August 2010 – Late Entry

August 26, 2010

Boats, Trains, and Automobiles

Something that goes hand-in-hand with cruising is traveling to get back from where you are cruising at. Whether it’s half-way around the world or just a few hundred miles up the coast, if you have a slow boat and commitments back home, you’re going to be taking some third-party transportation at some point.

Depending on where you are coming from or going to, this can take exotic forms such as clapped-out public buses, single-engine floatplanes, or simple hitchhiking with the locals. But I’m only going from Vancouver back to Washington, so in my case, it’s a train, two ferry rides, and a handful of bus trips, plus some walking and at least two long car rides over the course of about three days. And that’s just getting there; I’m still not sure how I am going to get back.

It was almost three ferry rides but I managed to find a marina a little closer to the train station I wanted so I was able to just hoof it.

If this all sounds excessively convoluted to you, it does to me as well, and I am not even sure there are good reasons for it to be, although I would certainly hope so. The fact is, I became so mired in the depths of the planning process that I lost track of what all my requirements and options were and simply ended up booking the first course that seemed to work out.

I’m going back to see family and go on a short backpacking trip. Since backpacking gear is not among the many wonderful types of equipment we keep on board, this necessitated a stop in Port Hadlock, where we have much of that sort of thing stored. My wife was also going back to the States at the same time, on a different trip to see different family. We needed to find a place to put the boat where the confluence of marina plus travel costs would be the most advantageous, and wound up with Vancouver. Trains back to Seattle are only about $40, and you can find marinas for $1.25 a foot. Go further south, the transport costs are lower, but the marinas more expensive; further north, the opposite occurs.

This worked out well for her point to point trips, but I still had to swing through Hadlock… and the closest ferry landing to Hadlock is Port Angeles. The only ferries to Port Angeles are from Victoria.

So I caught a train and a bus from Vancouver to the Tsawassen ferry terminal. The size and scope of the BC Ferries system is such that it is actually a lot like taking a commercial airplane flight, only vastly less degrading. The infrastructure and terminals are huge, the boats massive, the routes long. The Washington State Ferries system looks like a kiddy go-cart park in comparison. And while the WSF terminals are generally located in the midst of the urban centers they serve, the BC Ferries terminals are out in the hinterlands, like, and near, the large airports. Getting to and from them involves travels through rural vistas and farmland that we otherwise don’t see much of here. And even the ferry ride itself presents a different picture of waterways I thought myself already well-familiar with. I could almost hear the securite call as we passed Gossip Shoals “…Spirit of Vancouver entering Active Pass, any concerned traffic come back on channel 16 or 11.” But seeing it from five stories up was a different experience.

Because all my connections didn’t neatly add up, I had to spend a night in Victoria, and to keep costs down, I got a room in a hostel. I hadn’t been in a hostel since visiting England, years and years ago. It was small but clean and quiet.

It was a novelty to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca the next day in a little over an hour. I watched the wind pattern on the swells and only had to imagine the frustration of a light breeze over big swells instead of having to endure the four or five hours of slatting sails and heaving rolls. We were in Port Angeles before I knew it.

Instead of another bus ride (or two) I was fortunate that my mother was able to pick me up there and take me by Hadlock before we headed down through Seattle and over to Eastern Washington. Along the way, we were delayed by a hazard to navigation not frequently encountered aboard a boat: a brushfire was burning across the interstate and we sat in the long line of stopped cars watching a helicopter dip and drop buckets of water on it until it was safe to continue.

So now, after all that, I am set for another long car ride tomorrow into the mountains, and then a long hike that is sure to strain muscles that have been rarely used. If I make it back alive from that, then I’ll have to figure out how to get home again!

August 19, 2010

Heading South

We got up early to ride south on the ebb from Desolation Sound, ahead of a weakening frontal system moving down from the north. Clouds and rain have been something of a novelty this season and so the sky seems ominous as dawn comes with a flat gray light in stark contrast to the usual yellows and blues. At the same time, it seems appropriate… if the weather were better, would we really be able to make ourselves leave?

I had been looking forward to finally catching some of those mighty northwesterlies that have been lashing the area all summer on a downhill course, but the weather forecast disappointed… 5 to 15 knots northwest, plus rain. Enough for a straightforward, workmanlike sail, but nothing spectacular.

