Our first B.C. snow, my goodness is this stuff ever wet and sticky. It was almost like slushballs, never mind snowballs. We woke up and the stuff was covering the deck and wow was the dock ever slippery. I wiped out at the bottom of the ramp, Barry being a wise person that needs a hip replacement, held on to the railing and avoided falling. I stopped and hucked a slushball at a duck, it was a mallard, I bet the stupid thing was thinking, “Isn’t there somewhere else I was supposed to be?” and I didn’t hit him.

We waited until the clouds lifted a little and then set out. I was busy on the deck trying to get rid of all the snow/slush. I was worried about it freezing and all the lines being crusted with ice tomorrow morning. I got rid of a lot of it by picking it up and chucking it overboard to my great amusement. I even tried to see if it would melt when it hit the water, but it didn’t. We didn’t stay in one place long enough for me to make any close observations or conduct any experiments, but I thought about it. The sun came out as we motored north, (do I have my radar screwed up, why are we headed this way) we went along what I believe is referred to as the Sunshine Coast towards the Sechelt Peninsula.
Once we stopped I went around with my little whisk and dust pan and swept as much slush as I could into the pan and overboard.

There are lots of gorgeous houses along this stretch of the coast, I wonder if they are cottages or summer homes or if people actually live year round in them. Some we saw looked as if they were closed up for the winter, all the blinds drawn and no smoke coming out of the chimney. There was lots of new construction happening, some of the developments looked nicely planned with trees in and around the houses, while other stretches looked as if a developer had come in and bulldozed all the trees and started building, yech, beachfront property but not very pretty stuff all crammed together.

Another day with very little wind, hopefully there will be enough to sail tomorrow. Hasta manana!

Do you recognize this place?? If you are a Canadian that was born in the fifties or early sixties you should be able to figure out where we are!!!

We went to a bar yesterday to watch the Grey Cup. It was quite a good time; if you bought a pitcher of Canadian you got tickets to the some give away prizes. Well those of you that know Barry, can figure out he is a sucker for most tickets, so we had lots of beer and got lots of tickets. We ended up with two very nice cherry red Grey Cup hats, a XL white Grey Cup t-shirt that we traded a mini Grey Cup nerf football for, an XL black Grey Cup hoodie and a mini Grey Cup nerf football, so you can see we got quite a haul. I had to make sure that Barry didn’t fall in as we walked down the very slippery dock back to Cat’s-Paw IV. There was a gorgeous view out of the bar window as well, the mountains, the ocean and a whole bunch of boats in the harbor to stare at and analyze.

Today we are stuck at the marina, it is really blowing out there and Barry decided that caution was in order and would not leave the dock. I have heard that somewhere before. We had to motor sail most of the way across the Strait of Georgia because there wasn’t enough wind and now that there is a decent wind in the direction that we want, he won’t leave the dock!!! I guess when we are out in the middle of the Pacific and there is 20 – 25 knots forecasted we will be under bare poles, hove too with the drogues out. (Real sour grapes on my part)

If you haven’t figured out where we are yet we are in Gibson’s Landing, where they filmed the Beachcombers. It is on the Sunshine Coast just north of Vancouver, Squamish is just up Howe Sound from Gibson’s. I almost had a Relic Special for breakfast today, but could not face the sausages that came with the three eggs. While we are here I guess I will go and explore the town a little more, I am not sure how much reception we will get further north so this may be the last posting for while.

We headed off yesterday for about a 10 day trip up towards Desolation Sound, which is north of Vancouver. It rained for most of the day and the winds were light until we came out into the Straits of Georgia, then the wind picked up to 15- 20 knots. We were just trucking along. We had about 5 porpoises playing in our bow wave for half an hour. They are really something, swooping and weaving in and out under the boat and across the bow. The depth sounder picked them up and the shallow alarm went off claiming we were in 5 feet of water. I had a moment of slight panic until Barry said “There’s lots of water out here.” When the porpoises surface you here a bust of air being blown out, it was magical watching them and listening to them as they surfaced. We ended up motoring about 3:30 P.M. to get where we wanted to go before dark. We aren’t keen on entering unknown harbors in the dark.

