sailing

Heading North from Nanaimo: Comox and Desolation Sound

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On Monday the 19th, we headed north from Nanaimo, intending to be in Campbell River on Tuesday, stopping for the night in Ford Cove on Hornby Island. This was easily our most uncomfortable passage yet–we were able to sail most of the way, with 15-20 knots of wind on our starboard quarter, but while we were able to sail, the motion of the waves in the Strait of Georgia hitting us in the same starboard quarter made for a very uncomfortable ride. I got mildly nauseous, and my partner got a bit worse than that, feeling fairly seasick for the first two hours.

Thankfully, Ford Cove gave us good protection from the wind and waves overnight and we slept well, and the next day was as calm as could be, a welcome relief from the previous day. However, we’d been having issues with the furling main getting stuck trying to unfurl, so while we motored north (thinking we’d get to Campbell River), I made some calls until I found a rigger that could help us out; the rigger (Blanchard Rigging) was based out of Comox and said they could come see us that afternoon if we just went directly to the Comox Valley Harbour Authority docks, so we did.

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Orca whales and some birds

We had a pleasant sail + motor from the Catalina meetup at Roche Harbor to Shallow Bay on the west side of Sucia Island on Sunday. Motored out of the bay, between San Juan Island and Spieden Island, then unfurled the sails for an easy, slow sail up towards President Channel, which separates Waldron Island and Orcas Island.

Not far out from the entrance to the channel, we spotted several whale watching boats and a few private boats all grouped up near the south tip of Waldron, Point Disney. Once my partner confirmed with her binoculars that she should see a dorsal fin, we immediately furled in the sails (the wind had just died anyway) and motored over to see what was going on.

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Our first two days as cruisers

As I type this, it’s just before 10pm on Friday night. But not just any Friday night: we untied the lines yesterday, leaving our (now former) home marina. It’s a bit surreal, but in that way where there isn’t some big transition, or huge set of feelings that I thought I might feel. Instead, it’s just a sense of contentment and calm. This is what I’ve been planning and saving up to do for eleven years now, and it just feels right.

We’re in Roche Harbor on San Juan Island tonight, at the All-Catalina Rendezvous. Kinda the perfect way to start our cruising life, getting to spend time with other folks that own the same make of boat. I got up this morning at 5:45am to get us going out of the anchorage at Port Ludlow, where we spent our first night. The timing allowed us to ride the outgoing tide through Admiralty Inlet past Port Townsend, and we had a 2-4 knot current all the way from just outside Port Ludlow to halfway across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Despite not having any favorable wind to sail on, the currents carried us along quite quickly while I ran the engine at a relaxed pace, and we still were seeing 7-9 knots for the first several hours of the day.

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Offshore Personal Survival with Sail Canada

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Over the long (American) Thanksgiving Weekend, my partner and I drove up to Vancouver, BC, to take part in Sail Canada’s Offshore Personal Survival Course. This is training required for anyone doing offshore racing in OSR (Offshore Special Regulations) categories 0, 1, and 2. While we don’t currently have plans to do any racing, we felt that taking the course would do well to help prepare us should the worst happen while sailing offshore.

As cruisers, we were in the minority in the class–only 4 of us weren’t dedicated racers. The instructors actually really like having cruisers attend, as very few actually do take this training despite sailing offshore, and we were very glad to have taken it, both for all the classroom discussion but also the experience of being in our full offshore gear in the water and inflating & boarding life rafts in multiple ways (as well as flipping it over if it’s deployed inverted).

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Replacing the standing rigging

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As Kestrel still had her original standing rigging from 2008, it was time to replace it. This is a pretty standard thing to do for any sailboat before a long trip, particularly if you’ll be going offshore. Having a nice, healthy standing rigging an important aspect of safety. As this was a task I was not able to DIY, I hired Puget Sound Rigging to do the work. They were great to work with and did an excellent job!

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