We have been graced with a wealth of visitors in the last few weeks. The first was Helen Butler from Yellowknife, we had a lovely sail and it was just great to be able to show our boat off to our very first non-family Yellowknifer. We cleared all our sails out of the v-berth so we would have room for guests and we whiled away the evening exchanging stories of our lives in the past year. It was wonderful.

Then we invited a local family that had befriended us last fall whom we are vaguely related too, she is my sister-in-law's brother's wife sister (If you can follow that you are a genius.)for a day sail. We had Lorna, Randy and Sandy Hughes on board. When we were out we saw a number of porpoises and some seals. Lorna has piloted whale watching zodiacs for a season or two, so was able to give us lots of information about the types of whales we could expect to see and the time of year we might see them. The wind was quite variable that day, but the sun shone all day it was a super day.

We had a call from John and Gail Borkovik, from Yellowknife, they were in Vancouver and wanted to know what marina we were at. After making it clear to them we were on Vancouver Island, they made the trek over and stayed with us for three nights. It was so nice to have their company and catch up on Yellowknife gossip. We had a terrific sail the day we took them out, Gail was a natural on the helm, John ability to stay on course did not quite cut the mustard. We even saw some whales, it wasn't a great sighting but after consulting with Lorna the next day we figured they were minke whales.

They helped us replace our windex which was blown off in the 35 knot winds we were out in last week. Check out http://annoeboat.blogspot.com for pictures of how high off the ground I actually was.

Okay, I have decided that I have truly made the transitions from regular working stiff to SAILOR GIRL. A while ago I gave up my female compulsion to purchase more and more pairs of shoes, from the practical to the outlandish, and decided to concentrate on nuts and bolts instead, STAINLESS STEEL, of course (is there anything else???).

When working on a boat you have to have on hand any number and type of stainless steel fixtures. You have to have bevelled head screws, pan head screws, machined screws, tapping screws. Naturally you need numerous and various sizes, different diameters and different lengths, you have to have small skinny ones and small fat ones, and long skinny ones and long fat ones and you can't forget to have the middle sized ones as well, so small middle sized ones, medium middle sized ones and long middle sized ones, the list in endless, rather like shoes except they don't come in different colours. Then there are nuts, on a boat you want the teflon nuts, that is stainless steel nuts with teflon inserts, ordinary ones will just work themselves loose and become a hazard, so teflon is the way to go, and of course you need every size you can think of. The size is dictated by the diameter of the bolt. To be included with this are the washers, all stainless steel and as many different sizes as you could possibly imagine. We have some really big ones that are referred to as backing plates but I am still a little confused as to when a washer is referred to as a backing plate, but I am sure I will learn that soon.

This particular rant came to mind when I took one of my northern sailing friends to the West Marine store to purchase some nuts and bolts for her partner and their boat. I had to explain why she just had to buy the teflon nuts, the regular ones just wouldn't do, it was then I figured I had made the transition to SAILOR GIRL.

Hope all is well with everyone, we are off to a Bluewater Cruising meeting tonight with a presentation from a very experienced pair of sailors, should be good.

Prevost Harbor, WS

We had fun sailing this week, maybe I should say I had fun sailing this week. It was threatening to gale on Wed. morning so Barry wanted to go back to Sidney, we headed towards Sidney but stayed in an American harbour next to a park. We had a good sail up there, 20 knots downwind most of the way the boat behaved beautifully, no problems. The next day it was threatening to gale again and Barry wanted to go back to Sidney, instead we headed for Roche Harbor. It galed!! The winds were sustained 30 knots with gusts up to 37 knots, we sailed upwind into the gale. It actually blew our wind vane off, it's gone!! Other than that no problems, well, we did forget to tighten down one window and we got some water in the boat, the bilge pump went to work but couldn't get all the water out on the one tack, not good. We put the Monitor vane on and it actually steered the boat better than we could have, it did a great job. This morning we woke up and I asked Barry what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to go back to Sidney, so I gave in and said we would, after we went ashore and walked around Roche Harbor.

Wet and Wild Barry, notice how tilted he is, he is actually standing up straight on the healed over boat.

