P.S. Loads of photos just uploaded to our Flickr account!
cruising
Blasting northwards
The graphic you see above is what we’ve been looking at on the Environment Canada website for the past week and a half. Wind, wind and more wind coming directly from the west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We’ve been waiting for a quiet weather window that just doesn’t seem to want to open.
Yesterday morning, we awoke at 4 am to listen to the current conditions at Race Rocks, the notoriously windy and rough area just south of Victoria. It was blowing 21 knots, with westerly winds of 15 knots further out in the strait with winds expected to increase to 25-30 in the afternoon. We’d decided the night before that we were going somewhere. North, south, east, west– we didn’t care but we’d been in the same general area for two weeks and with so much to explore here we were itching to get exploring.
At 0600, after hemming and hawing over several cups of coffee we hauled the anchor up, still not sure where we were headed.
Suddenly, like an epiphany, we knew were we needed to go.
North.
It was glassy as we motored back up Haro Strait, following our plotted course for Nanaimo, a town we had always wanted to visit but hadn’t before. Now the perfect spot to reprovision, fill up with water, dinghy gas and jump across the Strait of Georgia making our way to Desolation Sound. We didn’t come across any breeze until Galiano Island, but it was just enough to practice flying our favorite new sail for a few miles.
We reached Nanaimo 12 hours later and found the harbour anchorage off Newcastle Island to be absolutely jam-packed with boats and happy laughing people and live music blaring from the shore, the Dinghy Dock Pub, and from most of the boats around us. Wow, we thought, Nanaimo sure knows how to celebrate a Saturday night.
But more boats continued to pour in, drop their hooks and raft up, small and large. Surely something has to be going on here other than a Saturday night. Sure enough, we were able to connect to an open Wifi signal and found out that we had landed during Nanaimo’s biggest weekend of the year: Marine Festival and World Championship Bathtub Race.
We also learned that fireworks were starting in 20 minutes. We got the girls back out of bed and were soon in awe at the most awesome small-town fireworks display we’d ever seen. Right from our cockpit.
What a welcome to the north!
A cruising kid’s dream anchorage
While Holly was napping today Michael, Leah and I were enjoying the afternoon sun in the cockpit. Michael was spying around our anchorage here in Cadboro Bay with the binoculars. He stops his scanning suddenly in the far end of the bay.
“A playground!”
The dinghy is launched and when Holly is up a shoreside excursion commences.
The girls of s/v Wondertime rate Cadboro anchorage as one of the best ever.
A week underway
First anchorage, Hope Island
If our logbook is correct, we are on day 7 of Living the Dream. It really does feel like a dream: we have truly begun a new life and it’s still a little shocking and hazy. These first few weeks are going to be bumpy, we remember this from our past trips but especially our two weeks up in the San Juans last summer. It takes a while to get the rhythm going. This past week has been filled with many goodbyes as we make our way north. That part is hard. It’s easy to forget that we won’t be passing the same place twice very often from now on. That gives us butterflies too, since each day is wholly unique and it’s oh so very exciting to think about all that is ahead of us.
Already we have to look at the calendar to know what day of the week it is; even just a week in, our days no longer have names but are known by events, places, memories. After arriving at Hope Island a week ago we relaxed, hiked, slept and stowed as planned. Two nights later we motored in flat calm to Point Defiance (Tacoma) where we visited our favorite little zoo one last time. We slept that night anchored at Quartermaster Harbor (Vashon Island), continuing north to Seattle the next day with plans to borrow a friend’s slip at Shilshole for a couple of nights. We were enjoying a lovely sail with SW breeze, the skyline of Seattle to starboard and Blakely Rock to port in the distance. Leah notices what’s on the port side and exclaims “I can’t wait until we go back to Blakely Rock!”
“Why not?” Michael and I shrug and we turn the wheel to port, now sailing towards one of our favorite Seattle anchorages. That’s what this life is about right? Traveling on the wind and a whim.
Saying hello to our elephant friends at the Point Defiance Zoo
We hadn't planned on taking a carseat with us, but it's quickly become a must-have item for our 2-1/2 year old cruiser
The Puget Sound really is lovely in July
Leah summits Blakely Rock