We woke up this morning to glorious sunshine. The steam was rising off the ocean and the sun was just bouncing of the waves. I had to put my sunglasses on, we haven’t seen the sun for about a week so that was a real treat. We are headed across the Strait of Georgia at the moment; we are planning on staying overnight on Bowen Island. I was a bit chilly so I headed down below and put our wonderful propane heater on and warmed up my hands and feet. What a treat!

Today is my oldest daughter’s birthday. A year ago we headed to Invermere from Yellowknife to surprise her for her 30th. I was just reflecting on how much our lives have changed in the past year. No house, no jobs, a beautiful boat and now we are footloose and fancy free on the Straits of Georgia, doing what we have dreamed of. It’s not quite as warm as I thought it would be, seeing how we were hoping to be somewhere south of California about now, but hey, we are on water that isn’t frozen and we are sailing!! We are hoping to get somewhere to watch the Grey Cup tomorrow. We contemplated buying tickets but decided our budget couldn’t afford it. We bought a GSP receiver for our laptop instead and now have electronic chart mapping. It is a very handy tool, yesterday going into the harbor we just watched on the chart and you could see the icon that was our boat creep past the shallows and make our way through the opening between the rocks into the harbor. It is really slick, thank you so much to those that made that possible. Well I guess I should go up on deck and see if the Captain needs to be spelled off or wants a hot drink!

Barry has been doing some fixing up around the boat. He was so into his work that he didn’t realize that he was marking up his head as well as the salt water pump. We are going to take our brother-in-law, the surveyor, out to see a piece of land in Sooke, just south of Victoria, on Wednesday, so it will be interesting making our way into that area.

We went to a sail repair course the other night. It was very informative, teaching us the proper way to repair a rip in your sail, and how to attach slides that attach your main sail to the boom. We were also given a list of what you should have in a sail repair kit. I am going to have to go over ours and upgrade it.

We received all the west coast charts from sailing buddies of ours that now have their boat in Cuba. This is great because charts are very expensive and we know have all the charts we will need for heading around Vancouver Island in the spring. I was just reading a cruising guide about going around the island and it says you should plan for about a month. We are hoping to head up to Desolation Sound on Thursday for about a two week trip. We will cross the Straits of Georgia and Desolation Sound is on the mainland, north of Vancouver.

I had a great visit in Yellowknife. I saw a whole bunch of friends and went for lunch every day. I enjoyed the snow the first day I got there, it was -2 Celcius and the snow was coming down in big, fluffy flakes. My grandson and I went out and made snowmen in the park, we even managed a snow cat and a snow dog. I did some Christmas baking for my family while I was there and Heather commented on how good everything smelled when I was baking., by the end of the week it was -21 Celcius and I was looking forward to getting back to Sidney. My blood must have thinned out or something, because I sure did enjoy the mild weather and green grass when I returned.

My brother is here visiting at the moment, so as soon as practical after I got off the plane we went out for an overnight sail. We had decent winds and my brother and I went for a stroll in a Marine Park once we had anchored. He and Barry had some great winds while I was gone and encounter blue skies as well on that day. Yesterday it was 11 degrees so Bob and I went for a bike ride to look at a marina I had wanted to visit and we saw a very nice boat. I was admiring it when I realized that it was another Fast Passage, glory be, isn’t it nice to be happy with the boat you have purchased.

At the moment we are waiting for the propane heater to finish being installed. We had a guy come in to assess the diesel heater and he said that it would be way too expensive to try and fix the leaky diesel tank. It would involve ripping apart the interior of the boat and it just wasn’t practical so we now have a propane heater. The fellow brought a propane line that was too short to install, he had to have a longer one made up, so we have the heater and a hole in the cabin roof, but no heat and no means of cooking, because all the propane in turned off. He is supposed to come today and finish the job, he had better show up.

We had this state park all to ourselves, no one else around, heaven.

We had a lovely visit in the San Juan Islands. After we got to Friday Harbor we sailed about 15 miles to this island state park. A group of boaters in the 60’s had got together and raised money to buy the island and gave it to the state to be used by boaters in perpetuity. It was a lovely spot. There are about 6 bays around the island that have anchorages and they are all interconnected with hiking trails.