Roche Harbor actually has quite a bit of history, they had a big limestone quarry and kilns there at the turn of the century and into the 1930's and 40's. There was a wealthy family that ran the lime works and he built a memorial to his family in the middle of the woods. He built columns that have the same circumference and diameter of the those in King Solomon's temple and then in the center there is a round table of limestone and cement surrounded be six stone and cement chairs, it is the same as the family table and it represents a symbolic reunion after death. It was pretty neat to see the structure in the middle of the forest, all of on its own.

After that we headed back to Sidney and had a wonderful sail back, it was a gorgeous sunny day and we practised our sun shots on the sextant and Barry snapped this shot. You can see our vane working in the background.
A couple of Yellowknifer's are supposed to drop by to see the boat next week. It will be nice to show it off, if you are planning to be on Vancouver Island anytime soon make sure you drop by to see us. Oh, by the way if you are reading everything, just so you know I did NOT get to go shopping in Friday Harbor, Barry agreed to go sailing instead!!

We had the pleasure of being boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard today. The mothership came rumbling by and then "baabing" there was a zodiac in the water. Barry says I think they are coming over here and I said no, why? Sure enough they headed our way and said they were coming aboard to make an inspection. What a nice couple of cute fellows, very polite and professional and social, they introduced themselves as Cameron and Chris. We made small talk as they looked at all our documents, called in our names to some US governing body, and checked out our safety equipment. You will be glad to know that we are not wanted for anything in the U.S. (our kids haven't sent them out looking for us) and Cat's Paw IV passed the safety inspection with flying colours.

One of the guys really looks like David Berry, I almost said Hi Dave when he came on board, my goodness, he was even from David's neck of the woods, Maine, (kind of) so I guess they grow them really cute out there. We gave them our boat card and told them they would be famous on our blog in a few days, the one guy even checked with the other guy when they left the boat to check out whether or not he had the internet address.

After they left they hopped back on their zodiac and went back to the mothership. Now I know why the zodiac just appeared "baabing" when they came over, they actually drove the zodiac right onto a ramp in the back of the boat, it just disappeared up into boat, it was really neat. It was a very pleasant visit, we had perfectly clear conscience when they came aboard, no Canadian beef or chicken, no rogue limes or oranges, no illegal Vancouver Island potatoes, no unwanted garlic, all is well with the world. If those guys were an indication of the quality of the U.S. Coast Guard personnel, one and all will be welcome onboard Cat's Paw IV, anytime. Thanks guys!!

We have headed over to the U.S. for a little March break. Here Barry is checking into customs at Friday Harbor, WS. I have felt the need to go sailing for awhile and get away from Sidney. We were planning on spending 5 days over here and then heading back for the next session of our celestial navigation course. I now know how to shoot the sun and wanted Barry to take a picture of me using the sextant, but did not get around to it. I figure I would look like a real OLD SALT in the picture.

The weather is not co-operating, the wind has picked up to over 20 knots and Barry wants either to stay in port here or head back to Sidney, didn't he know that all I wanted to do was get away from there, just for a few days. I am game to stay here until the winds subside but not sure I can convince the CAPTAIN. There are some lovely stores here that I would like to go and explore so I think I will just go ahead and do that. I have not bought any clothes since Aug. last year and I am feeling deprived.

Well doesn’t that beat all, it is the 9th of March and we woke up to snow today, unbelievable!!! We went all winter without a hint of snow and today we get the white stuff, it is supposed to stay cold and yukky all of next week. I guess that’s what I get for bragging about the trees being in bloom and the daffodils being out. I just can’t’ figure out this west coast weather. We have lost the battery charger to our camera so it will not work at the moment so we have to get to a camera shop and get a replacement charger. I know all of you would have loved to see pictures of us in the snow in MARCH, arrggghhh!!!!

We attended an excellent meeting last night about Winlink and weather faxes and all sorts of stuff last night. The presenter really new his stuff and had made a power point presentation on a CD and GAVE each boat a copy. So if you didn’t catch it all at the meeting you could review it at home. Just Super Stuff.

I found out there are several position plotting sites out there which will allow us to radio in our position and once we leave you will be able to follow our progress using a site on the Internet. That was so super to hear, you would even be able to see how fast we were going and we could give a brief report about the weather or the seas or whatever. I think that is quite exciting because people on land will be able to track us if they want to. I am thinking we will set it up for our around the island tour in late May so will keep you posted on what site we are going to use and where you can go to find it.

