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Saturday we slipped our lines at sunrise and found a bit of choppy water crossing Rosario Str. After that it was all smooth sailing the rest of the day.

We did a Ch 13 call to our Capt friend on the Ferry because we knew he was on the water in the San Juans that day. We spoke twice and even showed our good boating citizenship as we turned broadly to port to allow his passage as he pulled out of the Humphrey Head dock. We waved to one another as we passed and he wished us well and advised me to "...keep the round side down." Thanks Greg!

Al drove us across the International Line and wanted to know where the red stripe in the water was. We made our goal of Montague Hbr by early afternoon and picked up a mooring buoy.

Art and Al are wonderful shipmates. They are enthusiastic and trustworthy crew. They are also willing to do things 'my way' not because they are the "right" way or the only way - but just because my routines work and are comfortable to me. Good men! I really appreciate them.

So far my one "duh" has been that I tried to take the Bedwell Customs dock with me upon departing. The guys are so good about "... you don't release dock lines until the helmsperson says so..." that only one dock line got released. I forgot to say "release" the other two and the guys waited for my call. They thought maybe I was doing a spring line routine. I was in fact doing a 'duh.' They were very gracious about it.

We had a great classic case of CBDR (constant bearing decreasing range) - a collision course - with a huge freighter in Boundary Pass. Should we divert course right now? We dialed up the EBL line and range circle on the radar and they watched the radar closely. They made their decision to hold course and as the freighter closed in it began to inch ahead on the EBL line and we knew we were home free. No need to change our course after all.

Al stretched my cruising envelope by coaxing me into going through the Pender Canal. It is narrow, shallow at 0 tide, and most important, it has a 27' clearance bridge. Our mast is 22' above the water line. We were at low tide after clearing Customs at Bedwell (quick and easy by phone; no personnel present). We did a careful chart check and thought it looked doable; Douglass and Waggoner said it was doable but be careful. OK - let's go.

We did fine. However, it sure is narrow in there and dogleggy. I forgot to do a securite call before going through. Since I was already into it and concentrating on my path and the depth sounder, I gave 5 quick blasts instead. I must say I wasn't thrilled to see a fleeting second of 1.3' under the keel at one point. (Al got a picture of the depthsounder.) Oh well, it made me feel like I was back at Skyline's entrance again!

1600: Docked at Discovery Hbr Marina in Campbell River

Plan:
Depart 5-30-Tues 1200
Transit Seymour Narrows at afternoon slack.
Anchor at Port Neville

We started out from Nanaimo at 0530 to get as much a jump on the wx as we could. "Evening" winds were predicted to rise to SE 10-20 K. We expected to be running against the current for much of the morning.

We also knew we would be facing a flood (down) current at Cape Mudge and the wx report meant we could see rising SE winds by the time of the day we were to arrive there. That always raises caution signs as the seas right at Cape Mudge get very snarfy in those conditions. We decided the picture looked good enough in general with possibly one or two hours of rougher seas aproaching Mudge. Go for it.

We had a great run. We were once again reminded that tide and current predictions are just that: "predictions." We actually had a following current for most of the 10.5 hour run so we made better than our projected time. That made us very happy because it meant beating the rising evening winds a bit.

Of course, when we got to (sunny) Cape Mudge that is where the real helm work started. It was a moderate mix-master scene with 2-3 foot "confused" seas. Al had been taking a snooze on the setee but when I rolled the boat a bit he leaped up like a scalded cat. "What the h..?"

We watched the bow when I caught one wave head-on and as the bow dipped into the trough we estimated that one to be about a four footer. That was the only one like that though and our mix-master area lasted for only about 30 minutes. Serendipitously (honest) it was my turn at the helm through that stretch. I have to admit I was glad of that because I am very familiar with the boat and have experience steering those kinds of seas. However, I am sure the guys will get there chance for a helm challenge like that further along the road.

No Cassie, Grandma did not do a "bell-ringer." (A roll that is big enough to cause the ship's bell to clang.) And no drawer-poppers either.

On the first day of this trip the crew navigated without the elctronic charting - to challenge themselves. Yesterday I devised a new form of torture and suggested no electronic charting AND NO GPS! Now watcha gonna do? They were game.

They drove most of the day from the flybridge with charts and compass binoculars in hand trying to pick out land masses, nav aids, etc to do LOPs (lines of position) and plot their actual positions. (We also checked a number of their LOP positions against the (unavailable-to-them) GPS to check their accuracy. I kept the laptop on (with the screen covered) so they could check their actual track-line later.

The Str of Georgia is not an easy place to do this kind of piloting - which is of course why I picked it. What island is that? Where am I? Am I on the best course? They admitted at one point they didn't know where they were (specifically), which is just exactly what all the rest of us have experienced. It's HARD to figure out what you are looking at on the water. It gave them a real taste of what it is like to do traditional paper charting and feel the frustrations of not knowing for sure exactly where you are. Our GPS and electronic charting addictions are strong!

How did they do? Fabulous. Their track-line matched my laid-out laptop course almost perfectly. They are super mariners.

In a future wified email I will send some pictures. One of them is of me with my head under the cloth sneaking a peek at the laptop screen (you know, like the old photographers had to do). I'll have to propose this method as a new Navigation teaching technique.

But yesterday wasn't all work. Art is particularly quick to see eagles and point out the glories of our surroundings. We have enjoyed good companionship and good wx for our start. Can't ask for much more.