On the way there we had a super sail, winds gusting up to 25 knots, the boat handling it with no difficulty. We were going downwind so we had some surfing happening and the boat was dancing around in the waves, taking a little more concentration on the helm than I’ve experienced before. We found this very sheltered anchorage and plopped the anchor down without any trouble. The next day we motored around in the dinghy exploring other bays. I choose to walk across the island back to the boat and Barry motored back. During my walk I looked up and there were leaves falling, the trees are so tall here that the leaves took about 15 seconds to reach the ground, they spun and twirled on their way down, very magical.

On of the best things about this place is that there was no one else around. It was like being back up north and having he place all to ourselves, although you would see boats going by occasionally. From our anchorage you could look out and see the Straits of Georgia and I think we glimpsed the ferry terminal at Tswwassen, fortunately the wind was predicted to be out of the south for all the time we planned to be there.

On the way back to Sidney, the wind was blowing 25-30 + knots and this time we were going against it. At one point we went to tack and in moving the traveler one of the lines slipped and it careened to the end of the line. Barry was cranking it in when I noticed that the end of the traveler was lifting up from the deck, shit, something else that broke. Barry took down the main and we sailed under jib alone the rest of the way home. We had the staysail up at the time and we put on the running back stays to support the mast and away we went. We were still doing 5 knots upwind with just the staysail, so it was blowing.

We are trying to figure out how to fix the traveler. We took another part of the ceiling off in the main cabin to get at the connections for the traveler. Then we went on deck and took the traveler off and had a look at how it was connected. We don’t think it is going to be too big of a deal to get it fixed, and we are hoping that I won’t be too expensive. On a positive note we went to see the guy who installed our engine and had a few questions about some items on the invoice and we ended up getting over $800 back. That’s one for our side, wahoo!!!

I am headed to Yellowknife for 10 days to see my daughter, my grandchildren and my buds. I am really looking forward to it. I have put together a PowerPoint presentation about the boats we looked at before we decided on Cat’s-Paw to show whoever is interested. I will be staying with my daughter.

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.

It has been getting progressively cooler at nights and we only have a lowly little electric heater to keep us warm. It has been doing the job just fine, but only while we are hooked up to shore power. We need another heat source. We have a diesel heater on board, which apparently are skookum, when they work, but we have not been able to get this beast to light.

It has a separate 5 gallon tank and somewhere between the tank and the furnace/heater there seems to be a leak. The furnace is mounted on a surface which is above the cabin floor and there is an opening which is about 7 inches high and 15 inches wide below it. When lying on the floor peering in the hole you can see diesel dripping down the side of the boat, you can reach the connections through holes on each side but you can’t see anything, so I thought I would try to see what I could see, kind of like the bear going over the mountain.

I got my head in the hole and then figured out I couldn’t get my shoulders through the hole, but by twisting about I could get one arm in and worm my way a little further in my quest to see what was going on with the tank and it’s connections. Well as soon as my massive chest got close to the opening, I could squirm no further, and I could not see what was leaking. All of a sudden I heard this exclamation from Barry, he had taken a picture and I started laughing, my chest started heaving and my ribs were compressed even more.

We used Barry’s nifty new pump to suck out the entire tank and there have been no more little pools of diesel under the heater/furnace, thank goodness, although the stupid, useless thing still doesn’t work. I cleaned it out the other day and Barry has ordered a new fuel filter, but even if we do get it to light, what are we going to do about the leaky tank. YIKES!!

We got the propane line installed. The stupid old line had three joins in it, so it was a good thing we got a professional to do it. He tested our propane sniffers and said he didn't think they were working. SO, that means we had a propane line with three joins in it and nothing to detect leaks, enough to make you throw up your hands and say "just shoot me". We now have to figure out how to take out the detectors and have them tested. I tried to follow the lines from the dectectors back to where they hooked up ( so we wouldn't have to cut the lines) and got as far as the engine area and then they disappeared into the nether regions below the floor boards. We left that job for another day and went up to Arbutus Ridge to check or snail mail and have supper with Barry's Mom.