I motored up out of Malaspina Inlet at slack and made sail alone off Sarah Point as Mandy went back to sleep after helping weigh anchor and stow. On a reach, the ten knots of wind was about perfect; as I bore off to the south, though, it became a whisper and a litany of clashing rigging, a sound I became very familiar with until we came abeam of Savary Island, when the wind freshened and we angled west again to head down the outside of Texada Island.

Not much happens on the west coast of Texada Island or its small companion to the south, Lasqueti. We’ve taken this route once before, and seen hardly a soul. As we pass Blubber Bay and the wind starts to exceed forecasts, and the famously sharp chop in the Strait grows to three and four feet, I begin to wonder if the parade of boats heading down Malaspina Strait we just broke away from had the right idea.

But as we drew even with the big limestone pit north of Gillies Bay, the clouds began to break up and sun filled the cockpit, and the wind and waves moderated, and but for two tugs and a single other sailboat, we had the water all to ourselves.

There were a handful of other boats at the main anchorage on Lasqueti, False Bay, but it was equally clear there that we were well off the beaten path. A foot-passenger ferry visits the bay, and houses were dimly visible, tucked in the trees back from the shore, but we were running low on water and didn’t have time to explore. The next day we were off for Nanaimo: civilization again!

And so ended our swing through the pseudo-wilderness around Desolation Sound. We have another full month and a half away from Puget Sound, to explore and sail and soak up the sun at anchor, but we’ll be doing it now in the busier, more urban areas near Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, and the San Juans. For a lot of people, these places represent a summer getaway, but to us it seems more like a return. Like most people coming back from a getaway, we’re looking forward to the small conveniences… water, laundry, reasonably priced food, regular communications. Like anyone else, we appreciated the time we spent away from those things. Now I am looking forward to them all again. We’re heading south, and I don’t regret it.

August 17, 2010

Dependency

Looking down the public dock at Refuge Cove

We’ve been noticing an odd thing these past few years as we have been out sailing: the actual sailing part is the easiest thing. What is hard is stopping in a port for any length of time.

There are usually different reasons for our difficulties in any particular port of call, and we have come up with different theories over time to try to explain them. A popular one for a while was that being out sailing, or even at anchor, was so pleasant because it was a form of avoidance. The real world, the world of work and bills and renters and other obligations, was inevitably piling up a large backlog of problems while we were away, which of course would then break over us like a tidal wave upon our return to civilization, unleashing untold trial and stress. But even if we’re just anchored out, but with phone and Internet service, we don’t seem to feel all that pressure, so that doesn’t seem to be it.

Another theory is that it’s mostly adjustment fatigue, a difficulty dealing with all the distractions and possibilities suddenly open when one goes from a very small boat into a very large town. But it happens even in smaller ports, so that’s not likely. More plausible is that all those possibilities, combined with our collective need to address all the various bits of reality that have been accumulating in our inboxes, serve to create a list of things to get done that is impossible in the short span of time we usually have available. When you connect that time with money, in the form of moorage fees, there is certainly a yin and yang of marina life that will necessarily cause stress.

Our latest theory, though, is simply that it’s hard to depend on other people, and that’s what you are forced to do in port. We have just left Campbell River, one of our favorite ports of call, under storm clouds of stress and frustration. As near as we can tell, most of it was because we abandoned our self-contained, sailing rhythm for the seductive conveniences of the marina… which promptly went away. After our first night, a transformer ashore blew out and left our dock without electricity. Out at anchor, or sailing, we rely only on what we can produce on the boat. At the dock, which we were paying fifty bucks a night for, it seemed intolerable; there was work to do, every minute counted! The helpful staff moved us to another dock that wasn’t affected, but most of our day was lost to debating alternatives and making the transition.

To make up for it, we decided to stay an extra day. But on that day, the electricity to the new dock was also cut off, as was necessary for the hydro crews to work safely on the first problem. The marina staff were apologetic, but we couldn’t see a reason to stay another night, so we asked for a refund and sailed off.

None of this was anyone’s fault, but we’ve come to view port stops as times to get things done. The clock is ticking, it’s easy to get frustrated when little things get in the way.

When it’s just us, on the boat, we have learned to make it all happen ourselves. This isn’t to suggest that we are always successful, but at least we generally know our limits, so it’s easier to plan around them. Nature always gets a vote, too, but when things are going wrong in that department, we are usually so preoccupied with keeping them from getting worse that there is no time left over to sit and fret about it. In port, there is all kinds of time to fret.

