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Having cleared customs without incident at Roche Harbor, we decided to try out Reid harbor.  Usually one of my favorite places in the islands.  I’ve never seen so many boats in Reid Harbor before.  We ended up putting down the anchor only about a quarter of the way into the bay, the entire rest of the anchorage was packed.  It looked like a small city at night.

We saw smoke coming from the other side of the hill and it was not long before I heard on of our Tolly friends who is a retired fire chief calling on the radio for assistance from the local authorities.  There was quite the blaze over near Prevost harbor on the other side of the island.

Jollymon decided to stop by and raft up for the night.  We took the dingy’s out later that afternoon for a circumnavigation around Stuart by dingy.  Probably one of the best dingy rides of the season.  We saw all sorts of wildlife, the remnants of the fire being knocked down by the local fire crews and later I had a pod of fast moving orca whales surface within about arms reach before dissappearing again.  Too fast to get a picture of them.

Departing Ladysmith around 10:30 we ran just under 5 hours down to Tod Inlet.  I want to get back on our anchor, which has not been getting as much use lately as I had planned due to all the windy weather we have been having.

Arriving in Tod, I picked out a nice spot and we quickly had the hook down, along with a stern line.  A quick dingy trip and I discovered that we were not alone.

 We ended up spending two nights in Tod Inlet and once again I have to say that I love the place.  We took the dingy and had dinner over in Brentwood bay, where the rest of our friends went and stayed for another night.  We decided to move ahead and decided to cross back over to Roche and clear customs.

Ladysmith is a great little town, though it is a bit of a walk up the street to get there.  We had lunch at the bakery and picked up some meat pies at the butcher shop.

Having spent an absolutely perfectly quiet night in Smugglers bay, we departed at 8:30 for our crossing back over the Straight of Georgia.  This could be a very long post, but I’ll summarize as follows since it is almost the same as our prior crossing except we had the weather on our stern this time:

• Absolutely no wind in the morning at Smugglers, and yet it was blowing in the Straight.  I still don’t know a thing about weather this very strange season.
• Check out our track, you can see it from the prior straight of Georgia post, except this time its the one on the right.  About two thirds down the track suddenly turns due south.  That my friends was a short bio break where we ran with the waves long enough to make a couple sandwiches before returning to our self abuse.

Otherwise, it was a repeat of the conditions we had previously.  Halibut bank reported 6 foot seas.  It does not look like much through the window, but I assure you that in person it looked a bit more ominous!

We spent the night in Silva bay.  We had planned to anchor but the bay was absolutely chock full of anchored vessels, most of them either derelict or without anyone on board.  Makes you wonder and the marina was not cheap.

After a nice later morning departure from Egmont, we made the easy trip down to Smugglers cove where we anchored with a stern tie to the rocks.  I’ve seen pictures of larger vessels than mine own on the cover of Northwest Yachting, but from a 1st party perspective I have this to say.  HOLY COW THAT’s A TIGHT ANCHORAGE!!!!

The place is tiny, albeit well protected from most directions.

Shortly after we were in and settled, a guy comes in on a sailboat, anchors right on top of us (like most sailboats) and then starts loudly complaining about the fact that I’m running my generator.  It’s 3pm for crying out loud, and the generator is not going to get turned off until that wonderfully smelling bird roasting in the over is done.  Cliff had the bright idea of starting up the mains and letting him smoke on that.  Honestly, some folks just go out of their way to find a problem.

The thing is, there are a lot of sailors out there that for some reason look to find fault in any powerboater they can find.  Make no mistake, there are enough of the know nothing cocktail cruiser crowd to feed into the stereotype, but something in the sailing culture goes out of its way to try to cause problems and today I’m next to one.  Egads!

In the end, the chicken came out of the oven, the generator was shut down and our formerly feathered freezer food was devoured with the utmost zeal, alongside a perfectly shaken gin martini with two olives.

We had an absolute capitol time in Princess Louisa.  Monday finds us heading back through Malibu rapids and down to Egmont.  We ended up joining 5 other boats that had spent the past few days in Princess Louisa.

Upon arriving at Egmont, I thought that I had never been to this particular marina before.  It’s a nice place, great pub, good food and had some rather familiar looking cabins on the shore as well.

Exploring further I ran into this little door, at which point I had to say that I stand corrected.  I HAVE been to Egmont before!!!

24 years ago I very nearly had the opportunity to see Princess Louisa Inlet, but a trip to Malibu via Young Life fell through.  Today will be the day that I see Malibu Rapids and Chatterbox falls for the first time and upon my own vessel.

We departed at 5:20 as we will need to make Malibu rapids at slack and I expect a 5 hour run up at a fuel efficient 8 knots.  Words really can’t describe the beauty of this land.  The most I can say is that the description of Princess Louisa is not oversold.  If you have never been, you need to.