We sailed down to Victoria yesterday and went to a Bluewater Cruising meeting. That was our first sight of the Straits of Juan De Fuca, there was a lot of water out there!!!! There was a couple that had been on a 9 year cruise around the world that did a slide presentation. They had some marvelous stories to tell and some great pictures. There was also a guy that stood up and talked about the education classes that they are going to have this winter. There is going to be one on sail repair, fiberglasing, and electricity. We plan to go to all of them. There is also a group called fleet 2006 which consists of everyone who is planning on leaving next year and the year after. They get together and decide as a group what kind of things they want to do over the winter and how often they want to meet. This should be another good source of info and helpful hints on where to find out what we need to know and who we should be talking to. I am really looking forward to cramming my brain full of boating knowledge. We know how to sail, we just have to figure out how to be able to repair our boat without it costing us an arm and a leg everytime something goes wrong and having the confidence to be able to say I CAN FIX this, and it is going to work and I know what I am doing.

This is our wind vane and I am holding one of the weather cloths. We got these two items from the former owner a couple of weeks ago. We attached the wind vane while we were on the hard, much easier than doing it while balancing on a dinghy in the water. 'I had to repair the weather cloths, seams were going and some of the gromets need replacing. They are now repaired and on the boat, HORRAY.

We hooked up the wind vane lines last week and then went out on the weekend to see if it would work. We think we got it hooked up right, by looking at the pictures and reading the manual that came with it. Every wind vane is mounted on each boat differently because of how the steering and the stern is designed. Fortunately the wind vane had been hooked up before, and we just had to figure out how to attach the lines. This involved me stuffing myself in the aft lazerette with Barry in the cockpit pushing the lines through to me and then put them around pulleys and leading them back through a hole in the stern so they could be attached to the wind vane. Barry got in the dinghy and we stuffed lines into the aluminum tubes so they could attach to the vane. ANYWAY, we tried it out. You have to make sure your boat is balanced with the sails when you set the vane, fortunately Cat's-Paw IV seems to sail itself and track quite nicely so there was no problem getting it balanced, then we engaged the wind vane. True to our natures, I thought the wind vane was working beautifully, the boat sailed for about 10 minutes on track. Barry thought the boat was doing it all by itself and the wind vane wasn't doing anything. We then tried other things, but the wind did not co-operate ( it was suggested that when you are learning you should sail in 10 - 15 knots) so we packed it in and went back to the slip.

We are having the propane line repaired today. A whole new line has to be put in from the propane locker to the stove. The former owner when he put in a new stove, he put an addition on the existing propane line, which is a definite no-no. We decided since it was propane and the insurance might be void if we did the work ourselves,, to get a professional to do it, besides I have an irrational fear of propane and would not feel comfortable unless it was done properly.

Barry installed a new clutch for our main sheet yesterday. This involved taking the ceiling off the aft cabin, no easy task. You have to take out wooden plugs to get at the screws and after much hammering and digging around with screwdrivers and whatnot we got to the screws and got the ceiling off. Barry then went and had an aluminum backing plate made for the clutch and we placed it in a good position on the cabin top and bolted it down. We were quite pleased with ourselves that we had managed the job, without paying anyone to help. We had a drink to celebrate that night. We went to raise the main the next day and low and behold the $#^%$*) clutch didn't work, shit, had we bought the wrong kind??? Well, we had a look at it and sure enough it was on BACKWARDS!!!! Back to the drawing board, at least we hadn't gotten around to putting the wooden plugs back in the ceiling. Barry turned it around no problem and now it works beautifully. Don't you just love learning how to fix stuff!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a lovely time with a bunch of Bluewater Cruisers this weekend. We sailed about 20 miles as the crow flies on Sat. to get to the rendezvous. We spent the weekend swapping stories and getting to know some of the other people that belong to the BCA. They have three categories of sailors, dreamers, doers and doners. We are in the dreamer’s category at the moment and we met both of the other types this weekend. One couple were on a 18 month hiatus on dry land, their boat is in Denmark and they will return after she gets to plant her garden next summer, she was so happy to be able to do that. A couple of the doners had tales to tell, one fellow expounded on his adventure, living through a hurricane in Fiji in the 80’s aboard his boat!!! The other couple told of rescuing 4 Fijians stranded at sea for 6 days in a motorboat. The rescuers became local heroes and had a party and luau given in their honor. We got some tips on how to look after our floor and what might work on getting our spinnaker pole, which is seized on to the fittings on the deck, off.

You will notice that there are no tales of woe about Cat’s-Paw IV on this trip. She behaved beautifully and we were told that we had gotten a good boat by several sailors. They knew the boat; they just hadn’t met us before!!!

