triplog

Riding the ebb to someplace new

Last night while I was tucking Holly into bed she asked me: “Where are we going to be after breakfast?” She was referring to the fact that nearly every morning for the past week she’s woken up while we’ve been underway and eaten her breakfast in the cockpit while we’ve made our way to someplace new.

Michael and I have been getting up at the crack of dawn each morning to travel north. It’s definitely not my preferred hour of waking but the tides are calling the shots. We’ve been riding the ebb north, through rapids and channels 600 feet deep flanked by peaks thousands of feet tall, making our way to the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Weather permitting, we’ll round Cape Scott this weekend and point our bow south for a good long time.

While we thought that sailing these long stretches (well, truth be told, motoring) would be tedious we’ve all quickly fallen into a comfortable routine. Michael and I wake with the sunrise, have a cup of coffee, haul anchor, then get underway. We get a few hours of traveling in before the girls wake (usually around 9 – the engine is a wonderful white noise generator!) The girls have breakfast and play in the cockpit with us or down below for a few hours and we usually reach our next anchorage by noon and have the afternoon to play and explore. We’ve swam in Pender Harbour, eaten ice-cream in the sunshine in Squirrel Cove in Desolation Sound, hiked around Big Bay singing loudly in case any bears were nearby, visited the 100+ year old store/post office (now museum) in Port Neville and now we are in Alert Bay absorbing thousands of years of Northwest Native culture and history.

Michael and I have been savoring this trip down memory lane. We’ve sailed this way three times now and it’s even more magnificent up here than we remember. Along the way, we came to see it was necessary for us to make this trip around the island after all. We have been getting used to our boat and her routines, learning to work together onboard again, and the girls have been learning what it means to sail full time. We are challenged each and every day by wind, weather, rocks, tides, currents, emotions.

Most of all, each day is absolutely filled with wonder, as we hoped it would be.

Blasting northwards

Jul 24th, 2011

by Sara.

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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!

Whitecaps

Jul 21st, 2011

by Sara.

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We had motored away from Sidney Spit in a dying westerly breeze. An hour before I had tucked away everything below, expecting a romping beam reach but now that we were underway the wind had decreased to…nothing at all. But once we were out of Sidney Channel and into Haro Strait we found our wind.

Forecast wind today in Haro Strait: 15-20 knots southwesterly. A fine wind to make our way south again towards Victoria, then west out the Straits this weekend. We raised our full mainsail and the genoa. Ten minutes later someone opened the faucet and more wind came pouring across the Sannich peninsula, then even more. Wondertime careened to port and all that I’d overlooked tucking away came hurtling downwind as well. I checked on Holly napping in her bunk, then Leah playing in our protective bunk. I told her that she’d want to stay in there for a while and she told me no problem and went back to playing her Leapfrog.

Back outside, we reefed the mainsail down all the way, furled the genoa and unfurled our tiny staysail. Michael went below to check the chart and I was alone with the whitecaps.

With less sail up, Wondertime only heels slightly. The autopilot steers the boat easily and her motion is smooth and even. The waves are choppy with the opposing current but we slice right through most of them. Even so, when the wind comes like this, I shiver and grit my teeth. I am afraid: of more wind, of something breaking, of not knowing what will happen next. The wind howls. Wondertime cuts through a wave and the spray is thrown into the cockpit. I duck behind the dodger a little too late and taste salt. This does not help the shivering.

More wind comes pouring over us. I can hardly believe it. Paradoxically my nerves calm as I see we are only a few miles from the sheltered bay we will anchor at tonight. (When we arrive, we check the buoy reports and find it’s 34 steady, gusting 40 just south of us outside of Victoria). We are also tucked behind the lee of the land and the waves have gotten smaller. Wondertime continues to jaunt along close-hauled at 6 knots like she’s pleased as punch. All the wind being hurled at us seems a bit silly now. We can do this.

More gusts, higher gusts. Wondertime shimmies, she skirts around like a filly trying to shake off a bit. She seems…uncomfortable, restless. Michael and I furl the staysail until it’s the size of a hankie.

Then the boat is satisfied again, and continues on her merrily way south. I am satisfied too. I trust we’ll make it.

A week underway

Jul 5th, 2011

by Sara.

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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

Our Favorite Island

Apr 19th, 2011

by Sara.

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Holly has declared that Hope Island is her favorite island. Of course, just this morning she grabbed the stool the girls use to reach the head sink and declared “this is my favorite stool” so I think that she may be using the term generously. Nevertheless Hope Island really is our favorite south Puget Sound island destination. The entire island, over 100 acres, is a State Park accessible only by boat. There are mooring buoys on the west and south sides but the anchorage is so easy that we prefer to drop our hook. If you anchor on the NE side, between Hope and Squaxin Island, both shores surrounding you are devoid of any buildings or evidence of human existence; it feels like a glorious British Columbia anchorage much farther north. (Watch out though for the current here; it runs swiftly. Set your hook well.)

Breakfast on Saturday was a dutch baby smothered in maple syrup, which warmed our bellies and the aft cabin from baking in the toasty oven. We piled in our dinghy for a trip ashore. We’d barely set foot on the sand and the girls were already captivated by the tide line ripe with sea stars, hermit crabs, sea urchins and all sorts of interesting rocks and shells. Our pockets quickly filled and we coaxed the girls into the trees for a hike around the island. An easy 2-mile long trail circles Hope Island and we set off into the brilliantly spring green woods. As usual, we saw no other humans on our trek; even in the height of summer the island is never crowded and we were all alone exploring our very own island wonderland on this visit. We eat our snack by the caretaker’s cabin which is set upon the island’s original homestead, near the perpetually empty campground. Continuing on the loop path, Leah says hello to our old friends Face Tree and Onion Tree. Our trail meanders through towering douglas fir and cedars; it looks like it was mowed by fairies through bright green moss. We arrive back to the beach where our dinghy awaits and another Hope Island circumnavigation via foot is complete. We return to Wondertime for a late lunch and spend the rest of the day lounging around our true island home.

After a long night’s sleep on moonlit millpond waters, Sunday morning arrives. We are always a little sad on our last day of a weekend getaway but we are determined to enjoy the day before thinking too much about the return sail back to our marina and another work week. The sun is actually shining in a brilliant blue sky. It is glorious. Another hearty breakfast and we are off to the beach again. Michael and I watch as the girls run around the beach gleefully, throwing rocks in the water, climbing on logs, finding raccoon prints, turning over rocks to watch crabs scamper around. We draw out the easy morning as long as we can.

We eat our picnic lunch on the beach, then return back to the boat to put Holly in her bunk for her afternoon nap. Exhausted from her beach adventures she falls fast asleep. We tidy up below then Michael begins cranking in our anchor chain. With a light north wind blowing it’s the perfect chance to unfurl the genoa and start sailing home. So I do and Wondertime is on her way. The wind is perfect all the way back to Olympia, we zoom down Budd Inlet with 15 knots pushing us the whole way. It’s bittersweet though, the returning to port, when it doesn’t really feel like home anymore. Home is where the heart is and our hearts are definitely “out there” already.

(Hover over photos for a description, click for full-size.)