August 14, 2010

At anchor

As much fun as sailing can be, it’s also pretty nice to take a few days off and just sit someplace, anchored out and watching the world go by.

It’s necessary, of course, to pick some place where the world actually goes by; sheltered anchorages with a small opening out into a well-trafficked channel are good, but rare. More common are those with a good view that are also exposed to wake and weather. In these parts, even that isn’t particularly uncomfortable, though. Another option is to find a place right in the middle of a busy harbor, something like False Creek in Vancouver or Mark Bay in Nanaimo.

To my surprise, Cortes Bay in Desolation Sound also seems to be something of an attractive crossroads, a place where the weary cruiser can toss out the hook and lounge idly in the cockpit watching the world come and go.

In all the guidebooks, Cortes Bay is reputed to have terrible holding ground but that doesn’t seem to stop people from coming in and anchoring there. Neither is it a major point for rendezvous or resupply: there is a public dock there that sees a lot of floatplane traffic, but it seems to be used mostly by locals, and there are no local services to speak of. Cortes Island is at least three ferry rides away from any mainland dwelling vehicle owners.

The counterpoints to this relative isolation are location and selection. The location, at the south tip of Cortes Island, makes it one of the first protected anchorages encountered by boats coming north into Desolation Sound, and so an attractive stopping place after a long day on the Strait of Georgia. The selection was made by the Seattle and Royal Vancouver yacht clubs, each of which has established an outstation in the bay. This combination brings a lot more traffic in than might otherwise be supposed, and it is satisfying to sit in the sun and watch the boats come and go.

Just sitting around anchored out is a bit of a novelty for us, but it’s one that I am rapidly getting used to. Previously, much of our cruising has been destination oriented and made on restrictive timelines. We weren’t completely inflexible, but most days were spent sailing, and an extra night in one spot was an unusual luxury. We had never just anchored some place and said “We’ll leave when we get bored.”

This year, in a variety of places, that’s exactly what we have done, and let me tell you, it takes a long time for me to get bored! Gorge Harbour, Cortes Bay, Grace Harbour… places with varying attractions, qualities, and shoreside amenities, but all spots where I have been happy to just hang around on the hook, soaking up the sun, reading, working, or puttering around in the dinghy.

An inukshuk standing watch at Grace Harbour

I have felt bad at some points in the past that I don’t seem to be one of those people who need to kayak to every corner of a bay or canvass every hiking trail leading inland to feel content. And I confess that I am no longer overawed at the wildlife and scenery. But I can spend forty-five minutes watching a school of fish hover beneath our rudder, or a family of mergansers fishing along the shoreline, or I can sit in the cockpit soaking in the pine scent and the view of distant mountains slowly lightening with the sunrise, or stand in mid-afternoon in a quiet, still stand of second growth timber watching bugs flashing in the sunlight, and be fulfilled. I feel like the inukshuk standing near the head of Grace Harbour; quiet, unmoving, looking out at the world.

August 12, 2010

Solitude is where you find it

We left Blind Channel to bash through the ceaseless northwest winds and swells that have been rolling implacably down Johnstone Strait every day for a month under clear blue skies. Word on the docks was that today was the day for those heading further north; max winds of 25 knots rather than 35 made for the easiest day available to pinball up the trench toward Alaska or the Broughtons or around Cape Scott.

We weren’t going so far, though, just up the short stretch of Mayne Channel and around Mayne Point before heading back to the south. Slamming into the slop pouring in from the main part of the strait, I couldn’t wait to get the sails up and enjoy the power of those mighty winds from astern finally. And I didn’t wait; as soon as it was even remotely practical, I popped out a small patch of genoa and reached across past Edith Point and headed south down the Strait. Between us and Edith Point, a single, strangely mottled orca surfaced amidst the three foot rollers. His markings, rather than the acute black and white pattern typical of the whales, were speckled and almost grayish. We watched for others as he sounded, but there was nothing more.

