Movin' North

With a clean and dry boat we are finally ready to move north this morning. We are headed for Bottleneck Inlet to anchor. It's about 44 miles so with our slowness it will be a full day. Last night, as we were getting dinner ready, a BBC film crew was here to film the local eagle. There was a guy in a dingy holding up a fish and then placing it in the water. He would then move out of the frame and the crew would film the eagle swooping in to sink its talons into the fish and take it home. They did this again and again. Everybody on the dock was filming before they were done. The crew expected to get about 10 usable seconds out of over an hour's work. I guess that is better than no usable footage at all.

It has been decent here and the people have been lovely to us. They don't get to work on boats like ours often. It is a small community. Everyone in the restaurant and stores know about our boat and how things were going.

Glad to have that behind us. It will probably be 4 or 5 days before we have internet access again. We think the next time will be in Alaska.

Until later.

Yea, back in the water!

Yea!, around 1:30 pm today, we put the boat back in the water and we have spent the rest of the afternoon putting the boat back together and cleaning. It is really a good feeling to be rocking in the water, rather than sitting on the hard surface of a parking lot. Will be leaving tomorrow, even if the mail does not catch up. We've made arrangements to have the forwarded mail forwarded on to Sitka. Seems that it takes a long time for mail up here! Having the Griffins over for dinner tonight and relax after a hard (actually more stressful than hard) day of activity around the boat. It may be a day or two before we get internet service back so check back often. Thanks for your notes of encouragement.

One More Day

Well, repairs are underway as I write this note and the boat is scheduled to be in the water around noon or a little after that today. If we don't make it by then, we have to wait until tommorow for the tide to come up again. We've both seen enough of this place and are ready to head north. Hopefully, our mail will come today so that we can leave in the morning. Restless in Shearwater!

Oh, lord, it's a boat

Well now we know why we built in extra time to reach Alaska. It isn't the weather---------yet. It's boat issues. Although the water seemed to be not too bad, we now know it would have gotton worse. A week ago we were scanning The charts and reading Douglas and we saw that Shearwater was a spot that had some amenities and a boatyard with lift. It also had a post office and we decided to have our mail forwarded here. Little did we know. David and Jerri, those angels are continuing their excellent work. Six little holes!!! When we got on the hard the water was just running down the side of the boat. Now, we hope it will be done the right way and we will continue to make out way to Alaska.

This marina is not wonderful in many respects, but that lift and the view are my favorite things right now. I am sitting by the laundromat, looking out on a sunny day over water, millions of trees and distant mountain peaks covered with snow. The resident eagle is sitting on his usual snag down by the picnic tables and life is pretty good. Even with a boat on the hard. As you boaters will recognize, we have traveled with some previous acquaintences, who have become friends. They have traveled with us and worried about our water issue with us and are making dinner for us this evening. We have received boat loads of advice from every boater we have met. What a fine community. We enjoy being part of it.

Update in Shearwater

Well, folks, we had someone come down and take a look at the boat this morning and they could not find the leak either. After some discussion, Ann and I decided to have the boat hauled out so that we could take a look at the hull. We figured we would be hounded with the problem if we did not figure out what was going on. Well, we are really glad that we did as we did find the problem. Unless you are boaters you may not understand this but I will try to put it in laymans turns. Yes, we found holes, very small holes. There were three screw holes on each side of the hull which were there to hold on a device that would deflect kelp off the the stabilizers. The deflectors were torn off on both sides and water was seeping in these very small screw holes which were below the waterline. We then had to decide what to do about it. The Marine Center here has varous trade people on site, so we decided to have the holes fixed and new deflectors made and put on with fiberglass (not screwed on) . That will take the rest of the day on the hard as the area around the fiberglass has to be dry. So, now you know what we know. Not much fun and SpiritQuest definitely looks like a duck out of water. I'll post a picture of her on the "hard" later. It was actually refreshing to find the problem and have it taken care of. We are relieved to say the least. Have to stay here anyway to wait for our mail to come which should be tommorow. Then we can head north. Good thing we left plenty of time for the unexpected! Stay tuned as Ann also wants to weigh in on this topic as well.

