I may have mentioned that before. At any rate, it's perfect for us right now, because we decided to test our spare anchor here on this stop, a two-day layover before heading for Howe Sound and Vancouver later in the week. Nothing to work out your hook like strong and shifty winds, which is what was forecast here. Well, not so strong, 15 knots, but when you throw in all the people going unreasonably fast and throwing wakes around the harbor, all the bouncing should give it a good work out.
We've had this Bruce anchor for a couple of years but the only time we used it, it didn't work so well and the conditions were poor, and our regular Danforth type has been rock solid, so there was no incentive. But I keep reading that Danforths don't reset when the direction of pull changes (as in a wind direction shift), and while that has never been our experience (we've been in some dandy wind shifts, and it's stayed right where we put it), there have been a few times when I have hauled it up and the long handles at the head of it have gotten twisted up in the anchor rode, effectively shortening our scope and putting pull on the anchor at an unpredictable angle. While this has never resulted in any problems, it makes me nervous, and the Bruce should avoid that issue, so we are giving it a try. It's smaller than I would like for a primary anchor, but as long as the winds are moderate (as forecast) it should be fine... and if higher winds are forecast, they are usually from a single direction, in which case the Danforth will serve perfectly well as it has in the past.
We're in Nanaimo again after a two-day jaunt down from Grace Harbour in Desolation Sound. Grace Harbour was a nice little spot, watched over by the inukshuk in the picture above. The inukshuk may be familiar to you, as it is to us, from this past winter's Vancouver Olympics, where it was part of the logo. We don't know if this one was here before that or if it's always been, but thought it was a neat touch.
We waited at Grace Harbour through a brief patch of unseasonable southeasterly winds, and hitched a lift on the northwesterlies as they returned to blow us down the west side of Texada Island. The largest island in the straight of Georgia, Texada doesn't see much traffic on the west side since the strait it forms together with the mainland on the east (Malaspina) is well-protected and an easy and direct route to points north. We've come down the west side in the open strait before and it's always a bit of a ride; this time, we stopped on Lasqueti Island, Texada's little brother, to spend a night in False Bay. It's definitely off the beaten path. We saw few other boats out on the water, and only a handful anchored inside. Lasqueti looks like an interesting little place but we were too tired to explore.
The next day we kept going, heading for Nanaimo even though it's on the wrong side of the Strait from our next destination because it was the best anchorage available within twenty-five miles without backtracking. This turns our jump to Howe Sound from one long and arduous day into two pretty easy ones.
That's about all I have to report. The weather has gotten back to very nice again after the spat of rain that came with the southeasterlies, and we're just waiting here for a day of variable winds to blow themselves out and get back into steady northwest winds so we have a fast and predictable ride across to Howe Sound tomorrow.
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