Back in time

Wednesday Night
Although in many ways it seems like just another terrible thing on top of a summer that has already had more than its share of difficult moments, I'm trying to see it as a blessing that we have arrived back in Seattle just as my grandfather, in Spokane, has come down with what is probably a terminal bout of pneumonia. So, we're leaving again almost immediately. But I think I am lucky that I even can; had it been a month ago, I would probably not have known until it was done, and wouldn't have had the chance to go see him.

That was in the back of my mind when we left. Since suffering a nearly fatal heart attack a couple of years ago (I rushed over then thinking the same things that I am thinking now) he has never really recovered and instead has been on a long downhill slide during which any week could bring the bad news.

I don't know that this will actually be the end; Grandpa is pretty tough, and he lived through some things we never thought he would make it through before, so I won't count him out now until he stops fogging the mirror. It forces me to reflect, though, on what a shame it is that he will almost certainly never get to hear about our trip. Even if he pulls through this, his degradation is such that he has difficulty recognizing family members, and he hasn't shown much interest in anything the last few times I have visited him.

But it's a shame, because Grandpa was always a great traveller, and he would have loved to hear about the trip and see the pictures. He had travelled to all fifty states with the exception of New Jersey... he just "never found an excuse to go through there" in all his journeys, he said. By the time I was a teenager, he had taken me to places he had found and enjoyed seeing in twenty-five different states, and being on the road with him was one of the most formative experiences in my childhood... among the few memories I still have of those years, in fact. Burnt toast, his favorite breakfast repast, will forever remind me of waking up in the camper in some place I had never been before; and not infrequently someplace different from where I had gone to bed the previous evening, as his years of working the graveyard shift for Burlington Northern often found him awake in the early hours of the day even on vacation, which he would take advantage of by putting on more miles while I still slept. I think I felt a bit like he must have as I conned the boat along the quiet waters of the Inside Passage in the mornings as Mandy still slept below.

At any rate, we are going to go pick up my mother at the ferry terminal downtown shortly and drive to Spokane tonight to see him and stay for a bit.

- - -
Thursday Morning
Grandpa passed away about 10:30 last night, just a few hours after we arrived in town and stopped to see him. He was comatose and didn't appear to be in much pain, although his breathing was very laboured. They had him on oxygen and morphine. We chatted with each other and told him a bit about the trip, and I hope that at some level it made it through to him, even if it was just the subconscious reassurance of friendly voices in the room. The nurses and staff at the Spokane Veterans Home were wonderful to him and although it would have been better if he could have been at home, it was a physical and financial impossibility this last year. I'm just glad that we did get back in time to see him.

He didn't want a funeral so there is really nothing much to be done here. We collected his few belongings this morning and are going to dinner tonight with my grandmother, mother, aunts and uncle, and that will be about it until we scatter his ashes later this summer. He wanted it done up along the St Joe River, a beautiful place.

I feel a little flat today.

We'll probably head home tomorrow some time.

Is this the end?

We're in Port Townsend now, and I am having trouble deciding if this signifies the end of our trip, or when we actually get home. We didn't sleep on the boat last night, and probably won't again, so maybe that means we're done with it... although there is still much left to do even before we can leave it sitting out on the buoy for a month or two.

We had a pretty rough crossing of the Strait of Juan De Fuca yesterday. We pulled out of Garrison Bay around 0600 to catch a favorable tide, and we more or less drifted down Haro Strait after we killed the engine at the south end of Mosquito Pass. The winds were almost too light for steerageway at first, but then as we drifted clear of the island, they picked up quite a bit, first from the southeast, then veering to southwest and west, increasing in speed all the while. Haro Strait was a bit lumpy, two and three foot swells, close together, but when we got south into Juan De Fuca we started getting the big stuff in from the ocean, six and seven footers, and winds gusting to forty knots. Fortunately we were able to take most of the waves on the stern quarter; we nearly got pooped once but the wave broke just before it would have come over the transom. The cockpit drain got a workout nonetheless, as we took a lot of water over the sides and bow, much of which quickly came aft.

Mandy turned a little green but didn't throw up, and I felt fine the whole way. The wind was strongest around Hein Bank, and I had trouble controlling the boat but Mandy thought that trying to reef down was more dangerous than it was worth. In the event, she was probably correct; I was able to trim what I had and get on a reasonably steady course, but it reinforces the idea that one should always reef early. In these waters, that can be difficult to judge. They always say to reef as soon as you think about it, which means that if you are getting a sense that the wind is getting too stiff, you shouldn't wait around to confirm it but to go with your gut; but around these islands and headlands, you go from nothing to forty knots in the space of a mile or so, hardly enough to even start getting a sense of things.

