that day, but three things happened: one, no wind to speak of; two, solid fog (again); and three, a 0643 forecast update for thunderstorms. Not long after, I heard the first echo of thunder. So, we decided to get the heck out of Dodge and go up into Esperanza Inlet, where we stopped at Esperanza, a tiny village tucked onto the side of a mountain, and Tahsis, where we stopped last time. We hadn't planned to go there again; it's a neat little town but it's a long way out of the way and there's nothing much else along the route to see again. But, it is tucked in between two very high ridges, and seemed about the safest place you could be with lightning on the prowl.

So, we stayed a night, met another, much smaller boat also heading around the Island, and the interesting guys aboard her. So, that was worthwhile.

We did have a couple short stretches of decent sailing after that, out to the entrance to Nootka Sound, and then the next day down along the peninsula to Estevan Point. Unfortunately, at Estevan, just as we found last time, the seas were quite rough. Worse yet, just south of there, the wind died--again. So, we motored the last fifteen miles to Hot Springs, but in compensation for the wind dying off, the waves also receded, and the sun came out, so it was an otherwise good day on the water.

We'll probably stay here a few days to savor the accomplishment. The place is absolutely over-run with tourists (not that we aren't also tourists!) coming in on speedboats and aircraft between about 10am and 5pm, but before or after those hours, we pretty much have it to ourselvses. We're the only boat here now.

When we came in, there were two Dutch boats anchored out. We've heard about these guys from EVERYONE else we have talked to on the coast here... unfortunately, I can't exactly remember their claim to fame, but it has something to do with the Northwest Passage. They either came through it or they are going home that way, or something. They are supposedly very nice and extremely interesting, but, alas, they pulled out the day after we arrived and we never got a chance to meet them. Perhaps at another stop.

Anyway, we'll be heading to the bright lights/big city of Tofino next, but we're in no rush, having picked up some supplies and refilled our water tanks at Tahsis. It's been foggy here, too, but we can wait almost as long as we like for better weather, and we plan to!

Back so soon?

Back on the Internet, anyway, later the same day we left Port McNeill... well, that was unexpected!

We're in Port Hardy, which is just a few miles up the coast. We had thought we might end up here, but we had anticipated anchoring out, sans Internet access, etc, etc. It was just going to be a quick overnight stop.

But the anchorage here, always marginal, was entirely crowded out with crab pots. We hunted around for a half hour or so trying to find someplace that was secure and where we wouldn't swing into a dock or a pot or a mudflat, but just couldn't get comfortable with anything.

So, we bailed out and got a spot at the Quarterdeck Marina for the night.

As it happens, this works out well, because I also discovered, inadvertently, this afternoon that the chart chip for our Garmin plotter for the "West Coast Vancouver Island" does indeed show the West Coast of Vancouver Island... but in almost no detail. Zoom down as much as you like, no contours appear, and rock and obstacle marks remain large and imprecise.

We use, in practice, a combination of the plotter and our paper charts, which means we have redundancy for the whole route. But this disturbing discovery compels us to double-check our paper chart inventory and ensure that we have all the plans for the various emergency anchorages along the route, and other updated small-scale charts that we might not have otherwise felt necessary.

The marina here has a nice little chandelry with a fairly complete chart catalog. So, come morning, we'll amble on up there and fill in any gaps that we might find going over our itinerary and inventory tonight.

Where to and when

Today is our last day in Port McNeill, probably. We're trying not to be rushed, and we'll certainly finish up all our dockside activities today, provisioning, fueling, watering, and so forth. But it's probably not all going to be done in the next two hours, and that puts us in an uncomfortable position with respect to tides... we'll be fighting a current if we leave and head north much later than that.

This is sort of a microcosm of our larger decisions in the next several days. We are, at the moment, in a pretty good weather window for rounding Cape Scott. Winds are supposed to be relatively light through Wednesday. But we would have to make pretty good time to get in a position to be around on Wednesday, and the current situation is almost directly opposite of the weather: the timing of favorable currents is terrible this week, most of them occurring very early or very late in the day.