Shearwater Resort

We are sitting here in Shearwater on Sunday evening. Didn't think they would have wireless internet, but here I sit, inside SpiritQuest bringing you up to the date news on our adventure north. It takes a little rain to make rainbows and lemons to make lemonade. Boating is no different as you will see as I bring everyone up to date. Our last update was in Port McNeill. Well, the next day we headed out across the Queen Charlotte Strait along with Kingfisher and our friends, Jim and Anne Griffin. This was a very long day. Went over 70 miles leaving at 6 am and arriving at our anchorage, Little Fry Pan on Penrose island some 11 hours later. It was a very bumpy and uncomfortable ride. Neither of us got sick, but we were not feeling very perky either! The anchorage was a great, secluded little shelter that was far from the wind and waves. Boy, did we need that. That day reminded us of our trip up the coast to bring SpiritQuest to her new home. We were really tired puppies yesterday. Then, got up the next morning (today) and went another 56 miles to Shearwater where we are at a dock but have no electricity or water. For some reason, we are taking on water in the forward bilge and the bilge pump is running a few seconds every hour. We are not comfortable with this situation so that is why we are in Shearwater. They have a shipyard here with a lift in case we need to do an inspection of our hull. Hope to talk with some experts tommorow am and get to the bottom of the probem. It is also taking a long time to recharge our batteries and we hope to have someone look at it as well. Oh well, you boaters all know that this kind of stuff comes with the territory. We think we may have hit a deadhead (log floating vertically in the water) but who knows what is going on. Stay tuned. Will probably stay the day here assessing what is going on and determining our options.

By the way, thanks for all the notes and comments from back home. We have come about 400 miles and are not yet half way to Alaska. It is a long way up here, and we do appreciate reading your comments and notes of encouragement. I will try to take a short movie or two and post them on www.youtube.com in the near future. Until then,..................

Port McNeil

Wow, we are finally at Port McNeil, BC. This is a work day for us in that clothes have to be washed, bills paid, boat provisioned for our next leg, etc. So, here is what happened since our last blog (according to David). From Powell River (Westview), we went to a placed called Squirel Cove and anchored out for the night. There was a little store there as well as a craft shop. The following day we went through Yaculta Rapids which required us to go at slack tide because of the current. We did not feel comfortable going through the remaining rapids that day so we stopped at Blind Bay Marina and waited until the next morning to hit the rest of the rapids. Fairly uneventful going through. Stopped at Port Harvey and achored out. Just before dusk, another Krogen showed up. It turned out to be Jim and Ann Griffin. We first met them years ago while bringing SpiritQuest up the coast. They were docked at Half Moon Bay at the same time we were. Enjoyed seeing them again and have continued to see them along the way. They went on to Port McNeil and we decided to go to Lagoon Cove for the day which was only 14 miles from Port Harvey. A very nice, social marina. Everyone brought appetizers at 5 and the marina provided the shrimp. Bill, the owner shared bear stories afterthat. We understand that some of the Port Ludlow Yacht Club will be up here this summer. You all will have a great time at this place. That brings us to today which is Friday, May 25th. Waiting for laundry to finish! The boat has been great and the weather nice. We have had a fairly comfortable time with no major weather to deal with yet. Meeting lots of people who are traveling to Alaska and I'm sure we will continue to bump into them along the way. So far, we have come a little over 300 miles with around 700 to go. Desolation Sound was beautiful as well as the Braughtons. They are both great cruising grounds that you could spend years at and not see everything. The mountains keep getting bigger and bigger every day we go further north. Stay tuned for more. We will be stopping at a place called stillwater to pick up mail in a week or so but not sure of the timing