Unfortunately, the winds die down just as fast... we were bobbing around in the swells with the sails slatting within a couple of hours as we approached Port Townsend. There was enough current and just barely enough breeze, though, to sweep us around the Point Wilson light and into the bay, where the wind promptly picked right up again.

I blew my approach to the buoy under sail by botching a gybe. I then found myself without enough sail up to beat back into the wind to give it another shot, and since Mandy was already ready to kill me for a sail plan change earlier in the day which forced us to wrestle the unruly new mainsail around on the boom, I gave up and started the engine to come in for mooring.

Still to be done are cleaning things up, offloading our various personal effects, stowing things for our absence so they won't mildew or come crashing down, and installing a float switch (which we already have; never bothered to put it in since we had such a dry bilge before) to operate the bilge pump automatically when the water level rises to a certain extent.

In US waters

Back in the US police state as of this afternoon.  What exactly is it that has convinced this government, and apparently so many of our citizens, that it is either going to make us friends or intimidate enemies to be treated like scum by incompetent civil servants at the borders?  It certainly doesn't feel good to be home... I feel a little tainted, actually.  I can only imagine what non-citizens might think.  And to those who think that a tough stance at the borders shows that we're powerful and not to be messed with, consider that the grim-faced, swaggering border guards are utterly incompetent.  If you come across someone who acts tough, but is a complete imbecile who can't even see through your little lies about bringing back a few vegetables, you don't find them intimidating, you find them laugable.

I don't say any of this because we had trouble clearing customs or even because they were particularly tough on us.  I think the agent even tried to crack a little bit of a smile, near the end.  But she was so grim, forbidding, and suspicious that I felt like turning back around and going to friendly, welcoming Canada again.

So; that's off my chest, anyway.

We anchored last night at Spencer Spit near Sydney, which is also apparently headquarters for BC Party Central.  It was a rocking Saturday night in the bay off the park, complete with party barges, whining runabouts, rollicking wakes, and possibly—just possibly—an incident of toplessness about four boats over.  I dare not say more.  Anyway, despite the regular presence of an RCMP patrol boat, it was quite the scene.  Mandy didn't appreciate it at all, being very tired after a hard day of shifting winds and strong currents, but it reminded me quite a bit of fun summers on the lakes in Eastern Washington and North Idaho when I was younger.

We sailed almost all the way from Butchart Cove to the Spit, motoring only for a stretch that was particularly windless up the Saanich Inlet.  The winds curve around the headlands and so you are almost always either heading directly into or away from the wind, neither of which are the most optimal points of sail.  In this instance, it was even worse for us, because of a particularly weak ebb tide which made it either flood or nearly flood against us all day long.

Since we don't have much of a time limit right now, I don't mind that sort of sailing so much, but it drove Mandy nuts.

Today we started out with some of that; although we were tucked in tight between some shoals and two other boats, and despite the wind being shifty and weak close in to shore, I managed to haul anchor and sail out of the anchorage.  It took almost an hour to round the spit and get into clear winds, though, a lot of tacking and maneuvering in light winds.

Once we cleared the reefs, though, it was a straight fast shot across Haro Strait to Roche Harbor.  And it was there in the Strait, rather than far north in some exotic locale, that we saw our first orca whales of the trip.  It was brief and we would have missed them entirely, as they were astern of us, but another boat nearby radioed to warn someone from heading into them.  There may have been two and they were on the surface only briefly, before disappearing.  We and the whale watching boats hung around for twenty minutes or so looking, but eventually all gave up and headed in.

Then we did the customs thing in Roche Harbor, topped off our tank (four gallons since French Harbour) and took on ice.  We had decided to stay in Garrison Bay, just south of Roche Harbor, for the night, since it has easy access to Haro Strait and we can get moving early tomorrow for our crossing of the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

Motoring down Mosquito Pass toward the bay, though, we heard a sudden snapping sound, and all our electrical instruments went dead.  Mandy went below immediately and saw smoke wafting from the engine compartment, but she checked quickly and there was no fire.  Some rudimentary troubleshooting elicited no results, and since Mosquito Pass has some tight spots and non-obvious hazards in the channel, we both turned our attention to navigating by paper charts through to Garrison Bay (both the chart plotter, with its exact GPS fix, and the depth sounder, our two primary tools for negotiating difficult passages, being offline).  We reached it without incident and I pulled out the multimeter to track down the problem.

