Day 27-28 of the 1st Voyage: In which we make a big decision, change our course, and the Deck Boss gives new meaning to “Breakfast of Champions”.

As we while away the hours here in CRBC (as the cool people call it…well, us at any rate), it has become fairly obvious that a change of plans is in order. We are already a week behind the group travelling up to Alaska and we most likely have another week to look forward to in this garden spot, so we have opted not to go to Alaska. And truth be told, we’re not that upset by it. We’ve all been to Alaska, albeit on cruise ships and, in the Captain’s case, aboard commercial fishing vessels. We’ve snapped the photos, taken the whale tour (apparently you DO have to buy a ticket!), and bought the souvenirs (best damn beer bottle opener ever!). But we have grander schemes—Alaska and the Inside Passage were meant to be our shakedown cruise (although we were hoping for a 5.5 as opposed to a 9 on the Richter Scale)—and now we are free to pursue them. If we can ever get out of CRBC.

Those that know us (there you go, rolling your eyes again), know that our dreams lie beyond the Pacific Northwest. We want to head down south to San Diego then hook a left and keep on going. We want to experience the open ocean—vast expanses of blue water and bluer sky—and explore places that are so far removed from what we know that it will make our former lives seem unreal. We want to have adventures. And we need to do it while we’re still (fairly) young and naïve, lest fear hold us back. The Captain likes to say, “Life begins where the land ends.” In other words, sometimes you have to lose sight of who you were to become who you know you really are. Wait, what? Ooh. That’s deep! But it does come down to this: life is inherently full of risks and every day you don’t step off the curb and get hit by a bus is another opportunity to have an adventure. The bigger the adventure, the bigger the risk. Sometimes the risk pays off, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes you get stuck in Campbell River for two weeks, but either way you’ll have a really interesting story to tell at cocktail parties.

But I digress. Now that Alaska is off the table, the tentative plan once we get out of here is to mess around in Desolation Sound, explore some of the islands, head back down to the San Juans, continue to not see any orcas, and gradually make our way back to Everett. Once there, we will do a haul out and take care of the last few items on the maintenance list and if everything is shipshape (finally got to use that old cliché!) we will make our way out toward the coast before the legendary fog sets in around the end of September.

Until then, however, life in CRBC plods on. The brightwork is underway, we await shipment of our manifold, and Basic French Lesson 3 has been completed (although we all agreed that lessons should be held before lunch, as it’s hard to parle un peu Français when you’re in a food coma.) That being said, we did have an unexpected event. During breakfast, the Deck Boss suddenly exclaimed, “It’s gone!” I told her she had nothing to worry about as there was more bacon in the freezer, but she was in fact talking about her filling. At least it started out as a filling, then it turned into a cap—no, a crown. Yes, a crown. Wait a minute. Never had a crown on that tooth. Tooth! The tooth is gone! Well, half the tooth at any rate. Whatever it was, it was gone. Time to find a dentist. Much like their American counterparts, Canadian dentists have an aversion to working on Fridays, but after a few calls we found one that could not only squeeze her in but was within walking distance.

Now, the term “walking distance” has always been a source of contention among the crew. If the “walking distance” is 15 minutes, the Captain will get out his stopwatch and aim to take five minutes off that time. I’ll generally tack on a couple minutes only because I’m easily distracted (is that an orca?). The Deck Boss will take that 15 minutes, multiply it by 2, add 17, subtract it from her age, then add an “ish” to the end. On particularly hot days, “ish” can add a full half hour to the journey.

But she’s a trooper and walk to the dentist we did (and under a particularly hot 85 degree sun I might add) where they fixed her up nicely and gave her a “temporary” cap that she could wear until she could get a proper crown. (I put “temporary” in parenthesis because the dentist informed her that the cap would be good for approximately 2-3 years. Would it be that all things were that “temporary”?)

So what happened to the tooth? Well, let’s just say the bacon was mighty crunchy that morning.

Editor’s Note: We'd like to send a shout out and a big “thank you” to Dr. Fran and her staff. If you’re ever in Campbell River and find yourself in need of a dentist, they’re awesome!

Day 25-26 of the 1st Voyage: In which on parle un peu Français and the Bosun gets demoted.