Al will be taking us through Seymour Narrows - a first for him. I'll be sure to take a picture of him yawning because he has (boringly) gone through at just the right time.

To go from Port Neville to Lagoon Cove Marina, Al negotiated us through a channel that is best done during slack (Chatham Channel). He had to use the range markers at each end to keep us right in the center of the channel. He did an absolutely perfect job.

As I radioed in for dock space at Lagoon Cove Marina, I asked if I was speaking to Bill (the owner). He said, "...yes, and am I speaking to the songbird?" One year I had brought my guitar and done some campfire singing. He has an amazing memory. (And he is a very good businessman who treats his customers very well.)

We had the usual very fun time at Lagoon. Happy Hour shrimp feed was with pleasant people and we laughed at the marina owner's great bear stories. We met the couple (Dee and Marshall Saunders) whose sailboat was run over by a freighter. They lived to tell about it in their book "Unsinkable." An amazing story. (I tried to recruit her into Women Aboard as they now live on Whidbey Island.)

We had launched the dinghy while at Lagoon Cove so we were towing her as we left. Al took the helm for his watch after I got us away from the dock. At one point he looked back and said: "the dinghy!!!" It was floating about 200 feet behind us. We did a quick turn back, got the boat hook out and snagged her painter. Tied her up good this time. The maneuver was a bit like picking up a mooring buoy, except we had to be sharp about not snagging the 50-foot floating painter line in our props in the process! Al drove up to the painter, I hooked the painter line with the boat hook and hauled on it like mad while Al put Royal Sounder in reverse. Mission accomplished.

Art had laid out the course for Thurday's trip on electronic nav - his first experience doing so. It was a twisty, rocky passage (with names like Beware Passage) we were to make. So guess what? He got to drive us through that section to see if he got it right. Yep. Perfect.

We anchored in Shoal Hbr with Pegasus (Pat & Stew) and Silver Star (Bev & Jerry) nearby and dinghied over for cocktail hour. Wonderful socializing with many tips about where to fish and crab and shrimp.

This morning Art and I stood outside in silence with coffee cups in hand admiring the quiet sunny start of the day. He saw the beautiful vision of the shoreline reflected in the water at low tide - a totem pole if you turn your head to the side. We were also treated to a rainbow later in the morning. We are in God's country for sure.

Art and Al set the shrimp pot and the crab pots. The pick-up this AM yielded 6 shrimp and 1 (male) crab. But were they disappointed? Nooooo.

Thoughts on Single Handing

As most of you know, I just got my Captain's License this spring. In some ways I considered that my 'boating PhD.' And this time I have had single-handing the boat - doing absolutely everything myself - has been my Dissertation. So now the 'boating PhD' is actually real.

What this week has done for me is validate what was already there. It came as a surprise to me to realize how utterly comfortable and at ease I felt with all of the boat tasks. I have done a lot of grinning and feeling joyful. That first day I quickly realized what was happening. 'You're there, Linda. And you have been for a long time.' Now I really believe it.

I know I must have driven the guys (crew Art & Al) a little crazy in the first two weeks of the trip - with my insistence that things be done a certain way on the boat. My explanation to them was: I definitely believe there is no single 'right way,' but this is my/our way on this boat and I know it works. And, most importantly, I'm comfortable with things being done this way. That insistence on 'ritual' really paid off in the single-handing week. I just kept clicking through the now-familiar, routine steps for doing things.

Regarding boat handling, the single-hand docking is a piece of cake because I would just rig lines, fenders, and the dinghy while out in the bay. Asking for help picking the lines off the railing and making me fast to the dock always worked. Leaving the dock was just the reverse. Although yesterday there was no one around. So... I evaluated the current and the wind, rigged my lines for a from-the-boat cast off by me, and slipped away into the day. That certainly put a grin on my face. The opportunity to consistently dock the boat in these past weeks has given me much good practice and some new insights on how to work with my boat and bring her to the dock exactly the way I want to. I have long been able to bring her to the dock. But now I'm getting her there just the way I want to. Practice practice practice makes the difference.

The anchoring is, of course, more physical labor. With safety ladder in place, life jacket on, no gloves on or anything else that could get caught in the anchor chain, I went through the steps normally done by two people. I just went more slowly. Many nights of anchoring with David (the master anchorer) has made me entirely comfortable with selecting the spot to put the anchor down and with setting my anchor (backing away from the anchor) and evaluating its set (hold). I never dragged nor had to re-set. Thanks for the good modeling, Davy. In several anchorages (very calm conditions) I didn't even have to drive the boat forward over the chain before starting to bring it up. Patience paid off as I just waited until the boat moved around and settled over the chain again. I just 'listened' to the boat. Only one anchorage prompted a lot of back and forth to the helm to drive up over the chain because of wind and current and numerous boats around me. I just didn't try to hurry. Even going down in the v-berth to pull the chain down into the chain locker worked fine. Just more work than with two people. Took more time; no problem.

Cruising on the water meant only one set of eyes for logs and traffic. The real challenge there is not to get bored and distracted on longer legs. (Five hours was my longest day.) With courses laid out on Nobeltec, paper charts at hand, and long-practiced helm vigilance, the going was easy.

I feel blessed that the weather was good and there were no untoward boat systems' problems. This was a great boating experience for me. My daughters and David all trusted that I would do OK. But they also all urged me to be very careful.