After tracing the current from the batteries (all of which were good and with a full charge) through the system I found the culprit: the wire from the regulator to the positive bus bar on the switch panel had snapped, or rather the metal connector had snapped.  Additionally, the wire was melted in places.

I fortunately still had sufficient spares available to replace the wire and connectors, but it will probably have to be done again, since the spare parts are from my stock of electrical spares that got soaked when we sunk.  They will probably work for getting us home but I wouldn't want to trust them as permanent parts of the system.

It's still very nice, weather-wise, and we would love to go ashore and visit the English Camp park, but we're both pretty beat after all that and we are getting a pretty early start tomorrow to beat high winds in the Strait and to take advantage of favorable currents.  Maybe after a nap...

Anyway, barring bad weather or horrific accident, we should be back in Port Townsend by tomorrow.  I have a few things to do on the boat yet before letting it just sit, so that may take a couple days, but Mandy may be back in Seattle sooner so she can get back to work.

Butchart Gardens

We had a swell time at Butchart Gardens today. We've only ever been
here before in the winter, and it's a whole different show this time
of year. Plants are in bloom, for one thing. Much warmer and less
rainy for another.

We didn't break any records getting the anchor up and getting out of
Ganges this morning... it was pleasant and we lingered until 0900 or
so. We had favorable tides, but even so planned to motor the three
hours or so down just because the winds are so shifty around here,
and because I figured that mid-morning/early-afternoon might be the
best time to snag one of the four mooring buoys that the Gardens
maintain in Butchart Cove just off their dinghy dock. Failing that,
we would have to anchor around the corner in Todd Inlet and row
around... not nearly so pleasant.

As luck would have it, we caught the last open buoy and so we're
hanging maybe sixty feet from the dinghy dock, a quick row away. We
went back and forth a couple of times, just for the heck of it.

No sooner had we tied the boat up and got our stern tie rigged than
two other boats swung into the cove, looking for accommodations. We
just beat them, something of a miracle considering our leisurely 5
knot cruising speed.

I have no doubt Mandy will have much more to say on the subject of
the Gardens. I just enjoyed them moderately, but she spent a few
more hours wandering around in them than I did. I soaked up sunshine
and read instead.

This is a great little spot but I don't want to hog the buoy, so
we'll get out at a reasonable hour in the morning and see how far the
wind takes us. We're in no real hurry, but we're definitely heading
for home at this point... it becomes more attractive the closer we
get, and although we're having some good times now near the end of
the trip, it just seems like it's about time to wrap it up and get
back to the more mundane parts of our lives. So, we'll probably be
back inside of a week. What we'll do with the boat is as yet
undecided. The leak rate varies greatly and not always predictably
(although we believe we have isolated the forward one to the
knotmeter thru-hull, at least). It seems to increase with heavy seas
or speed, but it's hard to observe scientifically when we're out
bouncing around a lot. Anyway, it should be fine on the water for
the remainder of the season, but I don't know if we'll leave it in
that long or haul-out early. Probably we'll wait and talk about it
after we get home and get some perspective on things.

Variable winds

I mean really variable--between 40 knots and nothing, within the space of about an hour. That was what characterized our sail down from Nanaimo to Ganges yesterday.

It was really whipping in Nanaimo; no one else was leaving the harbour and I questioned my own judgment as to the wisdom of departing around eleven. The other people on our float thought we were crazy but helped us get out of the tight spot on the leeward side we were stuck in anyway. I think their concerns were probably justified by the difficulties we had just getting out of the dock--I couldn't get the $#(*$#$% transmission in gear again, although the lever seems to be more stable now, and we drifted down onto a old steel ferry that is used as a waiting area for the current Protection Island ferry. Eventually things got sorted out, without damage to either party, and we motored out of the boat basin.

It was really tearing outside the breakwater, so we motored around into the lee of Protection Island to raise sail. We only put up the main, and with one reef tucked in it at that, and then spun around and took off like a banshee running downwind for Dodd Narrows. We had a bit of an ebb with us, but we were making 6 knots plus of boat speed for most of the way even before accounting for that. Three to four foot seas were rolling us around from astern but Mandy did a great job of keeping on course in some pretty tight spots. We shot Dodd Narrows under sail (normally I wouldn't have considered this; but there was only one other boat going through and we let him get clear before we did it), hitting nine knots over ground going through the passage.

