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.
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