Week 3 – Headed South

Sunday, July 18. Departure with the outgoing tide headed to Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island. There is some wind, but not nearly enough to get the big girl moving at an acceptable speed. There are boats on the move in all directions! Makes me curious to know where everyone is headed. The entrance to Squirrel Cove is quite narrow. Not as narrow as the entrance to Prideaux Haven, but narrow enough that larger boats take turns going in and out. A big motor boat was waiting for us to enter before proceeding out.
For the first time this trip I can say that there was loads of room in the anchorage! We had our choice of spots and we did not have to stern tie! Just anchoring seemed ridiculously easy after all the stern tying. We rowed to shore to try to find a trail that showed on a map in one of our books. Turns out the book was published 26 years ago and now appears to be reclaimed by the jungle. The beach we landed on to look was so muddy. The dinghy got stuck in the mud so I had to get out to pull the dinghy off the beach. I borrowed Jess’s flip flops and quickly sunk into the sticky mud over my knees! As I struggled to bring my foot out with the flip flop, the strap tore out of the flop and I had to rescue the now broken shoe by digging around armpit deep in the mud. It was gross. There was a moment I thought I might just be stuck there and drown in high water. Spoiler alert … I freed myself.

We spent quite a bit of time rowing around looking for a trail and then finally gave up and went back to the boat. Jess was inspired to spend several more hours working on the dinghy motor. Though out the day more and more boats came into the anchorage, but there seems to be room for plenty of boats. A guy in a smaller sailboat came into the anchorage single handing and I watching him anchor by himself. He would have looked so cool if he hadn’t been only wearing his tighty whities.

Monday meant back to work. It was the warmest, most beautiful day so naturally it was a work day. Somewhere in the afternoon, Jess was struck with inspiration to mount another search through the boat to see if we have a replacement spark plug on this boat for the dinghy motor. He found a spark plug but it was the wrong size. He kept digging and came out with a spark plug of the right size. A few minutes later it was installed and the motor was restored to working order!!! It is a game changer. We think of the big boat as our house and the dinghy is our car. Unless the thing we want to see is within walking (rowing) distance, then we are trapped on the boat. As soon as we wrapped up work we headed out down the beach to the community of squirrel cove.

As we approached the dock I saw a dark hulled sailboat that I thought was the most beautiful boat I had ever seen. As we got closer it became clear that it was an IP40 – the same as Nootka! The dark hull made her very sexy. Her name is Salt and we aren’t too proud to admit that we circled slowly around her. Jess loved her stern arch and her solid lines in the pushpit. When we got back to the boat we internet stalked the boat and Jess found and emailed the owner – David. He got an email back almost immediately! We are hoping to meet up with them later in the week. They are out of Victoria.

After work Tuesday we took Troy to shore and found the trailhead that we had tried to find our first day when I got stuck in the mud. It wasn’t even close to where we were looking and pretty far away for rowing. Thank goodness we don’t have to row anymore! We hiked on the trail which led to the Von Donop Inlet on the other side of the island. It was a fun walk through a pretty forest and it felt really nice to stretch our legs. The trail was marked with buoys. When we got back to the boat we were ready for a swim. The ocean is so warm – 74 degrees! After swimming we rinsed off in the cockpit.

Jess spent some quality time in Squirrel Cove trying to clean the bottom of the boat. We cannot help but notice that we don’t go very fast. We should be cruising at 6.5 knots, but we are much closer to 5 knots. There is a huge amount of growth on the hull and that must be creating a lot of drag. Jess was able to remove some of the growth – but he can only reach so far down. We scheduled a hull cleaning for the week after we get back. That should help with our speed. If not, then we need to look into other solutions, like the pitch of our prop.

Wednesday after work we decided it was time to move along and make some progress in a southerly direction. We set out for Sturt Bay on Texada Island, but this time we were determined to anchor and not land on the dock. On the way up we chickened out of anchoring. We thought it was just too tight in there with one boat on a mooring ball and one anchored. We have been practicing so we figured we should be able to handle it this time. When we arrived there were about 8 boats in the anchorage! It was tempting to just call the marina and tie to the dock but I think we need the practice anchoring and stern tying. The spot we chose was a little nerve wracking. The chart plotter at the helm (which is the one easiest for me to see while piloting) showed me on terra firma when I was clearly floating in 30 feet of water. We were hemmed in by two steep side walls. We got the anchor to set and then quickly attached the stern line to shore but we were vulnerable to wind coming over our beam and blowing us on some rocks. The risk of that seemed small, but why risk it? So, we set about adding another line which required Jess to do a bit of rock climbing to tie a second line around a tree. Once that was done we felt much better. It wasn’t a situation we would feel comfortable leaving our boat in for a week, but we were good for the night.