Shortly after that, on a rather rough gybe, the aft-most reefing point on the main tore partly out. We came up into the wind and dropped the main smartly, then raised our jib and kept going at nearly the same speeds.

That only lasted until about the north tip of Saltspring Island, however. The blasting northwest wind faded away to absolutely dead calm in less than an hour as we headed south. Fortunately, we still had some current, and after a couple of hours of eking out little random breezes, we finally came into some decent wind again near the entrance to Active Pass and were able to sail around the corner and up into Ganges Harbour.

This is a great anchorage, at least in the sense of being able to put down one's anchor and have plenty of swinging room--the whole of the harbour seems to have good mud bottom and depths around 30 feet: prime conditions for a small boat such as hours. It's a little exposed to southeast winds, but the winds are so weird around here it's hard to say if that's a danger (as it would typically be along the northwest coast). At any rate, there isn't any wind to speak of at the moment, or in the forecast, so we will probably be motoring from here.

We're heading to Butchart Gardens next; they have a water-side entrance and a dinghy dock, and we're only about twelve miles from there now. I think we'll head down there today, spend today and possibly tomorrow there, then work our way back out into the southern Gulf Islands.

An Unexpected Swim

We're tied up at the Port of Nanaimo's small boat basin now;
strangely, our Internet connectivity is worse in here, so less
frequent updates will be posted.

It blew pretty good today but it's still very warm and sunny out. We
moved into the marina not because of the wind, however, but because
we had some chores that are easier to do dockside and errands more
convenient to accomplish on land.

The wind did provide Mandy with her one major amusement of the
morning, however. Before we were ready to haul anchor and head to
the marina, the dinghy had to be hauled in and stowed on the foredeck
(they charge by the foot!). Leaving her below doing something, I
went up to take care of the task myself. As has been previously
mentioned, our dinghy is a smallish inflatable raft, and doesn't
weigh any great amount... easy for one man to handle, or so I thought.

I led the raft by its painter up alongside the bow and hoisted it up
over the lifelines without issue. Once I got it on deck, though, I
needed to have it lay flat so I could lash it down through the rails
on either side of the cabin top. Because of the wind, this proved
difficult, and the raft kept popping up on me before I could get the
line fed through and secured. I relied on holding it with one hand
and paying the line through with the other, a tedious process.

Suddenly, a ripping gust came up, and caught under the lip of the
raft. It stood the raft upright, slammed it against me, and sent the
both of us cascading rather unexpectedly over the port side lifelines.

I found myself holding on with one hand to the boat, the other to the
raft painter, with my left foot tangled up in the lifelines. I
thought for about half a second about trying to haul myself back up
over the side, but I was pretty far gone and didn't want to let go of
the raft. Also, I knew that the swim ladder was down, so I figured
that was the more dignified option. So, I untangled my foot, let go,
and made a small splash.

I quickly realized, though, that holding onto the raft could be a bad
idea... the wind would catch it and turn it into a sail, and tow me
off down the channel like a windsurfer. So, I tossed the painter
back up deck and hoped it would tangle in something long enough for
me to get back aboard and grab it. Unfortunately, by this time Mandy
had heard the whole commotion and she was waiting for me at the swim
ladder as I swam around. I had been planning on avoiding mentioning
the whole thing, but as it developed this would have been
impracticable simply due to the fact that I was soaking wet.

Mandy retrieved the raft and I changed and then we hauled anchor
(against the wind; an arduous task) and came in to the marina.

Here, we have been thwarted in at least two of the three tasks we had
set out for ourselves, making it a rather pointless expenditure; we
haven't been able to find the hardware we need for our sail at the
chandlery in town, nor a replacement for the electrical outlet that
is out. So, Mandy has been cleaning the boat most of the day, and I
have been laying around, waylaid by a headache that doesn't have
anything to do with falling overboard, I am sure. We have run other
small errands and will do laundry before we leave, which will
probably happen tomorrow around noon.

Excitement in the anchorage

If that last entry seemed to end a little abruptly, this is why.

I was sitting up in the cockpit, typing merrily away and enjoying the quiet morning in the harbour, when suddenly a Coast Guard Zodiac came screaming up the channel nearby (we're anchored near one of the entrance markers). Since it's nominally a 5 knot limit in the channel, I figured something was up, so I flipped on the radio and turned to one of the common working channels the Coasties use up here. Then the Zodiac turned into the harbour, and I started looking around for trouble nearby... and saw that some time in the night, the powerboat anchored two or three slots down had capsized.