I have just generated a new TO DO list and I am currently working on putting together a DITCH bag. If you have to abandon ship everything you theoretically need to survive should be in your ditch bag, IMPORTANT STUFF, this should be an interesting exercise.

Well, the scourge of the airwaves is operational and has begun her career as an onboard ham radio communicator!! Today, March 6, 2006, at 1220 hours PST, I actually talked to some guy in California. Barry had taken the ham installation and operation course on Sat. and we had 10 Bluewater Cruising members aboard this morning to look at our ham radio and its installation. Our installation passed the inspection with a few minor changes to be made and then we tried to contact this guy that runs a boating net in California. We could barely here him but the course conductor could actually make out what the guy was saying and he was receiving our signal not too badly. That was a real good thing; Barry still had doubts about whether or not the radio was working.

Then later after everyone had left, I turned on the radio again and heard somebody running a contest to see how many people he could contact, so I replied. It was quite neat to talk to the guy, we didn’t chat too long as he wanted to get to other people, but he did ask how come someone with my call sign was transmitting out of Victoria. Once we move we are supposed to change our call signs but I really like mine, it indicates that we are from the NWT and I do not want to change it.

To continue on with the Ham Installation course we went on two other boats and looked at their set up and saw how their radios worked. The other two couples were also living aboard their boats and they are in Sidney so we will have to make the effort to get to know them better. This week we are taking a celestial navigation course and then Barry will go to a rigging course in a couple of weeks.

The guy that was supposed to install our holding tank has put us off for another week, this is the second time he has put us off, so if he does it again we are going to look for someone else to do the work. We would like to have that done and finished. We pick up our liferaft tomorrow. I have finished putting together our medical kit, except for the prescription medications, so preparations are moving along as they should.

We are thinking of entering a 66 NM race that takes place on April 1. It is possible that we could be racing over night so that sounds like something we would like to do. The boat is more suited to that type of racing than your around the bouy type races. We have to get an official PHRF rating for the boat so have to submit our sail sizes to a committee that will assign us a handicap rating. Down here you can’t just say well I have this kind of boat and they look up your rating, you have to send in sail sizes and types, etc.

We went out on Friday and sailed around one of the U.S. San Juan Islands. There was a lovely breeze of 12-17 knots with very little waves and it was a wonderful sail. There are a lot of beautiful log homes with gorgeous settings on the San Juan’s. I think a lot of people have their Pacific Northwest summer homes on these islands. We didn’t get in until after dark, but Barry didn’t even freak out and I docked the boat in the dark without a problem. Barry’s Mom moved residences last week and we spent two days up island helping her, so life has been busy and full. All the trees are full of blossoms down here and the weather is gradually warming up, I washed the boat down yesterday and then sat up on deck in my shirt sleeves with some wine and cheese and read my book. It sure beats working!!!

Hey there everyone, how are you? My Mom and her friend Bill are here for a visit. We took them for a sail the day after they arrived. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, sunny, warm, and windy. You could see Mount Baker all day and the winds picked up a bit during the day so we had to put a reef in on the way back. The dahl porpoises found us and followed the boat and played in the wake for over half an hour, there were about 10 of them. Mom got a bit cold even though we had her in a floater suit, so she would go down below and warm up by the furnace.

We have been busy since Mom and Bill arrived. We have taken them for a driving trip around the Saanich Peninsula one day and then the next day we went to Royal Roads University and had a tour of Hatley Castle. Then we went to Fort Rodd Hill, which is a national park, and saw gun batteries that were built in 1895. The guns were upgraded during the Second World War and then decommissioned in 1956. Today we headed over to Saltspring Island and toured all around that island. We ended on top of Mount Maxwell and it was a terrific view of the narrows between Saltspring Island and Vancouver Island. We are planning a trip to the Empress Hotel to imbibe in the thoroughly British tradition of high tea.