Although the tiny bit of genoa I had unfurled was pushing us along at six knots, we were against the ebb current and made only about three or four knots over ground. After only a couple hours, we pulled in at Turn Bay, where Johnstone Strait meets Nodales Channel at Chatham Point. We were alone there, but for the house on Turn Island. The wind swept right through the anchorage but our anchor held fast and in the lee of the dodger, the sun was hot and we watched birds swoop and fish along the saltwater marsh at the head of the bay.

The next day we repeated our short downwind sail, this time into Kanish Bay. Kanish, the first, best stop north of Seymour Narrows, has been a pretty regular stop for us passing through these parts in the past, but we had never explored much of it, always content with the easy anchorage behind the Chained Islets near the mouth. This time, we sailed further in, past islands, rocks, and aquaculture, into Small Inlet, a provincial marine park.

We’ve been missing out. Small Inlet was a wonderful, nearly landlocked cove, dotted with islands, surrounded by trees and tidal marshlands, filled with birds… and utterly bereft of other boats. We saw two kayakers while we were there, probably from houses in nearby Granite Bay, but otherwise had it entirely to ourselves.

We dinghied to the head of the inlet, where trails lead, variously, up to a nearby lake or across a small isthmus to Waiatt Bay, a popular anchorage in Okisollo Channel. We located the trail, hidden in the trees but marked with a flash of pink ribbon, and walked softly through silent woods. As quiet and natural as they seemed, like most places along the coast here, they’d been logged at some point in the past; I nearly tripped on a rusting cable left behind. But the forest comes back. A dried swamp at the height of the isthmus cradles birds and feeds plants. Rock formations, buried in loam, jut unexpectedly up in the forest along the path.

We passed one man on the trail, and when we got to the other side, we were amazed we had seen only him; Waiatt Bay was as full of boats as Small Inlet was empty. The beach was crowded with landed dinghies and kayaks. Only a half mile from our secluded grotto, we felt like Lewis and Clark might have if they had brushed aside some branches and emerged in modern downtown Portland. We walked back to our own thinking of our good fortune to have a whole huge bay to ourselves. But it’s not really good fortune; intimidated by the rough reputation and the prevalence of commercial traffic, few cruising boats choose the Seymour Narrows route either north or south. Even fewer feel like putting in so soon or so deep into Kanish Bay. A few miles north at Blind Channel, we’d felt crowded; here, closer to the teeming cruising grounds of Desolation Sound, we were completely alone. Solitude, it seems, is simply a matter of picking your spot.

August 10, 2010

Fitness and the Cruiser

If you are hoping that this is a how-to article on the topic, stop reading now; I plan first to lament my own deplorable state of flabbiness and then speculate idly and without authority on the road that has lead me here, the eminent obstacles denying other avenues, and approaches a more disciplined man might have taken. Treated as a how-to guide, this post will only serve to lead you, too, into a state of abject decrepitude, barely able to push your engine start button or lift a beer bottle unassisted.

As strenuous as sailing often feels, it in fact seems to have done little for my overall state of physical fitness. This could be predicted; a boat, after all, has little room for the standard tools of physical self-improvement. When we moved aboard, one of the things I missed most was my weight set.

Standard and dependable self-resistance alternatives to free weights have long existed, of course; just ask Charles Atlas. But another thing that a boat is lacking is room. There are two spots where I can do situps, although I don’t, at least not often enough. There is no single place flat enough and wide enough on board for me to do a regular, full push-up.

I had originally imagined that this dearth of conventionally oriented exercise would be replaced by the strenuous life of a sailing man, but it turns out it’s not all that strenuous. Sure, I haul on sheets and halyards all day, sometimes fight the rudder, row the dinghy, and pull up the anchor by hand… but while it all sounds very masculine and muscle-building, in fact none of it is all that hard. And most of it is done while sitting on one’s gluteus maximus, which doesn’t receive much of a work-out either.

The unfair part of all this is that the body, so fooled by all the apparent activity, develops a massive hunger, and combined with the easy access to snacks, the long days just sitting around waiting to get somewhere, this means that it gets fed… a lot. Sleeping in is also common, as the body is equally deceived that it has become dog tired even though it’s just been reclining in a moderately comfortable seat all day.

My wife claims that this is all down to adrenaline, and I’m burning more calories than I realize. There may be something to the adrenaline thing; there is a lot of stress and a surprising amount of thinking required to get through a rough sailing day. But calorie burn, I’m just not seeing. I feel weaker than when I came aboard a year ago, pudgier than the powerboaters across the way (if you think sailing is easy, go run a stinkpot for a few days).