We had fun, we made some connections, and we learned a few things. Wowee, I think that was what this was supposed to be about. The picture is of the boat building contest that took place. Our boat is not the beautiful one with the gorgeous leaves, but the rather very rustic looking on next to it. Our boat did finish the race, but since the boats were all tossed off the dock at the same time they clumped, and there was a three way tie for third place, so there was a re-race. Our mast started sagging and the sails got wet and so we brought up the rear in the second race, but we did finish.

I hope all of you had a happy Thanksgiving Day and that you had some good food and good company.

Here are a couple of pictures for you hardcore boat nuts. Barry wanted you to see our awesome skeg hung rudder and on the right is our new depth sounder thru hull. Yes it actually does stick out that much!!!

This blog is for those of you interested in our boat repairs. We have it out of the water on the hard (as we boaters like to say), it is up on stands that keep it upright when on the land. These stands do not belong to us they are the boatyard's property and you pay to have your boat hauled out and they set it up on the stands and then you pay by the day that your boat is in the yard having work done on it.

We have had a new depth sounder installed, so now we will be able to breathe a little easier when we go into strange anchorages and just have a chart to go by (although I did remember that we had bought a portable depth sounder and for the last while at an achorage we have been going up to the bow and taking readings on the depth as we get close to where we want to anchor, that was a little less hairy). They have fixed all of the big blisters that the surveyor had identified and now we await bottom paint. The guy said it would just take him two hours to paint the bottom so we figured we would just go ahead and pay him and get it done properly.

Barry and I have been struggling to attach the Monitor Wind Vane that came with the boat. The former owner did not keep it on the boat because he was afraid it might get bumped at the slip. It is pretty close quarters in there and if you are not careful you can quite easily run into someone. I haven't managed to run into anyone yet, but after my first quite successful dockings, my last two have been rather ugly. The slip next to us is empty now and for some reason I am not quite judging the distance and my trajectory very well, I haven't damaged anything but IT WAS UGLY!!!

Anyway back to the Monitor Wind Vane, where it is attached to the boat it's pretty hard to reach and I (being relatively tiny, compared to Barry and much more flexible) get to stuff my aging body into tiny spaces to try and put nuts on bolts. We all know how mechanical I am, but believe it or not after Graeme, my potential son-in-law, told me I just had to remember that doing up was clockwise and undoing was counter clockwise, I managed to thread 16 nuts on the correct way without trying to do it backwards once. Do you think that means I am cured??? Back to the wind vane, it is all attached now except for two bolts that need to be replaced on the outside because the thread were either too long or too short. NOW we just have to figure out how the damn thing works. It has more ropes and pulleys than any piece of machinery is meant to and to top it all off, no two boats are set up the same to we have to try and figure out how the previous owner set up this one. Fun and Games.

We are hoping to have the boat back in the water by Friday so we can attend a Bluewater Cruising get together for Thanksgiving. If we don't get in we will have a lovely dinner with Barry's Mom, that is where we are staying until the boat is back in the water. It sure is nice to have somewhere to go when we need to, a warm, friendly house with a bathtub, I don't know where we would go if we couldn't stay here!!!

We are in Bedwell Harbour on Pender Island at a cruising get together. We finally made it to one, yeah. We have met lots of very nice folks. This weekend was organized by the Victoria Cruising Club which is a power boat club that has been running for 50 years. They invited along the members of the yahct club that we belong to, so we decided to attend.

The resort is only about 10 nautical miles from our slip so we sailed over on Saturday afternoon, after Barry did his 50 hour oil change on the motor. The oil change went well, we learned how we should do it better next time and so far there is no oil spewing from the engine so he must have done it correctly. Just after we arrived there was a cocktail hour appetizer party and everyone just mixed and mingled and chatted for the rest of the evening. We were admiring another boat on the way back to Cat's-Paw and the folks inside invited us aboard and we had a lovely chat with them. They had a J30 and the fellow is a very keen racer, so we swapped tales most of the evening.