There wasn't really much to be done at that point so we just spectated. In between the Coasties, other cruisers out in their dinghies offering to help, and random kayakers in the vicinity, it was quite a circus for a while. I caught some of the conversation on the radio between the Coast Guard and the sailor who had first noticed it and called it in; he said he'd tapped on the hull and heard no reply, and dove on the bow enough to tell that the forward hatch was open. You would think if someone had been inside and made it out, though, that they would have called in themselves, or most likely would have ended up first at another nearby boat looking for help and/or refuge.

The Coasties seemed a little befuddled, and so would I have been... there isn't really much of an emergency, nor a significant hazard, and what are four guys in a Zodiac going to do about an upside down boat? They tapped on the hull themselves, walked around on it a bit, then headed over to a nearby public dock for some unknown reason before heading back to their station. We were surprised; in the US, at least, it seems likely they would have had a dive team out to check for bodies or survivors as long as there was any question at all. And although the boat may have been left for commercial salvage rather than wasting government employee time babysitting it, I'm pretty sure that a spill boom or something would have been put up around it to contain any fuel leaks and prevent other unwary boaters from running into it.

It's possible that there were some communications that resolved the matter that didn't come across on the channel we were monitoring. That could have explained the stop over at the marina, if perhaps the owners were ashore already and had been located. We're hoping that they were off the boat at least when it happened, although we don't envy them the weeks ahead (which we're already painfully familiar with ourselves).

So, apart from that things are pretty nice here. We spent most of the day today on Newcastle Island Park, which island is the closest landmass to us (about 30 yards, although it seems further when rowing). It's a very interesting place, home to a sandstone quarry, First Nations (Indian, that is) villages, a coal mine, an old amusement park, and vast fish salteries at various points in history. Remnants of each of these are scattered about the place, all connected with some very fine walking trails which are only marginally impeded by snakes.

There are also supposedly a large colony of albino raccoons, but we only saw the regular kind. And a deer. And many, many geese.

We're enjoying it so much here that we are probably going to stay for an extra day (total of three; we'd already planned on one to see the sights, one to fix the boat... the usual ratio, it seems). After that, we'll probably head south to Victoria and Butchart Gardens.

Nanaimo

Pulled into Nanaimo last night around 2130 and dropped anchor in Mark Bay off of Newcastle Island Park. It's a lovely large anchorage, though fairly well packed with boats of every shape and size. We grabbed a spot with some open swinging room near the outside of the pack, but the depths throughout are shallow and the weather is calm so we don't have much to worry about. It does, of course, place us further from the dinghy docks at the park, but closer to those in town (if we could figure out where those are) and we're actually quite close to a nice little beach to land at on the island.

I imagine I will get some pictures of the place up at some point in the next few days.

We plan to stay here for a couple of days. We're not really tired; the trip down from Campbell River has been characterized by light winds and calm seas (except for a patch of pitching around yesterday morning departing Blubber Bay on Texada Island, where I got fairly well soaked up on the bow securing the anchor as we punched through three foot seas) and the weather has been terrific so we're doing okay in those respects. We have a horde of miscellaneous little tasks to take care of in town, though, laundry probably being the largest.

We also need some quality time in a good marine chandlery and then with the boat itself. The transmission lever, that same foul beast that indirectly led to all our worst troubles on this trip, is still giving us grief. We bored out the sheared off screw and replaced it with a bolt... which in turn sheared off within a half hour. Since then, we've been making down with a series of cotter pins, a steel nail, and anything else we can think of to secure the handle to the bar. But they all bend or break outright after a day or so of use. The thing is a demon. It has always been stiff to shift, but now it bends nails? It's almost unreal.

We also need to get some slugs for our new mainsail. We finally took some time in Campbell River to try to get the thing up. It's cut perfectly and fits the frame of the mast and boom without any problem, but the slugs at the luff are too large to fit into the track on the mast, which is what holds the sail and the mast together. We shaved one of them down (they are plastic) but it turns out that not only is the body of the slug too big, but so too is the very loop with which it is attached to the sail. With the Dremel aboard, we could probably grind it all down in an hour or so and make do; since it was soaked and so far unreplaced, it's probably easiest to just buy new slugs that fit the mast and attach them to the sail.

Campbell River is very nice for the location, but it is not a sailing center in any respect. Here, we are hoping to find a chandlery which has honest to goodness sailboat hardware.