Interesting

We found wireless access at a pizza shop and bakery in Powell River so I thought I'd type a little. We came into Westview marina in a storm with 15 + winds and the slip we were supposed to have was occupied so we grabbed what we could and helped shoehorn a sail boat from Comox in front of us. I hate landings in high winds, but we have recovered. Hunger and the prospect of internet access will do a lot for your humor. We find we are hungry frequently, aboard the boat, and when we tie up or anchor we are ready for a nap. We had a great time with the Ruggles and hated to leave them, but we would not leave Princess Louisa until Wednesday and we are concerned that we keep moving north on days we can. It is an interesting feeling to be in waters we have not navigated before - a new cruise every day. People are very nice and helpful. I just have not gotten the hang of Canadian currency, yet. It is good to be on land for a while, but the darn stuff keeps moving. Tomorrow we head for a nice cove to anchor in and swing for a while. We won't be checking in for a couple of days. They don't have wireless internet connections in the places we anchor. Imagine that. We send out good thoughts to Jim, who just had a triple bypass. Heal fast and come boating with us. Everyone, keep us in your thoughts and keep in touch. We get email now and then and would love to hear from you. Our cell phone generally work very well up here. As it gets less populated the connection will probably be more infrequent. We think of all of you often.

We are out of here!

May 13th is a special day! My youngest daugher Nancy was born on that day way back in 1972. It is also the day that Ann and I got on our boat and headed north to Alaska. Of course, we only went about twelve miles on the first day. Had to take on fuel in Port Townsend before crossing the Straits of Juan De Fuca. While we were there, we had a number of well wishers stop by and bid us farewell. Thanks for all of your thougthfulness. Thanks to our freinds, we do have many angels watching over us as we travel north. Monday morning, we took off and went to Parks Bay which is near Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. The crossing was a little bumpy, but we made it across in fine shape. One thing we learned was never have an open cup of coffee while underway. Murphys law will go to work and your coffee will go everywhere it can on a boat. From Parks Bay, we went on to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island (in honor of our good friends David and Jerri Reid) and spent the night at a state marine park. Wednesday morning, we entered Canada and spend the day at Sidney, BC. Not only is this a great town, our local yacht club was on a cruise and spending the same day here. We visited with many friends and caught up with Lois and Clark Ruggles who were going to Princess Louisa Inlet with us. That was the plan! On Thursday morning, we left Sidney and went across the Strait of Georgia winding up at a place called Secret Cove. Our plan was to then go on to Egmont which is the staging area for entering Jervis Inlet and Princess Louisa. Well, when we got to Secret Cove, we were told that this weekend is a big holiday weekend and that Princess Louisa would be very crowed. It was suggested that we not go into the area until Monday. Ann and I both are anxious to make our way further up north so we have decided to forego Princess Louisa for the time being. We were also told that there would be other beautiful things to see while enroute to Alaska. So here I am at 10:30 pm on Friday night bringing everyone up to date on where we've been and where we are going.

So, tommorow we head off and hope to make it to Powell River (weather permitting). It is about 30 miles north of here so it will be a 4 hour day on the water. That puts us in the range of Desolation Sound. We will probably stay somewhere around Cortez island the next day at the beginning of the Sound. We've seen plenty of Eagles, but no whales yet. So, thats the lodown on our wherabouts. Perhaps Ann will log in and tell you the "real story".

Its About That Time

Well, the boat is ready and we are too! Opening day of the boat season here in Port Ludlow is tommorow and then we get out of dodge until mid September. We will be using this to post our itinary as well as report on our trip north. Itinarys are estimates, not actual plans on where we will probably be, but with the weather, could be off by a day or two.

So, here is our plan for the first leg of our trip. We plan on leaving Sunday or Monday and will stop in Port Townsend for fuel and probably spend the night. That puts us in a good position to leave early the next day for crossing the Straits of Juan De Fuca. Once we get across, we will stay on the hook in Blind Bay, which is near Friday Harbor. We will then spend the night and head for Sidney the next day, which will probably be Wednesday the 16th of May. Our local yacht club will be there so we will say goodbye to them as we leave them and head north. The next day, we will head for Ladysmith. We will spend the night here on the hook before going to Nanimo the next day which should be the 18th. We should arrive in Nanimo early, but we have to time our arrival at Dodd Narrows so that it is slack tide. Dodd Narrows is about six miles from Nanimo. Afer picking up a friend from Michigan at Nanimo, we will head across the Strait of Georgia to Egmont which is a staging area for heading into Princess Louisa. After spending a few days here, we will head for Powell River to drop our friend off. Perhaps they will have wireless here so that we can update this post.