If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, then we’re remodeling a bathroom in heaven. With still no word on the elusive manifold and consequently no idea when we’re getting out of here, we decided that we would just have to make the most of the situation. So we held a crew meeting and asked ourselves, “What could we do that would keep us busy, keep us sane, and keep our mind off our current predicament?” The answer was obvious. Brightwork! For lubbers, brightwork is the wood (specifically the varnished wood) found on a boat. When the brightwork is “done” it glows golden honey in the sun and is enticingly smooth to the touch. It’s also a royal pain in the butt to do. The alternative to not having your brightwork “done” is to let it “go silver” which is where you let the elements do their thing and the teak turns naturally grey and a little rough. This is fine, too, and it’s not uncommon to have a combination (“done” on the rails and brow; “silver” on the decks). But if you come across someone who says they actually prefer “silver”, it really means they just couldn’t stomach the aforementioned pain-in-the-butt aspect of the whole process. And what a process it is: sand, varnish, dry, sand, varnish, dry, sand, varnish, dry, lather, rinse, repeat, until you have at least eight coats. It’s time intensive and requires at least a week of clear, warm days—and right now we are lousy with time and hot weather. So, yes! We shall do brightwork to stay busy. That…and learn French.

For those that are confused (hands?), when you first begin to contemplate a voyage of this magnitude, the question inevitably arises, “how am I going to fill my days?” A sailboat—especially one of this size and with this many systems—requires constant maintenance. So there’s that. There is provisioning as well as exploring to do in every port. That takes some time as well. There is taking Otter out on his morning, noon, and evening constitutionals when in port and extensive Tinkle Turf cajoling when at anchor. More hours shot to sh*t (pun intended). But one of the best parts of living and travelling aboard a boat is that you suddenly have the time to do all those “things I’ve always wanted to do but could never find the time aka hey, it’s a 24-hour marathon of Happy Days reruns well now my dance card is punched so sit on it, Potsy. Ayyyyy.” (Or as they say in Canada, “Ehhhhh.”) At any rate, learning a new language was on just about everyone’s list so what better time to start than when you’re holed up in Campbell River waiting on a manifold?

So why French? Spanish would be the most logical choice, especially since we’ll be heading south at some point and will no doubt be spending time in Mexico. But we opted to go with French for two reasons. The first being that we’ve set our sights on crossing the Pacific to French Polynesia, and from what I understand, it’s full of French people. And by that I mean that whether they’re wearing haute couture or a loud hibiscus-print shirt, they are disinclined to converse in any other language but their own and when called upon to speak l’anglais will do so with deep resentment. I have also heard that if you at least attempt to converse en français, they will warm to you instantly and the cost of goods and services will only be twice the going rate as opposed to the normal 400 percent “Yankee Doodle Yahoo” markup. The second reason we are going with French is because the Deck Boss minored in French, the Captain took two years in high school, and the Bosun can throw you some attitude in French plus 15 other languages. I, on the other hand, took Norwegian. So I need all the help I can get.

The first two sessions (via Pimsleur) went great…for the Captain and the Deck Boss. They had each retained enough from their educations to remember basic words and proper pronunciation. I got confused and kept saying, “Do I understand English?” instead of “Do you understand English?” (although after a half hour, I was inclined to answer “no”.) It didn’t help my concentration when the Captain decided to start punctuating all his sentences with the Maurice Chevalier “hoh, hoh, hoh.” Ah well, c’est la vie. Guess I’ll have to wait till we get to the advanced courses to learn to say, “Put a sock in it, Pepe le Pew. Hoh, hoh, hoh.”

The other order of business that came up during the crew meeting was the incessant insubordination of one Edgrrr T. Cat, Bosun. It was no secret that he and the Deck Boss had a contentious relationship even before the voyage began. Back in our land-locked days, the Captain and I had placed Edgrrr with the Deck Boss so as to facilitate a remodel of our bathroom and he reciprocated her kindness by being generally ugly and plying his poop deck with matter of the most heinous odor that it necessitated the opening of doors and windows (which was probably part of his escape plan.) Once aboard, he took to lying in wait each morning for the Deck Boss to come into the galley to make coffee at which time he would hiss and spit. Yet the rest of the day, he could always be found near her—lying right next to her, perched close by, sitting on her books, lurking in her shower (at which point he was banned from her cabin so of course it became the one place he always HAD to be.) It was agreed upon by the rest of the crew that he was a brownnoser—sucking up while secretly vying for her title (and cabin)—and to combat his morning offensive, it was decided that Edgrrr would not be allowed to leave the aft stateroom in the early morning. Thus, he has been demoted to Cabin Boy. That, and he drinks.

Pictured: Cabin Boy 

Day 24 of the 1st Voyage: In which we find ourselves trapped in “paradise”, eh.

An undertaking this magnitude is not without its challenges. We knew when we set out there would be times of difficulty, distress, and extreme discomfort—it’s just the nature of travelling, especially by boat. Storms, seasickness and lack of safe havens will be inevitable, just as other mechanical and electrical malfunctions will be probable. It’s never a question of “if” but “when”, and in a way we willed it upon ourselves because “better here than out there”. Early on we adopted a mantra—discovered on a bumper sticker (the great philosophical archive of our time)—that goes thusly, “Attitude is the difference between adventure and ordeal.” Truer words were never spoken (although the survivors of the Poseidon Adventure might feel differently.)

