We are in Friday Harbour, WA today. We had a lovely sail over yesterday. We fooled around with the wind vane and it actually worked, we did quite well sailing up wind, but when we tried to vary our course we ran into some difficulties. It is very sensitive and will take time and careful, watchful sailing to figure it out. It all has to do with balancing your boat with the sails and getting it to sail itself and then adjusting the wind vane, or maybe to adjusting the wind vane and then setting the sails to the vane, we aren't quite sure at the moment and OF COURSE, Barry and I have different ideas about how to go about doing that.
It turned really blustery on the way into Friday Harbour yesterday and they are predicting small craft warnings to gales for the next couple of days so we should be able to get places, if Barry allows me to put up the sails!!!!
It is overcast but the temperature is still a very comfortable 50 degrees. I can't even convert into Farenheit anymore, all I know is that it isn't bad. I had a toque on and my big mitts at the wheel yesterday. Our weather cloths have kept the cockpit warmer but when you have to stand up to see what is happening infront of you, you are up above the dodger and the wind gets at you. It's like sailing in Yellowknife at the end of August, not terribly warm but not entirely uncomfortable either.
We found out how to get Internet on our boat so we bit the bullet and bought a WIFI card, which has a small antena attached and subscribed to a company that provides this service. The card apparently boosts the built in wireless capacities that the computer already has. It is a U.S. company that has stations all around the Gulf Islands and the Pacific Northwest, it is called Broadband Express. You can also buy an antenna that can be put on your mast so that you can receive a signal when you are further away. There is a station very close to our home slip so we are hoping to get away with not purchasing the bigger, more expensive attenna. YEAH, no more driving down to the Travelodge and hunkering down inside the car, illegally using their wireless service. It was getting dicey anyways, not hooking up very well and taking as long as 10 minutes to get from one message to another.
We have no returned to Sidney after our sail. I did this entry in Friday Harbour, so will upload it and put in some pics from our trip and fill you in on the details of our trip later.