But take heart, all is not dim. The problem has been noted, and is being addressed, by Seattle boaters Myles and Lisa Magnuson. Their business, Onboard Fitness, purports to solve all that with personalized workouts developed for your boat size and your own, well, size.

Report back after trying all this, you say? Oh, no, my friends, that’s not for me. I’m too busy trying to, ah, hoist up this tortilla chip, loaded down as it is with chunky salsa. But if any of you want to try it and let me know how it goes, I’m all ears. Maybe it will be inspiring. Or maybe I’ll just have some more chips.

August 4, 2010

Blind Channel

Small dog jumping in a dog show — Dog Show Tricks

There’s not a lot to recommend Blind Channel Resort if you are assessing it using the conventional cruiser’s nine-line report. It’s expensive, awkwardly located in the middle of a set of tidal rapids, very rolly, docks swept by current, deucedly shallow along the inboard rails, and they pack you in like sardines. The fresh baked bread is excellent and they have all the sweet, clean water you can squeeze on board. But the pickings are slim at the store, and if you’re over forty feet, you’ll probably need a reservation to get in there in the first place.

None of this changes the fact that it is the best managed, most fun place we have stopped on our whole trip.

There’s a reason you need a reservation to get in here (although we’re assured if you’re around thirty feet, as few of us are up here, there’s always room for another): Blind Channel is the place to be north of the Discovery Passage current gates.

We knew it from the minute we showed up and were met by Nick, the youthful dock attendant. It was low tide and he talked us in past the shallow spots and helped us tie up. He asked if we had been there before and seemed genuinely excited when we said “No.” He launched into the spiel: all the fresh water you want, feel free to wash down your boat (this is a big selling point in this area where good water in quantity can be difficult to find), walking trails through the forest to stretch your legs and a 1200 year old cedar to see (I think he inflated the age by about half, but no one is counting rings here). There’s a daily barbecue on the patio between eleven and two, and, oh, do you have a dog on board? There’s going to be a dog show at three. Oh, and it’s ten o’clock now, so the cinnamon buns should just be coming out of the oven.

We were sold. The cinnamon buns were excellent.

Moorage is about what it is further south, which is about twice what you would pay at a public dock in these parts. Hydro (as they refer to electric power up here) is ungodly expensive (it’s from a diesel generator; the diesel, as with everything, has to be barged in), and the limited supply of groceries is as spendy as you might expect considering how far they have to bring them in. There is a full fledged restaurant, reservations required for dinner, which smelled heavenly, but I didn’t even want to look at the prices on the menu. And as the place started to fill up later in the day, we had about a foot of clearance fore and aft between our neighbors… close enough for concern considering how much we were rolling around even tied up.

Everything was well worth the prices. We had a lovely walk in a sunlit, still forest. We saw the ancient cedar (didn’t look a day over 800 to me). We listened to the trickle of a clean, clear stream. We met a nice lady out walking her cat in the forest.

When we got back to the docks, Nick was dashing around with a clipboard, a much younger Gopher from the Love Boat. “You folks don’t have a dog on board, right?” he asked.

“No,” I confirmed.

“How would you like to be a judge at the dog show, then?” he asked, springing the trap.

Thinking quickly, I stepped behind my wife and thrust her forward. “Mandy love dogs!” I said. “She’ll be happy to be a judge at the show!”

Dog Show judges deliberating — The dog show judges deliberating with the hosts

And she was, more or less, although at some of the awards her integrity (and that of her fellow judges) was called into question, although the bribery was mild by the standards of such ad hoc boating events. If any of the winners actually paid up, she didn’t share any of the booty with me, anyway.

This sort of community event is not uncommon at the small resorts up through Desolation Sound and the Broughtons, but at Blind Channel it was well planned and executed, and everyone, even those of us without dogs, had fun. It’s the design of such things to make you feel right at home, and we did; many of our fellows really were home, or at least as much home as they have for the summer. In chatting with folks informally, it seems that twenty years is about the average number of years they have been coming up here. That’s longer than I’ve lived anywhere, much less regularly visited.

And now we know why. They keep coming back, even the losers in the annual dog show, for the cinnamon rolls.

Dog show contestant accepting prize — The owner of the overall winner, Bella, accepts the Grand Prize