If we wait for better current times, we're edging into nastier weather forecasts. On the other hand, we're not thrilled at the prospect of making the passage largely in the dark, considering the profusion of rocks along the route, the ever-present procession of dead--heads and other drift that may always be encountered along this coast, and the new and more ominous consideration of heavy tsunami debris which has started to pop up all along the west coast of the Island.

So, we may end up waiting a week, through the icky weather, in dreary anchorages. Or we may push through and get around early, and risk the dark.

Either way, we're certainly pulling out of the marina here in a few hours, so I have to get moving!

Wind and Windlasses

It's been breezy here in Port McNeill and I'm glad we're tied up securely at the town harbour and not out at anchor like the poor folks who showed up after we did on Saturday. Turns out it's a big weekend here, or maybe just typical of the high season... we got the second to last available spot on the dock when we pulled in around 3pm. I hadn't even been in a particular hurry; I had heard they'd expanded the docks here, and a competing private marina has gone in next door, so I figured there would be plenty of space.

We're glad to have it. We're way out on the end of the new floats, so our Internet connection is pretty marginal, but the water is good, we have power, and the showers are clean and don't charge by the minute. High living, indeed.

I spent most of my day today catching up on business and bills while Mandy trekked in to the laundromat. I found a few spare minutes to dig into the busted windlass a little more and research it online: enough to realize there's probably not much benefit in taking it further apart.

From what I can tell, it sounds most like the gears have stripped out entirely in the gearbox. Fortuitously, another blogger at Three Sheets just posted of a similar experience (with a different windlass, but of a similar type). What happened to him mirrors closely what happened to us. The pictures of the gears are most illuminating.

I then found some posts by other folks who do have the same model windlass as we do, describing the difficulty of getting the gearbox and drive shaft separated. It took a hydraulic press in a machine shop in their case. It sounds like I could get the box off the motor easily enough, and could then take it somewhere, but I think having the shaft out of the windlass would negate it's ability to work in manual. And then we'd be entirely out of luck.

So, it sounds like we're going to get a good workout for the rest of the trip, cranking the anchor assembly in by hand. Hopefully we won't run into winds like this when we do so, because the process isn't fast, and doesn't allow one of us at the helm while we're doing it (sometimes helpful to keep the boat on station--or off the rocks--while the anchor is down, but not secure). When we pulled out of Carriden Bay the other day, I did it all myself, but that was dead calm and I only had to bring it up 18 feet.

There will be a time when it is blowing twenty knots and I have to haul it up fifty feet or more, and that I am not looking forward to.

Port Mac

I like Port McNeill well enough, but was hoping not to be here on this trip, for a variety of reasons at different points. Initially, we'd talked of bypassing the Island altogether and going north further along the mainland side of Queen Charlotte Strait. Then, when it became clear we didn't really have time or a purpose in doing that, we had discussed exploring the Broughtons and jumping straight over to Port Hardy, closer to the north tip of the Island, instead of back-tracking.

But too much about Port Hardy is unknown to us, and we've lost the luxury of exploring independently for now... we need a good store, fuel, moorage, and Internet, all at reasonable, or at least known, prices, and we are sure of finding all that in "Port Mac" as it's known up here.

We lost our powered windlass a couple days ago when pulling up the anchor in a place called Cypress Harbour. We're not entirely sure what happened. The motor still runs and sounds fine, and the windlass itself cranks and works properly in manual mode, but the motor is not turning the capstan when it is engaged. When it let go, it just dropped everything right to the bottom again, spinning freely, and that's what it does now. It seems that the motor is not attached to the capstan drive shaft any longer, or that the gears in the gearbox are broken, but the schematic we have doesn't go into a lot of detail on how that particular part of the system is put together.

The anchor system is too heavy to raise entirely by hand (I tried!) so we still need the windlass and I'm hesitant to take too much of it apart while that's the case. I've pulled apart the bits that are well-diagramed (basically, lifting off the capstan to check the shaft and gypsy and associated clutch parts) and it all looks to be in good condition on that end... although, of course, that isn't where the problem seems to be. Perhaps if I can find more information online while we are here I'll find enough confidence to pull the gearbox and have a look. It's likely a fairly simple worm-gear configuration so other than outright mechanical breakage I don't know either what the problem might be, or what I might be able to do to fix it.