So, that's the plan, and we'll try to enjoy what looks to be some lovely weather for the next

Sailing may be exciting again

I don't know why, but for some reason being here in the marina at Campbell River is raising my enthusiasm for sailing again. The boat is still a mess (both cosmetically and operationally) and our inability to isolate the leaks and dry it all out is frustrating, but for whatever reason, sitting here in the dock as the wind whips through the rigging really makes me want to be out in it, rather than just sitting.

Maybe it's just the safety net of having a real town and marine supply center nearby, or the relative security of the Strait of Georgia, or the fact that we've been through here before and have had positive experiences, or that there are visibly larger numbers of people here who are clearly more incompetent than even we are, but I just want to get out on the water again.

Of course, that makes it even more bitter that we have lost so much of our painstakingly carved out two months of free time to be doing just that, and more fraught to consider our future opportunities for doing it again.

But I had worried that this whole episode would sour us on the activity and that the boat itself would prove to be unsalvageable at the costs we were able to bear. Mandy is making headway on a lot of the cosmetic stuff, though, and I'm getting my head around the mechanical, and we may just be all right after all.

Anyway, I can't wait to get out of here in the morning and go sailing. Even if our wind is mostly gone by then.

Quite a lovely little town

I (Mandy) love Campbell River. I didn't think I was missing civilization, but I do feel better here than I have since we returned to BC last weekend (and it took the whole weekend of: Bus to ferry, ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, the Graebels coming and picking us up and taking us to Port Hadlock, then them kindly taking us the next day to Port Hardy via another ferry ride between Port Townsend and Victoria, BC, and a long drive, then we hitched an overnight ferry ride to Shearwater, arriving already tired, but wanting to get underway immediately).

Anyway, here, in this sizable town, I can buy things like face wash and q-tips and other normalities that were lost to saltwater filling the head. And here, for the first time since last time we were here about a month ago, we can fill up on potable water that is both potable (none of that in Shearwater) and clear, like water should be. So, for once, I'm using up extra water to get the tanks emptied so I can refill with this non-scary stuff.

So, today I first begged Scott for a stop at Starbucks this morning (a sure sign of a civilized town, I think), then I went to the store and stocked up on lots of goodies. I hope Scott will now stop eating cookies for breakfast, since breakfast bars are just as convenient. Then I went to the boat store and talked to someone knowledgeable about the damage done to the boat from the Coast Guard's pumps beating the crap out of our cockpit while they kept us afloat. (I do prefer the boat get beat up than us sinking.) The nice fella sold me something called "Interlux Heavy Duty Stain Remover" to get out the rust stains. I don't know what caused the stains, but they weren't there before the pumps were on board. I'd been scrubbing them with everything we had on board before, and nothing would help. I applied this stuff and watched pure magic happen. I felt like I was in a TV infomercial. I put it on and watched the stains just disappear, mo rubbing, no scrubbing, nothing. Wow. I was having fun! I went around the boat and tried it on other areas that had been vexing me over the years. Pure magic at every turn. As far as fiberglass stains are concerned, the boat now looks better than ever.

The nice fella also sold me some gelcoat and hardener for the gouges also left from the pumps bouncing themselves from Boat Inlet to Shearwater. I dug out some sandpaper from a locker and prepped the gouges for repair, but unfortunately gave up fighting the wind before trying my first repair. This isn't really the weather for that sort of thing. Happy to sell me something else, the fella also sold me some boat cleaner and wax, (he said my now-clean fiberglass wouldn't stay clean long without waxing it) and I'm excited to get it applied as soon as possible. Seeing the poor shape of the boat had been part of what was been keeping my spirits low. Seeing it nice and clean cheers me right up.

I also finally found a birthday present for Mom. I'd been waiting to get something, hoping to find something cool in Alaska, but the last 3 weeks of June were taken up by the unforeseen, and now I'm a bit late. Then I got to explore even more of Campbell River looking for the Thrifty Foods to ship it from, which I did eventually find. Then I had another stop at the liqueur store to replenish my Irish Creme (SO yummy in hot chocolate) and a bottle of wine for our rendezvous with the neighbor tonight.

While I've been out running around town and futzing with the boat, Scott has been forcibly resting. We've been going, going, going non-stop since leaving Shearwater, and yesterday he was stuck navigating through lots of rapids while dodging logs down Johnstone Straight while I tended to the bilge, diligently emptying it with a syringe at regular intervals to measure how much water was coming in at different conditions, and to be certain it was coming generally from where we thought it was. Anyway, the boy was visibly exhausted. I'm really glad we decided to stay an extra day here. Of course, now that he is rested, he wishes we were out sailing in this stuff. I don't agree. I'm quite glad to be tied to the dock, getting things done, and just generally feeling caught up on stuff and unrushed.

