Brief update

Wednesday, May 21 2008
Had the second of two very nice days of sailing today, cruising up north
into 10-30 knot winds from Pender Harbour to Sturt Bay on Texada Island and then on to Galley Bay in Desolation Sound, where I am writing this. It probably
won't be posted for a few more days, as Internet is hard to come by in this
marine park area.

Everything is still working well; since we have not been motoring at all
except to get in and out of anchorages, we've been relying on the solar panel to keep our electrical topped up, and it's done a bang-up job... better than I expected, even. It's helped that the last two days have been mostly sunny
after a little morning drizzle.

Garden Bay turned out to be a bust on Day 2 of our stay—it poured rain,
blew like the dickens, and after a day of going stir crazy, we topped it off with a dragging anchor which we had to reset in limited space at dusk.

It turns out that I am having some problems relaxing, and that was at no
time more evident than our second day in Garden Bay. It was a miserable day; we had hoped to row ashore and go see some sites, but it was pouring down
rain and blowing like the dickens and we wound up being cooped up on the
boat all day without much to do... apart from watch other boats come in and take up spots around us, closer and closer, until it got a little claustrophobic.
We had particular fun watching one gent trying to anchor—he must have
dropped and tried to set twenty times in a variety of places (some far too close for comfort) before he got a good hook down in a decent spot.

After we finished laughing at him, we looked around the bay and realized
that we, ourselves, were no longer where we had originally anchored at... in the brisk winds, our anchor was dragging, and suddenly WE were the ones getting
too close for comfort to other boats.

So we capped the day off pulling up and resetting the anchor at dusk, going through probably five or six attempts before finally getting it down and set good in a safe place. It was complicated by the number of new boats, the
increasing wind, my aching muscles, and what turned out to be a rather slick bottom. Despite assertions to the contrary in a number of popular cruising guides, a couple of other folks anchored nearby told us that the bay has
quite a reputation locally for dragging, particularly toward the end of the
season. I guess we got it started a little early.

So that day was a write-off. The next was pretty good. Although it started with light winds and some rain, the wind picked up nicely and blew off the clouds in the bargain and we had a great sail up Malaspina Strait to Sturt Bay on
the northeast shore of Texada Island. Even better, there was no one at the anchorage there, so we had our pick of locations and a lot of swinging room. The swinging room is important because the holding power of the anchor
increases dramatically the more line (or "rode") that is paid out to it.
Happiness is more rode, I have discovered. Put out enough and your anchor will hold like a rock. But the downside is that the more rode you have out, the larger
the possible circle in which your boat may swing. With other boats nearby,
this must be reduced sufficiently that you can't swing into them if for some reason you drift in the wind and current at a different rate than they do.

On our own in Sturt, though, I paid out five parts rode to one part depth... a generous number for northwest waters.

We lucked out, though, in that we barely beat another boat into the bay there. They were larger and had been gaining on us almost since we left Pender Harbour, but then the wind picked up and despite an ill-advised man-
overboard drill we conducted, we outlasted them in the blow and kept too much sail up when they dropped theirs, and we beat them handily to the anchorage. They tied up at the public pier instead.

Today the forecasts were for high winds again, so rather than getting
caught out with too much sail for conditions, we changed out our 135% Genoa for our #1 Jib before we even left. It was a very good call—winds were stronger
today if anything, but the boat was more balanced and sailed much better, even beating into the wind. Nonetheless, because we had to tack back and forth upwind to get to Desolation Sound, it took us about nine hours. I was glad
for the early start since it got us here before 6PM.

There is a gale warning on right now and they are predicting storm force winds tomorrow, so we will either sit tight in the fairly secure spot we are tucked away in here, or if we do go anywhere, to make a short hop to somewhere
else in the Sound that has a fairly well-protected route.