This morning they had coffee and cake out for breakfast and people wandered by and visited over coffee. It was super to meet this bunch and hopefully we can make some connections with a few couples. It's great to hear everyone's stories about how they got involved in boating and what they are up to. The resort it gorgeous. We went ashore this morning and wandered around. There is a pool available for us to use once we'd paid our moorage and there was a lovely internet area on the third floor of the main building. We didn't look around too much more but it will definitely be worth coming back for further visits.

I am sitting in the cockpit with my floater jacket over my head so I can see the computer screen. It is another gorgeous day, warm and sunny, although there are patches of fog about. Last night we stayed in Silva Bay just off the south coast of Gabriola Island. It was a lovely spot and there was this huge yacht that was anchored beside us. Wow, was it a beaut, probably about a 60 footer with triple spreaders. Barry took a
picture so you can see what we have to put up with down here, the money literally floating around the B.C. coast is just phenomenal.

There isn’t much wind but since we don’t have an agenda, other than we have to be back in Sidney on Oct. 3 for our boat to be pulled out of the water, we are just ghosting along enjoying the view and the sunshine. We are headed south now and will make our way back towards Sidney, depending on the wind we will just head back there or perhaps we will go and spend some time in the San Juan Islands if we get a bit more wind so we are moving a bit quicker than we are now.

As we were headed out of Nanaimo harbour this boat came up to us and got quite close and I noticed a girl taking pictures. I couldn’t figure it out, I know the boat is gorgeous but really pictures, and we weren’t doing anything stupendous or stupid that was worth taking pictures of. All of a sudden, the skipper yelled across that he used the own the boat, it turns out he and his father were the original owners of he boat and had finished all the insides of the boat. We told him we loved the inside and that we were just new owners, the third ones of the boat. It really is a small world isn’t it.

If you are not interested in boat jargon, skip this paragraph. When we first got the boat we bought a lovely 8 hp 4 stroke motor to go on our dinghy, an Avon zodiac, 9’ 6” in length. The motor was great, the dinghy got up on step with both Barry and I in it and we would be able to go anywhere in it. WELL, live and learn, we tried to get it up on the boat. It was too heavy for us to lift, although we did manage to get it onboard for one trip, but did not even attempt to put it on the dinghy as it was too heavy to lift out. Then we decided we needed to devise some system to hang it off the back of the boat. Well, our boat has a canoe stern, so there are no right angles to attach stuff to, everything slopes inward so we got a ¾ inch piece of plastic, called starboard and Barry fastened that on the back with U bolts. We winched the motor onto it and it was JUST TO HEAVY. In a big sea it would have shaken the pushpit out of the deck and then we would have been in a pickle. So, we swallowed our pride and went back to the dealer and traded in the motor for a smaller lighter (at least 30 lbs lighter) 2 stroke, a 5 hp. It should still get the dinghy up on step with one person in it and it should be light enough to attach to the deck. The only catch was the guy didn’t have any in the store, so we don’t have a motor for the dinghy on this trip which is a bit of a pain. We do have two paddles though and Barry and I have managed to co-operate enough that we have gone ashore a couple of times with the paddles.

Next week the boat is coming out of the water and we are having a new depth sounder put in and having a few blisters fixed and a sea water inlet that is leaking repaired. After that the boat should be in fine shape, most of the instruments will be in working order and all the sails seem to be doing there job. Unfortunately on this trip we have been beating into the weather going north and south, so haven’t gotten to test out its downwind capacities too much. Oh well, there will be another time.

When we stopped for the night, the light was so lovely; I jumped in the dinghy and went to take pictures of Cat’s-Paw at anchor. We had the place all to ourselves for a change. Just before dinner I was reading in the cockpit and I heard this noise it was like someone expelling a lot of air, I am pretty sure it was some kind of whale, it was a pretty distinctive kind of sound and I did see a fin on the surface to the water, although nothing else. Seals surface quite near the boat on occasion and yesterday at the anchorage there were two otters playing around in the water fairly close to the boat. We had seen what we think are dolphin fins a number of times but have never seen the whole animal.

Then after dinner we went ashore and wandered around on a deserted beach, with driftwood and sandstone all over. We walked up to a point and there was a lovely sunset, it really is beautiful in this part of Canada.

Barry and I decided to go on a shakedown cruise. We have a week to ten days where we don’t have any workmen coming down to fix anything on the boat and the forecast is for absolutely beautiful weather, + 24 during the day and + 10 or so at night, what more could you want for a shakedown cruise. We decided to head north.