As far as I'm concerned, it is looking up, mysterious leaks or not. Tomorrow we should have favorable northwest winds to push is right to the next stop.

If stuck, it's best to be stuck someplace decent

Campbell River, for instance.

I had been hoping that the storm would die down by now and we could get on our merry way south today, but it's still blowing ~30 knots, and that's here in the shelter of the marina. Still, Mandy had to make the decision, ultimately... I was too tired to decide. So we paid for another night and will sit it out instead of beating south toward Comox or Texada. We had to move to a different dock, however, and had a heck of a time doing so in this wind.

I brought us in last night on the windward side of the float, using the wind to take us in and braking with the engine and it was pretty smooth. Getting off again was another story--I could swing the boat off using prop walk in reverse but the wind kept the bow pressed in against the float. One of the marina staff helped us by pushing off as we swung around, but after I got off I didn't have enough room astern to build steerageway sufficient to swing the bow upwind (which I had to to get out of the dock). So the wind kept blowing us down toward shore as we were stuck athwart the channel between two floats--I couldn't go forward or reverse, since there was only 60 feet of space and we took up 33 of that. I finally decided to just let the wind carry the bow in and managed to get a clear enough shot astern to reverse out. Not pretty, but it worked.

Bringing her in to the new spot, which was even more constrained, was easier... just a repeat of last night, with an extra pair of hands to help. In any event, better all this hassle than having to try to come in from leeward with our little 20 horse engine and gimpy shift lever.

We've taken advantage of the extra time to get some shopping done and I hope to get rested up. Mandy met a neighbor on the float who has invited us over for coffee later, presumably to hear the gruesome details of our accident. I should take the CD of photos along.

Mandy is out at the stores again and I'm just chilling out on the boat, listening to the wind whistle through the rigging. A part of me wishes we were out in it, but I know that's not wise, particularly with our various defects and the vicious reputation of Cape Mudge in a southeasterly. Still, I'm intent on getting out of here tomorrow, even if there is left over slop--we've seen plenty of Campbell River already, as hospitable as it is.

Back in Campbell River

We arrived last night in Campbell River again, some place we had not expected to be again on this trip. We've been moving pretty fast, so not much chance to write or give updates, so I thought I would try to get something out this morning to bring you up to speed.

As Mandy mentioned, we elected to continue down the Inside Passage rather than trying the West Coast as we had previously been inclined. This is partly a function of the limited amount of time we have remaining (it's more necessary to wait for weather windows coming down the exposed West Coast) and partly a distrust of the boat and its systems. We find something new every day it seems that is failing or broken or otherwise compromised. All things considered, until we have everything back in shape, it's best not to be out on the open ocean, and better to stick closer to civilization on the Inside route.

The items of greatest concern are leaks. We are taking on between one and one and a half gallons an hour of saltwater, and we can't figure out why, or from where. As Mandy mentioned, the fiberglass repairs that Shearwater did looked very good, and I talked with the glass guy at length about his process (which he illustrated with pictures at every step) and don't have any qualms about the quality of the work (which I damn well shouldn't, at that cost!) The bottom showed no cracks or compromises at all before we went back in the water.

They also, however, did some work on the hull/keel join, replacing a couple of keel bolt nuts and epoxying the join. You may recall I had slapped a patch into a crack we had found at the leading edge of the join during haul-out this spring--Shearwater ground that all out and fixed it up right, now it's smooth and seamless as if it came out of the factory. However... my shoddy patch job didn't leak. :/

Actually, though, I can't say for sure that theirs does either. We are taking on water from forward and aft of the keel, and from at least one of the keel bolts. It's one that they messed with; but I can't figure out how, if the hull is visibly intact with no cracks, water could be getting in even if they botched the nut job somehow. And even if it were, the forward leak is coming from somewhere above that join (the actual source is hidden beneath the interior liner somewhere; we can't find it and it is very slow at any rate).

The stern leak appears to be the worst but again, there are no hull compromises, and to cursory inspection the rudder and shaft seals appear intact. We have a dripless shaft seal, and no damage was incurred to our knowledge aft of the keel.

I'm nearly at a loss for isolating the source of these things; as long as I can't, I don't feel I can trust the integrity of the boat too much.