So here we are just 24 days into the odyssey, facing our first major hurdle—dead in the water (literally), and waiting on a part not readily available. Our local guy here in Campbell River is looking as is our guy in Everett. We’re hoping that one will hit pay dirt sometime before we become naturalized Canadian citizens (that’s three years, right?). Until then, we can only try to make the best of the situation.

Where is here? Here is Campbell River, British Columbia. A town of about 30,000 spread out so far along Discovery Passage that it actually seems like a town of 3,000. The marina is right across the street from a shopping complex so we have access to a supermarket, a Charbucks, and a Canadian Tire (woohoo!) but everything else (if there IS anything else) is not really within walking distance. Editor’s Note: There is also a liquor store, but it took some doing to find it. No one could tell us where it was, just that it was “in the old Blockbuster store.” (which narrowed it down to about 3500).

The marina itself is not terrible, but it’s not exactly great. It’s more geared to the whale-watching outfits (again with the orcas!), the sport fishing boats (Salmon Capital of the World), and the inter-island water taxis (that all think the “no wake” zone does not apply to them), so it’s a little rough around the edges. But they do seem to be in the process of gentrifying in a “we’re a working marina, but want to appeal to the ladies so throw up some hanging flower baskets” kind of way. It also seems to be run completely by kids who know nothing about boats, marinas, or how the world works. The Captain stopped a staff member on the dock—a kid of about 16 or so—and had this enlightening conversation:

TC: “Where can we find the closest pump out station?”

Kid: “The what?”
TC: “Pump out station. For pumping out the head.”
Kid: “The what? Do you mean for pumping out water?”
TC: “No. For pumping out sewage.”
Kid: “Oh! Like your bathroom? I think people just put it overboard, eh.”
TC: “Nice.”

Yes, nice indeed. And now this is home for the unforeseeable future.

Day 22-23 of the 1st Voyage: In which we find that much like plane crashes, bad things always seem to come in threes.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that this was our shakedown cruise (i.e. “better here than out there”)? Well come on over, baby, there’s a whole lotta shaking going on! Where should I start? The diesel engine, the battery banks, or the fire?

When we limped into Campbell River on Sunday, we knew something about the diesel wasn’t copacetic. We were hoping it was a clogged fuel filter—that the engine just wasn’t getting what it needed at the higher speeds—so off we hurried to the marine supply store to pick some up along with two new 12 volt batteries. The Captain changed out the fuel filters, went to start the engine to pump some diesel through them, and nothing happened. And no, it wasn’t just the fuel filters being mischievous, it was definitely something to do with the motor itself. Where did that come from? The Captain would have to think on that one. In the meantime, back to the 12 volt batteries. Raven has several “battery banks”—there are eight 24 volt house batteries for the big systems, a separate bank just for the engine starter, and two 12 volt batteries that not only run the various electronics (including GPS and our sailing instruments) but also start the generator (VERY important as this is where we get most of our power when anchoring and/or at a dock with no shore power.) Lately, the 12 volts had not been keeping a charge. Not being able to find replacements in any of the ports we’d visited so far, the Captain had made do with a battery charger. But here in Campbell River, we found some. So as the Captain pondered the engine conundrum, he set about pulling out the old 12 volts and installing the new ones. Easy-peasy. Or so we thought. The first flip of the switch and it blew out the 12 volt battery isolator. Not good. And the stores were closed. That will have to wait. Back to the engine. A couple hours later, he remembers a fuse that was changed out over two years ago when we were having electrical issues. He found a new fuse, switched it out, turned the engine over, and it roared to life!  One down, one to go.

The next morning, the Captain obtained a new battery switch and set to work pulling out the old one and installing the new one. No easy task. Open up a panel or a floorboard in a boat and it’s organized chaos—wires, hoses, pumps, motors, fuses, tanks, more wires, more hoses, extra bags of dog food (they had to go somewhere) all mashed and mushed into impossibly small spaces. With great effort, the Captain got the new switch wired up and installed, flipped the switch, and BLAMMO! Sparks! Smoke! Acrid burning plastic smell! We quickly shut down all the power and opened every door, porthole and hatch, and turned on every fan on the boat. It took nearly an hour for the smoke to finally dissipate. A call to a marine electrician was made. Luckily, the damage was minimal—two wires burned up—and the culprit was found. The manufacturer of the 12 volt batteries had labeled positive as negative and vice versa. It’s a wonder we didn’t blow up the whole boat! After a few hours, all was fixed, cleaned up, and working again. Success! All systems go! Except…the diesel would not go down without a fight. We tried turning over the engine for good measure and it struggled. “Fuel filters and fuses? Ha! Go big or go home is my motto!” said the engine. “I’m sending one warning shot across the bow, then I’m bringing out the big guns. Let’s see how they feel about water in the oil!”