I’m midpoint in the Straigth of Georgia and there is a 6+ foot wave bearing down on me presently.  Goose the throttles, I think we can get ahead of him, miss the crest and eek right over the shoulder somewhat gently.  Whoops, there’s an even bigger one behind him and I did not even notice.  Chop the throttles, were at a dead idle and we take the crest right on our bow.  The bow goes up sharply and we come down with a crash.  It’s actually not that bad, no suddering, just a lot of water splashes over the bow, we bled our speed off pretty quickly.  Still, I took this one head on and I’ve been doing a pretty good job of picking and choosing as I call it.  See, waves are not uniform.  Take the worst looking wave and chances are that fifty foot to the left or right, the wave is not near as big.  It’s just a matter of reading the situation and making a decision.  A quick decision.  If you decide you can get in front of the wave, don’t be late.   Picking and choosing allows you to “minimize” the sea state that you actually experience.  If its running 4-7, than your seeing hopefully 4’s and 5’s.  The advantage is not just less sea state, it also means that I can take the 4’s & 5’s closer to my beam.  I want to go east, but the wind and seas are out of the North.  The quicker I can make my easting, the sooner I will be out of it.  The catch of course is to not get caught in a wave at the large end of the spectrum on your beam.  That’s what we call bad.  We don’t like bad one bit.  Right now, I’m picking and choosing just to keep the sea state down.  My eastward progress has slowed considerably and I’ve been at this for 3 hours now.  I just made a mistake because I’m getting tired and a little complacent.  But this is the defintion of committed, the only reasonable option is to simply keep going.  The ride will be done, when the ride operator says so and my job is to make the best of it.

We left Nanaimo around 6:45 with the flags in the harbor flying as gently as I have seen them this week.  I want to get well into my crossing before the sun gets high in the sky.  In years past, this has been a good strategy.  I have no idea how to predict weather this year.  As we pulled out of the harbor we were called by a vessel on her way in.  We spoke briefly on the radio, he was asking what the weather report said.  I think he knew well what the report said and was being polite.  He had stuck his nose out and turned back.   It WAS a little disconcerting I admit, but I had a good ten foot on him and while I won’t state the brand of boat he was on, I’ll just say it was more of a cocktail cruiser style than a sea boat.  I also know that the waves out of the North are going to bend around and pile up just outside the channel entrance.  It’s worth sticking your head out and going just a little bit further to see if things calm down.

Immediately  we were seeing 4-6 foot conditions and pretty steep.  I was not much more than idle just outside the channel past protection island.  They were stacking up pretty good, and pretty close.  I figured we would not lose the height, but they might spread out a little and that’s just what they did.  Still, it was no cakewalk.    Fast forward three hours and just as I get out in the middle of the Straight, were in the worst of it.  The tough part was that the further we went, the most our track started to head North and not East.  Looking at our track across (the west most track is the way out, the east track is our way back), you can see how as the waves built, our track changed.

There were three other boats that went out near us in the morning (I doubt many others went at all that day).  Early on, I did not cut as eastward as I wish I had.  There was some confusion on my part as to whether the Whiskey Golf range was going to be open that day (it wasn’t), as it had been active two days prior, so I did not immediately press across it.  I wish I had.  A 45 Bayliner we ran with for a brief time went straight across and as a result got a significant lead on us, easterly at least.  Around the 3 hour point, not only did we converge, but he was running significantly to the North of us.  Had I achieved his early easting advantage, it would have helped enourmously.  Still, as the waves increased, the edge was in my favor as my Tolly hull is deeper than his.  In short, I can take more than he can.  I had also been running slow for the first two hour.  When things got rougher as we moved further into the straight, is the point I took a much more active role at the flybridge helm and increased our speed to about 9.5 knots.  The only way I can run at that speed is very actively picking and choosing and by actively working the throttles.  At the three hour mark I so wanted to get out of things, was just getting tired, that if anything I was even more agressive at trying to move our tack eastward.  I’d seek out the worst waves and just narrowly miss the worst part, invite a little roll off the backside as often I could momentarily run almost beam on before the next big wave would come.  This went on for another hour before we finally started getting benefit from the islands to our north.

All in all, it was a fun passage.  Cliff kept repeating over and over that he was suprised it was not really so bad out.  All I can say is tha the might have had a different opinion if he were at the helm the entire time, but I take it as a great compliment.  My preference though would be for a bit shorter passage this way.

By the time, we reached the opposite shorline, I was convinced that after the crossing we just had, I very much wanted to get a little further than secret cove since we had already lost a couple extra days in Nanaimo this week.  We ended up in Pender Harbor.

The public dock was both full and not answering their VHF (which they later apologized for).  There were a lot of boats in the harbor, given the weather situation.  We ended up over at Garden Bay  Hotel & Marina.  It only cost us $53/night and I would heartily recommend staying there again.