We are in Nanaimo at the moment, we took three days to get here, the first day out of Sidney consisted of very light winds and sunshine. The second day we picked up some decent winds near the end of the day after fighting wind and currents most of the day. Those currents are killers, catching you when you least expect it and not letting you get where you want. We were playing chicken with those rather large ferries that cross from Tsswassen to Swartz Bay and I’d just had enough, we started the motor and got the h out of the way. We spent the second night in a very small anchorage called Retreat Cove. We set out a stern anchor so we wouldn’t swing onto the shelf and spent an uneventful evening there. The third day we had super winds and just flew up a passage, against the wind the whole way but who cared about the current, we were going fast enough it didn’t matter.

Today we hauled anchor and headed for Dodd’s Narrows, a very narrow tidal passage, that is know to be treacherous. Thankfully our boat did its thing and went whistling through the Narrows with no problems. We motored towards Nanaimo and decided to try out the Straits of Georgia and see what the boat could do.

There was 25 knots of wind and about 4 foot seas, great stuff! We had to reef down to the second reef and roll in the jib so about an 8th of the jib was showing and the boat loved it. On one tack it just went, the waves must have been quite favorable, on the other tack the boat slowed a knot and fought with the waves to make any headway. Neither Barry nor I experienced any seasickness, which is a really good thing and the boat was a peach in those winds. Barry says we just have to remember to reef early, whatever. It was a blast being out there with the huge container ships and the ferries bashing into those waves.

We headed back to Nanaimo to get some groceries and hopefully get a few more charts so we can continue northward for a few days. The thought of going out in the Straits of Georgia and just heading for Sidney is very appealing to me, either way we are going to have some fun.

We really miss all our chums in Yellowknife, I get terribly sad when I hear the other boats on the radio calling each other and I have no one that I can call. No longer can I be the scourge of the airwaves, damn, I will have to do something about that. I guess that’s what you have to deal with when you move away!!!

The frustrations of trying to repair and make changes to a 20 year old boat are sometimes quite overwhelming. Yesterday we tried to get our diesel heater going. We put about 10 liters of fuel in the tank and then tried to light the stove. Well after nearly burning off my eyebrows lighting the methyl hydrate that we are supposed to use to heat up the element so that the diesel will burn nicely we discovered that we think the tank was leaking. There were pools of diesel fuel under the stove that we soaked up with Scott paper towels. Then we went and pumped out all the diesel that we could from the tank. This involved shoving a hose down the pipe and having a leaky pump suck up the diesel. Well we got diesel on the deck on the cockpit cushions and on my nice shirt. YUCK. We went inside the boat to see if we could discover where the leak was, if it was just a fitting or if the tank is defective. After taking off a piece of the teak hiding the tank and scrunching our bodies up inside the cupboard in the bathroom and forcing our hands through a small hole in the bulkhead we concluded that the tank might be leaky. We are hoping to have it pressure tested to see if it is indeed the culprit. If that is so we will probably just put in a propane heater and BOAT (break out another thousand). We were so discouraged that we went to DQ and drowned our sorrows in ice cream.

Oh, by the way we got the transmission fixed, just a loose connection, and we now have a working VHS and our SSB radio seems to send and transmit and our auto pilot works we just have to have the hydraulic pump that it uses rebuilt because it leaks oil like a sieve. We are planning to have the boat hauled out in early Oct. and have a new depth sounder thru hull put in, so after that we should have a fairly safe boat that we should be able to enjoy.

The one aspect of living down here that we are truly enjoying is the weather. It has been gorgeous lately, sunny, plus 19 or 20 during the day and only about 10 in the evenings. We listen to the weather and chuckle every time we here the temperatures in Yellowknife, the weather has been atrocious up there this past week.

My uncle flew in from Washington State to visit with us yesterday. We took him out for a brief cruise which he seemed to really enjoy. Our daughter Trish and her SO Graeme will be arriving tonight for about a 3 day cruise. We are hoping to hoist Graeme up the mast to repair our deck lights and also get some tips from him regarding our electrical system (he is an electrician), We are looking forward to having some fun with the rather expensive toy we have purchased, as I often put it we are going to go out and play.