Thursday was another travel day. We checked our usual weather sites and headed out for Madiera Park. I had several meetings for work that I couldn’t miss but I figured I could take those while we motored south. We were not out far into Malispina Strait when the waves started getting pretty big. Not too much after that the waves were very big, but worse, they were very close together. The wind was 25 knots with gusts but the waves had a long time to fetch. The anchors on the bow went under water more than once! The ride was quite rough. I was down below on a call and got seasick so I had to finish my meetings in the cockpit. Meanwhile, down below, almost everything in the boat became dislodged as we were not prepared for this kind of weather. We even left the hatches open and the floors were soaked. This trip has certainly provided us with opportunities to learn lessons and this was another one of those opportunities. Here are the key ones for us … 1. Always stow for rough seas. It costs nothing and saves you a lot of trouble. Close the hatches and stow gear before getting underway. 2. Don’t rely on weather from Apps. Listen to the radio weather report. Check specific buoys that are in the strait to see what they are doing. They report wind speed, wave height and wave spacing. Had we done the second thing, we may have stayed where we were. Instead, we crossed the strait and Nootka took a bit of a beating. No damage, of course, because she is a very stout girl, but it was unpleasant for us and probably for her too. We bailed on Madiera Park and looked for somewhere to hide out. Ballet Bay was an option and we took it. There were quite a few boats hiding in there. We anchored and stern tied and I have to say it was our best work. I would actually give us an A. It was fast and efficient. We decompressed from our ordeal and took some deep breaths. Then I went back to my conference calls for work.

The boats in Ballet Bay started to clear out after 5pm and so we checked the weather and decided that we would rather be in Madiera Park and decided to brave it and go back out there. We left just after 6pm and conditions were considerably better for our shorter journey south. The waves were more manageable, though it was still blowing over 15 knots. We made it to the harbor and anchored in almost the exact same place we had anchored on our way North. Then we went right to sleep. It was a long day. In addition to our crazy crossing, I had meetings from 5:30am to 4pm.

Friday we worked all day but we decided to have a date night out of the boat. We made reservations at a fancy restaurant called The Lagoon and took the dinghy to the restaurant, which was pretty swanky. They focused on using local foods in their dishes. I had lingcod and Jess had a seafood pasta and they were both quite good. It was the last day of good weather for a while. We went to the IGA to restock a few food items and it was packed with people. The cashier said everyone was getting ready to hunker down. That didn’t bode well for us as sailors.

Saturday was indeed overcast and quite windy. We spent most of the day trying to decide what to do and pulling up an empty crab ring. Finally, we decided that it wasn’t too bad and that we should at least move the boat a few more hours south and so we pulled up the anchor and headed to Secret Cove. We got ourselves anchored in a place that is good, but not great. It is Canada and most things about Canada are great … but they have these private mooring balls. They are everywhere!!! It makes it challenging to anchor in the mooring field. In any case, we set an anchor alarm so we would know if we were at risk of being blown into a nearby dock and then went to bed.

We planned to get up Sunday and get across the Strait of Georgia, but the weather scared us off. It was absolutely pouring down rain, but that isn’t the scary part. The wind and waves were much the same as they had been on the unpleasant crossing several days prior and we figured we could just wait it out. The forecast showed that Monday would likely be a better day and we could probably figure out how to work and cross, or just take the day off. We took the dinghy to shore just to stretch our leg. We walked up a big hill and felt much better. At the top of the hill there was a bus stop and a guy waiting there explained that you can take a bus to town (town being Sechelt) and then back. It runs on the weekends. Good to know for next time. As I mentioned, we felt good about how we were anchored, but not great. Jess would have needed to feel great about how his baby was sitting to be willing to take a bus far, far away from her. Instead we went back to the boat where we played games and made dinner and watched movies. Not a bad way to spend a weekend rainy day, but sadly how we have spent at least one of all of our weekend days since we left. It has been absolutely gorgeous during the week and then yucky on the weekend. What can you do? We decided that we would get up early and try to be underway by 5:30am the next day, Monday.

Monday morning. 5:30am and we are checking the weather. It is a no go. 30 knot winds and the red warning zone is now bigger and covers most of the length of Vancouver Island. Sad face. So it is just another work day. The forecast indicates that our day for strait crossing is most likely Wednesday. The wind is blowing hard in the anchorage and we are sailing on our anchor. This means that the boat is swinging around and the wind is howling. It has been like this since Thursday and it starts to get to you a little. And it has been raining off and on. I actually got to wear my new foulies! There is a fancy Italian restaurant on the dock here that we might check out when it opens, just to get off the boat for a little while.

I will end this post here. We need to have the big girl back on the dock by the end of next weekend so that we can get her cleaned up and ready to host guests (every weekend in August). Hopefully we get a good weather window to move south. If not, we will have some long and challenging days beating and bashing into the wind and waves. That is another thing that we already knew – it is better not to have a set schedule if you can avoid it. Too bad we have those pesky jobs! One more post to come on this adventure.