We also took off a day of sight seeing to go to the Vancouver Boat Show. We ended up buying an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) at the show as well as a life raft. (Notice the nice tan on my face in the picture that was taken at the boat show. That is from the lovely sail we had with Bill and Mom.) That should complete all our major purchases before heading offshore. There are some minor things 0we have to take care off, like imagining what would happen if our boat was upside down and fastening down everything that would be flung around. It actually feels like we are making progress, oh yeah, I forgot about the holding tank, it is going to put in next week (that will be a huge mess).

It has been raining quite steadily since Christmas, but every once in awhile the sun comes out and shines for a couple of hours, and like Barry says, you don’t have to shovel it. Last weekend we attended a seminar on provisioning your boat and we learned quite a few tricks of the trade. Most of it was pretty common sense, but there were hints about keeping food in the tropics and how to store stuff that I wouldn’t have figured out. I thought that putting things in baggies was sufficient, for example your flour and nuts and stuff, but this woman said you need to have stuff in plastic containers to keep out the critters (the thought of critters gives me the willies, but I guess they go with the territory)

At our fleet meeting last week we had a doctor come to talk to use about what kind of medical supplies you should have on board. She had some very practical answers for questions that were asked and good advice about how to treat everyday cuts and scrapes. She also talked about giving stitches, but only if there were wide gaping wounds, I told Barry that I would have no qualms about stitching up his wide gaping wounds, but I was not sure if I could handle him doing it to me. WIDE GAPING WOUNDS, WIDE GAPING WOUNDS I can imagine that image haunting my dreams. I have just finished outfitting our sail repair kit, so now I need to go to work on the medical supply kit.

This past weekend the rain let up so off we went for the weekend. It was lovely and warm with the sun beating down on us. We sailed up to Montaque Harbour and stayed over on Saturday night. We were headed back on Sunday and it was so warm I took off my floater jacket and pushed up my sleeves and suntanned for awhile. That is the first Jan. 15 that I have ever been able to suntan, what a treat!! I put up the staysail on the way back and we sailed Cat’s Paw as a cutter. It is a bit of pain to tack because you have to make sure the genoa gets around the second stay.

We are hoping to go to the Vancouver Boat Show. We are planning on busing over with a bunch of other Blue Water Cruisers. We are going to offer to man the Bluewater Cruising booth so that we get free tickets into the show. I feel like we would be posers at the booth, not actually having done any bluewater cruising yet but we do belong to the Association and we are making plans to go so what the hell, it’s worth a free pass. Hope all is well with all of you, keep in touch.

We may have solved our internet access problem. The antenna we bought to boost our wireless access was giving us problems. The wire that attached it to the card that you put in the computer had broken, due to careless use on my part, but we got it replaced yesterday ( for free, I guess a lot of people have been having the same problem) so I am hoping to be able to access the internet from the boat again. Since we were having access problems I didn’t get to put some stuff on the blog that I wanted to over the holidays.

Before Christmas we went on a lighted boat tour. Everyone decorates their boats, power or sail, with lights and then one night they get together and go motoring around the harbour so everyone can see all the boats. The Maple Bay Yacht Club (up near Duncan, on Van. Is,) were having a harbour tour and they had invited our yacht club to join, there was a pot luck dinner as well. We had not decorated our boat but friends that we have met through the Blue Water Cruising asked us if we were going to the dinner. When we arrived they invited us to go on their boat, a Beneteau 361. Our friends, Debbie and Lynn Greentree, had put painted plywood cutouts of the three wise men on camels and the angels on their boat.

The whole experience was quite magical, it was extremely dark and there were over 20 boats all decorated and we motored around the harbour for over an hour. They arrange to have senior citizens come to places along the harbour so they can watch the parade; it is quite a big deal in the boating community. The boat we were on even won first prize for their original decorating. It was a super introduction to Christmas on the West Coast.

We had all the girls here over the holidays. It was great to see them all again, and to have them here together. Jen was here for Christmas and the other two came on Boxing Day. Jen and I played horseshoes on Christmas day up at the complex where Barry’s Mom lives and then posed in front of the flowering rhododendron to show you all what Christmas is like on the West Coast. It was my first green Christmas and it never did feel quite right!!!