I also don't know whether to attribute it to the collision, or to Shearwater. We had no leaks before we went aground, to be sure; afterward, the one big one would have hid everything else. The yard isn't very familiar with sailing vessels, and I am not sure how confident to be of their diagnosis and repair of the keel. I increasingly see the wisdom of the local who said to get a patch job and head to a yard further south. The purely fiberglass work is pristine, but the other stuff has me wondering.

Other minor issues we have come across are: the autopilot clutch tends to pop out of gear now; it seems like we open a compartment or box every day that we discover is still damp; one of our AC electrical circuits is compromised, either with corroded wiring or receptacle; one of our settee cushions absolutely will not dry out; doors and drawers have warped and no long fit properly; the floor veneer is about twenty years older than when we started; and all sorts of miscellaneous ills, mostly to do with personal equipment or clothing.

On the whole, things could be much worse. Our expensive electronic gear is all working flawlessly (aside from the autopilot), the boat is as fast under power and sail as ever and still handles well, and much of the hard-to-access systems such as plumbing and electrical were spared or seem to be fine.

Now we're just hoping this storm system sitting on top of us will blow out so we can keep moving south. I am not sure if I have given up yet or not on treating this as a separate vacation; it seems like it is still too constrained by the implosion of the last segment to really be something new. It seems as if every time we turn a corner where we could do something new or fun, we find something else broken or breaking that keeps us from doing it, or the weather pinning us down as now. The weather is part and parcel of sailing and I could be okay with that. But everything else seems like a guillotine hanging over our heads with an unknown drop date (the transmission lever, the thing that started this whole mess, freshly thru-bolted together with brand new hardware, snapped off in my hand again the instant we pulled out of Shearwater--the bolt sheared through. How is that for an omen?), and our time and resources are limited for dealing with any more failures.

We're hoping for a return to sun and northwest winds by Monday, and that will leave us a week and a half or so to try to enjoy the Gulf Islands and get home.

Southbound

Scott and I took off out of Shearwater as soon as the boat was dropped back into the water around noon on Monday and headed south to Port Hardy. We left there this morning are hurrying to catch a favorable current in Johnstone Straight today. So this is just a quick post to say that we're headed home probably staying closer to the east shore of Vancouver Island, since we saw the west shore of the mainland on the way up.

The fiberglass repair, I dare say, looks better than new. The guy really did a nice job mending the hole through the hull. However, we are still taking on water somewhere, though we don't know exactly where it is all coming from, which make us wish the fiberglass guy had had more sailboat knowledge than he did. There seems to be a dribble coming in around one of the keel bolts, but that doesn't account for how quickly the bilge fills. It seems to be mostly coming from the stern, perhaps around the prop shaft or else the rudder pole. (Forgive my non-nautical terminology.) At any rate, it is enough to make us untrusting of the boat as a whole, but trusting enough to get it home. As long as the bilge pump holds out to emptying the bilge about 2-3 times per day, it will get us home okay, unless something else breaks. It looks like there will still be a lot of work ahead.

The continued leak has us downspirited to the point that we just can't make the sail home be like a whole new trip. That, and the fact that the boat is still grungy inside from the submersion, regardless of any amount of cleaning, makes it hard to keep our spirits high. I'm itching to put on a new coat of varnish on some of the woodwork below to make it shine like it did before, but that will have to wait.

On an up note, the engine seems to be a-okay, and the electrical is more or less okay as well. The new bolt through the transmission lever broke the first time we put it in gear, and now a cotter pin is providing the band-aid. We're babying it, trying to not go into and out of gear much, so our anchors have not been as secure as we'd be comfortable with.

This morning were socked in with fog, having about 400 feet of visibility, and were grateful to the radar for letting us know where other boats were, where they were headed, and how fast they were going. We've been running the engine all morning to catch the current, and motoring just isn't as fun for us as sailing. The good current will run for about 3 hours today and each of the next 2 days, which should get us to the other end of Johnstone Straight, and hopefully back to sailing conditions again.

Looks like Scott is getting the fenders out. We must be nearly to Port McNeill, where I will send this while Scott goes to the store, and we'll be off again as quickly as possible. We're already cutting into our 3-hour window for the current.

Sorry for the delay in getting word out that we're on our way again. We just couldn't stomach giving Shearwater another ten bucks for internet on top of the ten-thousand plus they already have. I'm not sure where we'll stop next. Someplace south, is all I know.