An Easy Day

Monday, June 11, 2018

Woke up early with plenty of time for a not so rushed morning. We did not have a stopping place in mind. There were several places we could stay, the farthest not but about 30 nm, maybe less. This lack of destination is quite uncharacteristic of us on a boat or any other time: Focus! Plan! Execute!

As we were working with lines to get going this Canadian Goose approached the boat. I think that it was actually begging, folks probably having given it food before. Regardless, the bird was not put off by humans or their activities.

The boat was moored in an awkward place; easy to get into, not a lot of easy options getting out. As mentioned previously, this boat has a sail drive propulsion system, something generally found on catamarans, not so often on mono-hulls. For some reason, which I don't understand, in reverse it backs up perfectly straight. Regular drives, as we had on our boat, pull to port or starboard depending on the direction the propeller turns. So, I decided to try something that I had heard could be done, but had never tried: I put the boat in reverse, walked around to the other side of the binnacle, steering from there. From that side the helm responded exactly as it does from the rear side going forward. This is kind of "inside boating" stuff but it was really cool, after years of looking like an idiot on our boat.

We had a tricky passage about an hour into the day. To get to it we passed through the Northumberland Channel on our way to Dodd Narrows. In family terms, the city of Victoria is the beautiful daughter; Nanaimo is the less attractive one that works very hard, an overachiever. It is a commercial place. Along the channel we saw some of that commerce in action.

No surprise here, logs, lots of logs.

Next to that was this operation. It's a silly picture for a blog but what struck me is that the vessel being loaded is one that we saw going into Vancouver, one of many that was laying at anchor. From Vancouver to here is no more that a couple of hours for this type of vessel. I have no idea what the pile of brown-ish stuff is, but it must have some value, somewhere because a load was heading out soon, most likely to China by the boat's name and home port.

At the end of the Northumberland Channel is a spot called Dodd Narrows which must be transited to go south inside the Gulf Islands. There is a lot of water on both side of this real estate and it must follow the passage of the moon, it being difficult to repeal the law of gravity. The upshot is that the current there, passing through the narrow place can generate very powerful currents, currents that exceed the ability of this boat's engine to manage, i.e. 7 -10 knots. The trick is to go through at slack water, the few minutes between rising and falling tides, which today was exactly 0900. We were there with plenty of time to spare, saw a sailboat coming through at about 0830 so decided we could do it too, which we did. Carol did the required sécurité, sécurité, sécurité to notify other boats that we were entering the Narrows. Actually, it was mostly a non-event. It was no more than a quarter mile long.

What we did get to see was this on the other side: a tug with a raft of logs in tow also heading for the Narrows. It was being helped by a smaller tug that was working on the sides and back of the raft to keep some shape to the bunch. Best guess is that the raft of logs was at least as wide as the Narrows. It's also a safe bet that these guys know how to make it all work. During the safety meeting at San Juan Sailing, a frequent hazard to navigation that they mentioned was floating logs. Now we know why.

That was pretty much the excitement for the day. Heading south and east this was what we saw after the Dodd Narrows. In many ways this could have been what we saw last year in Maine; the same piney woods, mostly low islands, with the tops of the trees not reaching 100-ft.

What was different was the high rise of mountains in the interior of Victoria Island. As we got farther down the chain of islands there was some higher land, one peak measured at about 1,000-ft. The area was much built up, some smaller places, what you would expect for a rustic summer cabin; other places were almost mansions.

We decided to go to Montague Harbour (no adjoining Capulet Harbour that we cold find) . This was Galiano Island, on our port side, as we approached the harbour entrance. We intended to get a mooring buoy but had lost the boat hook over the side during the Great Boom Vang Debacle of Sunday, June 3d. There are work-arounds but we decided to moor at a a dock, unashamedly the path of least resistance. There are some walking trails which interest Carol, and maybe we'll go to the bar tonight for a gin & tonic. As the title says, an easy day, earned or not.