Friends of my brother asked if we would like to house sit their house over the holidays, so we had accommodations for everyone at the house. It was a real treat to sleep in a big bed and to be able to get up and have a shower without getting all your stuff together and trooping up to the Yacht Club. I had wanted the girls to sleep one night on the boat, but Barry was enjoying the comforts of a house to much so he nixed the idea. We were going to sail the New Year in but it was raining and storming so it would have been very uncomfortable and perhaps unsafe to be out on the water so we spent it at the house.

Graeme and Barry went tool shopping during Boxing Week and the girls were treated to a shopping trip by their grandmother. It was fun to watch different generations chose shoes and boots. It was the first time we had been shopping on Boxing Day for quite a number of years, we are usually too busy curling in the Boxing Day spiel at the Yellowknife Curling Club, I wonder which family won this year!! Barry’s tool kit is looking much better now and he should be able to fix almost anything with the tools he has on hand. Of course you can never have enough tools, if you’re a guy, I think they are kind of like women and shoes.

We have been having trouble getting connected to the internet for the past while. I wanted to get a map of B.C. and show you all where we went on our cruise, I actually scanned a map but you could not see the outline of the shoreline very well on it so I didn’t upload it. I will work on finding a different map, but when you do not have internet access it’s kind of hard.

The past week have been beautiful here, a big high pressure system is sitting on the south part of the island and the skies are sunny and hardly a cloud to be seen. We figured it felt like May in Yellowknife, there is a bite in the air but wow is it ever sunny, and to think there are only 3 days until the solstice and then the days get longer, wow!! We have sailed for 3 days out of the past 4, absolutely gorgeous. The first two days there wasn’t a lot of wind but today made up for it.

Picture it in your mind, blue skies, dark blue water, tall green trees and in the background Mount Baker covered in snow, and there we are with our while sails just gleaming, flying along under sail. We were zipping today, winds were up to 20 knots, there were white caps all over and the waves were only about a foot and a half to two feet. The water was flying off the bow in big bursts of white waves, magnificent, what a marvelous feeling.

We are at anchor tonight, at a bay about 15 miles from our dock and when you look out the hatch you can see Christmas lights on the houseboats at the dock. It is kind of neat that whenever we feel like it we can just untie the lines and set sail and all our belongings come with us. We don’t have to make trips to the store to get groceries or put together a bag with your clothes in it; it’s all aboard, just cast off and go.

Jennifer is coming here for Christmas and the Heather and Trish and Graeme are arriving on Boxing Day. It will be super to have everyone together, I figured we’d be having a Mexican Christmas but this will be great to see everyone again before heading south. We might not see them again for quite a few years so it is really wonderful to have them all here this year. I was talking to Jen the other day and asked if she would like to sail the New Year in, she thought that would be pretty fine so now I just have to convince the Captain that it would be a good idea. I floated the idea yesterday and Barry figured it would be pretty cold but so what, I think if the weather is okay we will be out on the water.

Hope you all have a super Christmas and we will be sailing between Christmas and New Years so sometime raise your glass and think of us and make a suitable salty toast. One of the things I regret about leaving Yellowknife is leaving all my good friends and family behind, take care and have a wonderful holiday season.

We are in Comox today. It is December and we are still sailing, oh my gosh!! We got here yesterday and we happy to tie up and plug in and get some extra heat on board. It has been a bit cool while we are sailing. We have basically decided that this will be our last cruise until it gets a bit warmer. It is an adventure but it is not truly very comfortable.

We contacted two families from Yellowknife while we were here. We met Roz Smith and Bob Hauser, trimaran sailors from Yk. They came aboard and had a look around and then very graciously invited us out to see their place, we went for breakfast, cranberry pancakes, and then sat in their hot tub gazing at the snow on the coniferous trees. Peter, Catherine, Tegan and Blair Holmes our neighbors from Yellowknife and fellow sailors, drove down from Campbell River to visit with us. It was great to see them and go out to dinner.

We are tied up with all the huge fishing boats. It is very interesting to look at them and try and figure out what all their equipment could be used for. There was a fellow that was practicing his bag pipes on one of the boats today. It was a gorgeous sunny day so we sat on the deck and listened to him playing Christmas carols on the pipes. There is snow all over the docks so it really put me in the Christmas mood, it hadn’t seemed right before because there wasn’t any snow.

We are going to head home tomorrow; we are hoping to be there by Wednesday.

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.