At this point, I'm proceeding on the assumption we'll simply be doing without it until we get back home in August. It's an inconvenience but probably not a safety issue.

We're also low on just about every sort of supply (well, plenty of food left, but none of it fresh) and there are convenient and relatively cheap places to provision in Port Mac.

Then, too, we haven't been as excited about the Broughtons as we (or I, at least) had hoped to be. We were expecting something a little more remote, a little less busy, than Desolation Sound or the Gulf Islands, but it hasn't been any of that. If anything, there are more logging and fishing operations and more float homes clustered around the bays up here. Apart from the clear cuts and other industrial detritus, it's just as scenic as Desolation; however, there are fewer good anchorages, and they are generally smaller, and with as many or more cruising boats around (and float homes taking up much of the room permanently), they actually have been more crowded than what we found further south. And we hear from long-time cruisers up here that this is actually a slow year.

A lot of them seem to come up here for a more congenial, community-oriented cruising which is based largely around a handful of colorful, hospitable small marinas tucked away in nooks and hollows. We stopped off at Pierre's in Echo Bay, which was everything it was advertised to be: fun, friendly, entertaining. We went to Texas BBQ night and had some great ribs and even better beans, and great conversation with other boaters in for the night. Many of them have been coming up here for decades and are well-acquainted with the families that tend to run the marinas or live in the bays, and with other cruisers they see from year to year. The social scene around the marinas seems to be the big draw.

I can see the appeal of that but it's not really what we were looking for, and not something we're likely to be drawn into for a variety of reasons. So, I don't think either of us are feeling too bad about cutting the visit there short and skipping across to Port McNeill.

Echo Bay Deux

By my count, this is the second Echo Bay we have been in on this trip. I'm not counting too closely, though; there are Echo Bays all over the place, and who is to say that we haven't been by, in, or through several others along the way?

This particular Echo Bay is a well-known and well-liked marina in the Broughton Islands near the north tip of Vancouver Island. It's so well-liked that reservations are recommended. I don't think we needed any today (well, we didn't make them, and we're here, so I guess we didn't need them) but we spent the night nearby in Waddington Bay and got here early, just in case. It's Texas BBQ Night, one of many organized events here, and not the sort of thing you want to be late for.

We had planned to stop anyway, but we had some problems with the diesel yesterday that made us want to get to someplace with communications and, if necessary, float plane service before we dug into them. I don't recall if I mentioned it before or not, but we experienced a brief power drop a few days ago coming off Johnstone Strait where the engine would, without either of us touching the throttle, rev down about 500 RPMs or so.

Yesterday, it went even lower, and died a couple times. I can't be sure as to the cause, but one of the likely suspects is clogged filters, so we stopped here to change them.

Change them we did, but not without much difficulty. Whoever put the primary filter on last time around (we haven't changed them since we got the boat; haven't racked up that many engine hours) was a gorilla. My strap wrench is for our oil filter (come to think of it, the same guy must have put that on... that's why I had to buy the wrench in the first place) and is too small to fit around the big Racor filter element.

We jury-rigged something with a nylon strap, non-skid, a crescent wrench, and a pair of needle-nose pliers which finally managed to get the thing off... and put a big dent in it at that.

As is recommended, we put the new one on only hand-tight.

Someone installed an electric bypass pump in the fuel feed line, presumably for bleeding the engine, and that was what we used it for, apparently successfully, as it then started and ran for fifteen minutes without hiccuping.

Of course, it's going to work at the dock. Only time will tell if we've addressed the ultimate problem.

I'm also not sure if we simply hadn't been letting it warm up enough; we'll be doing that more religiously in the future also. If that's what the problem was, it speaks to deeper troubles, with pistons and such, but while they are more serious and more expensive, they are less urgent. If that's the case, we can finish the summer out without doing substantially more damage.

Or maybe it was just air in the line. If so, that will hopefully have been solved by our bleeding the system today (unless we didn't find the point of the leak; but there were no obvious drips, drops, or bubbles after we sealed everything up).

Anyway, it's almost BBQ time, I'd better go. After fighting with the engine most of the day, I've got quite an appetite built up.