The restaurant/pub had great food and there was a band playing.  We had a great lunch, but I admit that  come nightfall I did not venture up for the music.  I was early to bed that night!

It was just under six hours from Ganges to Nanaimo.  We were underway from Ganges by 7am cooking breakfast along the way.  We made Dodd Narrows in good time and transited without incident.  There was a light breeze but nothing notable and we had good water up to Dodd.

The further we went up Northumberland channel, the more we felt the seas bending in from the Straight of Georgia.  It’s fun to note my bread crumb trail and see how I eeked out as much room as I could before making the rounding turn west into Nanaimo.  It was running about 4 foot even in the channel and I really did not want to have to ride it on my beam, so ran as close as I could before turning to take them on my stern.  Today would not have been a good day to try to cross the Straight of Georgia and we were a little concerned on how many boats we might find in Nanaimo.

We pulled into the inner harbor on Tuesday and settled just down the dock from the floating Mexican restaurant.  Nanaimo is a great town to visit, but two days later and we have still not seen a pleasant weather window to get across the Straight.  On Thursday evening I met a nice couple in a Tolly who had just crossed in under two foot of seas.  The forecasts are still iffy, but Friday looks to be better.  We are definately starting to suffer from cabin fever and want to get across.

The good news is that we have had good net connectivity in Nanaimo.  I  might get to meet up with a boater I’ve known on Boatered for years but never met in person.  He lives in Secret Cove and offered us a round of beer if we can get over there.

With the boat repairs completed to our all important generator and windlass, we were up and underway at the crack of about 9:15 heading North.  We cleared customs without incident at 11:15 at Bedwell, something that this season will not be taken for granted after the last horrible experience at Bedwell where every inch of the boat was searched by two agents for a full hour.   

My goal this season is to spend as much time at anchor as possible, but already I’m second guessing that thought as the weather is looking a tad unstable.    After the two hour run from Bedwell, I’m pulling into Ganges harbor.  I’ve spent a sleepless night in Ganges at anchor before.  I have some information that suggests Maronna bay may be a better anchorage, but I’ve never been in there before and my comfort level with unstable weather and an unknown anchorage gets rather thin.  I decide that if we can find a spot on the public dock, we will stay safely there, but otherwise will not spend the money to stay at Ganges marina. 

I spot an open aread of dock that I think we can fit into, though it will require me to back down the length of the fairway before I’ll know for sure.  Luck is with us and we are able to squeeze in without incident.  The flipside of course is that since I’m at the deep end of the fairway, we will have the least amount of traffic going by us and won’t have to jump to fending off other boats every few moments.  It’s a nice spot and we are in Ganges harbor, a fantastic place to be on this planet!  The nightly rate on the public dock is $41/night and they now have both power and water. 

The public dock is one of the best places to provision in all of the Gulf Islands due to its proximity to a good sized and well stocked grocery store that is mere steps from the top of the ramp.  We shopped there twice on our way back to the boat, careful to only fill up one of their mini carts each time and leaving us with only as many bags as we can easily carry.

Around 10pm I noted the winds starting to kick up, though strangely not from the South as I expected.  I noted the flags which had been flying suddenly changed direction over about 30 minutes just after the sun went down.  That’s the kind of thing that gets my attention and not long after they were flying just as strong as before but now from the North.  I did not feel that we were in any danger whatsoever on the dock, but just the same I went and put on an extra bow line and a long outside stern line, while also adjusting our springs to give a nice long arc.  This way the boat would be able to ride parallel to the dock but without any short lines to jerk upon.  This way I could get a nice nights sleep without feeling like being on a roller coaster.   An hour later the winds were up to a good pace and with satisfaction I notice a few other boats tending to their fenders and lines.  It was not too long after that the real gusts started coming over the hill.  They came in waves as they pushed over the mountainous hillside just to our North, spilling straight down into the marina with considerable force.  Around midnight things were really roaring and I was glad that I was not anchored in the harbor.  See, its not necessarily your own anchor that  is going to give you the most grief.  Most of the boats in the harbor had set their anchor to the south and now that the wind was roaring in the opposite direction, many of these anchors would pull out as they changed direction and some of them would not set again.  Not all of the boats in the harbor have someone on them either.  In the darkness we watched as a large steel vessel slowly dragged from one end of the harbor to the other.  We could see other boats dragging as wel, watching their small white anchor lights slowly move across each other.  This was not a night to be anchored downwind!

I helped three boats land sometime around midnight and they were all glad to spend the rest of the night at the public dock.  In the morning the harbormaster told us that he had clocked 45 knot winds.  He was concerned that the same forecast was supposed to repeat again the following night, so we stayed another day, but the winds never showed.