Hope everyone had a super long weekend. Ours was adventurous and torturous in that we had a super sail on Friday afternoon, stopped at a small harbor and let out the anchor, and then I was waiting for Barry to back the boat up and set the anchor and the boat refused to go into reverse. Our brand new transmission seemed to have decided it only wanted to go front wards. Don’t ask me how or why these things keep happening but they do. Barry spent a couple of hours trying to fix the problem. When he was finished we had forward and neutral but no reverse.

Soooo, instead of going up to a different harbor and going to a rendezvous our yacht club had organized we spent Sat. in this smallish spot watching all the boats come and go and spying on the BEAUTIFUL houses that were around the bay. That’s one thing different about sailing around here there are more than rocks and trees and wildlife to look at, some of the homes on the waterfront are absolutely spectacular. Sometimes looking at some of them I think they must have more money than brains because they build so close to the cliff edge or so close to the high tide mark. Hasn’t anyone down here heard of global warming and the effects of erosion? Okay, okay, I’ll get off my soap box.

On Sunday we consulted the tide tables and listened to the forecast and figured out where we planned to go next. Once we had almost got there we decided that we had gotten there too quickly and we didn’t like the looks of the weather that was headed there so we turned around and went somewhere else. The weather caught up with us and dumped, I mean DUMPED, a whole wack of rain on us, not tiny gentle little drops, huge smacking, popping off the water drops. What a way to get wet in a hurry. Then since we were going against the tide and the wind had died to next to nothing after the rain storm, we motored to the spot we planned to stay the night.

WELL, there were tons of boats all closely anchored together (another difference when you are sailing down here, you can’t just go into a spot and have your pick of anchorages). We decided that without a reverse gear we didn’t want to go rumbling through all those expensive looking boats, so we high tailed it back to Sidney, giving that new engine a real workout. We didn’t want to have to return in the dark, we are having enough trouble figuring out where we are during the day, all those stupid little islands look the same. Anyway on the way back there were some lovely cloud formations and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Barry is becoming frustrated with all the stuff that is going wrong and is being nostalgic about our smaller, uncomplicated Catalina 25. I told him that if he wanted he could always go back to Yellowknife for the winter and get a job and live with Heather.

I have to tell you guys this one. I had taken my bike out for a ride and rather than lock it up and walk down to the boat, I rode my bike along the dock and down to our slip. The docks where we moor have big long fingers which are quite steady and don’t move up and down a lot. Then off these fingers are smaller docks called slips that go between the boats. The slips are quite tippy and when we get off our boat the slip rocks back and forth a bit.

Well, when I came up to the boat there was a guy at the opposite slip working on the front of his boat, so instead of putting my bike on the more stable finger, I put it on our slip, I just put the stand down and left it there and went into the boat. Barry in the meantime wanted to get off the boat and stepped on to the slip and YUP you guessed it. SPLOSH, there went my bike, down to the bottom of the sea. YIKES, my family gave Barry and me those bikes for our twenty fifth anniversary, what was I going to tell them!!!!

Barry got a boat hook and tried to touch the bottom and no luck, it was high tide and it was about 25 feet deep. Then he came up with the idea of dragging the bottom with our stern anchor. So here’s Barry, with this line in his hands, dragging the anchor along the bottom of the ocean between our boat and the slip. He kept thinking he’d hooked it and pulling up the anchor, but no bike. FINALLY he hooked it and up came the bike from the deep, spewing sea water out of every part. It’s a good thing we both still have our senses of humor because what else could you do put laugh about it. The only casualty seems to be the brake light that is only supposed to come on when you push the button; it wants to stay on constantly.

And the Red Spoon Diaries continue!!!!

Don't you just love that picture of Barry at the helm of our new boat. Isn't the boat a beaut? Can you see how bright and sparkly the new main is, it is really something.

The bottom picture needs a caption, ANN, ENJOYING THE CRUISING LIFESTYLE.
I am on my back in the stern of the boat in a little entry way that allows you to get a stuff you have to fix. At the moment I am changing the old rusty bolts that secure the steering pulleys. I even managed to figure out which way to turn the bolts using a rachet, Barry had to keep saying, "Ann, it's counterclockwise, and righty tighty, lefty loosy" it's a good thing he has patience built into his character.