To the uninformed (myself included), water in the oil is not a good thing. At best, it’s a messy job to set it right; at worse, it can cause your pistons to seize up which pretty much destroys the entire engine. A diesel mechanic was brought in. And the prognosis? Not good. A cracked exhaust manifold. A part that was made exclusively for Nauticat. And, further, a part that was discontinued 10 years ago. So the search has begun, and now we wait . . .

Day 21 of the 1st Voyage: In which the Strait of Georgia plays nice, but the diesel doesn’t.

It started out nice. We had a five and one half hour passage to make to Campbell River, the rendezvous point for the gang going up to Alaska, and couldn’t have asked for a better day, especially in the Strait of Georgia. Wind on the nose meant motoring only, but wind speeds under 10 knots and a clear sky made for a smooth ride—quite a difference from the day before. Here we were gliding through the water at a steady 8 knots, admiring the mountains, marveling at the sea, and still not seeing one damn orca. Would it kill them to make an appearance? What, do we have to buy a ticket? And then it happened. It had happened before—but only in one other place. Each time we passed Point No Point in Puget Sound, the engine would rev down, then back up, then down, then up, and then it was fine. No one could give us an explanation, so we chalked it up to “funny currents”. It then happened a few other times in the past three weeks, but only sporadically and generally when two bodies of water were converging. But here we were in the Strait of Georgia—the only body of water in sight—and although it is notorious for fast currents, you wouldn’t call them funny (at least not to their face). And yet it became more frequent: rev down, rev up, rev down, rev up, rev way down, pause for effect, and rev back up. It turned into a cruel game: hum along nicely for 45 minutes or so; start feeling confident that it was just a passing thing; feel the diesel decelerate; get a sick feeling in the stomach in a will-it-or-won’t-it-die way, then relief when it accelerates back up to speed. And then our worst fear was realized: it revved down, down, down, and died. And here we were bobbing around in a vast body of water with no harbor or town in sight. I don’t recall now what we were all thinking. I don’t even recall any swearing (which is unusual for this crew). I do remember the Captain calmly asking me to get on the VHF and contact S/V Latitudes, crewed by a couple we met the night before in False Harbor and currently the only other boat in our line of sight. After I explained that we were dead in the water, they very graciously turned around and headed back towards us to extend any help they could. As luck would have it, the Captain was able to get the engine started again and we spent the longest two hours of our lives chugging toward Campbell River, willing the engine not to die just yet, knowing that the closer we could get, the lower the tow bill would be. But we did make it to Campbell River, we did get to a marina, and we did execute one of our lesser dockings (thanks, dude in the power boat, for popping open another beer and watching us fight the wind and current to get tied down instead of getting off your lazy butt and helping). But I don’t think we were prepared for what happened next…

Note to David Moore: We were really hoping we wouldn’t need the diesel mechanics book you sent us, but we’re glad you did. Thanks!

Day 19-20 of the 1st Voyage: In which we are broadsided, boarded, and bounced around all in one day.

Captain’s Coordinates: 49⁰ 10.25’ N by 123⁰ 55.82’ W to 49⁰ 29.70’ N by 124⁰ 21.43’ W

When Nanaimo Port Authority put us on the pier, they gave us a heads up that the VanIsle360 would be finishing up there on Friday (Day 19 for those keeping count and/or with a calendar…it’s still June, right?). They knew it was coming. We knew it was coming. So why didn’t they put us on the end of the pier in the first place instead of about a third of the way down? The Captain would like to know. Especially since they asked him to move Raven down—which he did by pulling her with the dock lines till she was a boat length down—then asked if he could just “go ahead and move her down once more” after she was all tied off. This is a 55,000 pound boat! It takes some doing! Editor’s Note: In case you’re wondering where the First Mate and Deck Boss were when all this went down…they were at a place that rhymes with “Charbucks” using the free WIFI. (Priorities and all.)

At any rate…back to the race. The VanIsle360 is a sailboat race that circumnavigates Vancouver Island—it takes about two weeks—the final leg being Victoria to Nanaimo. The boats had left Victoria around 8:00 am and the organizers speculated that the first boats would cross the finish line sometime around 6:00 pm. They warned us that it would be loud—as in, every time a boat crossed the finish line, they would sound a horn (the horn was located in a van at the end of the pier about 20 feet from our boat.) This would occur about 40 times (40 boats/40 horns) with the final boats coming in around 4:00 am-ish. It would also be loud in that as the boats finished, they would raft up all along the pier and the crews would then hang out, drink lots of beer, and generally cause a “ruckus” (their words, not ours). Okay, fine. We can deal with a little ruckus. Unfortunately, Mother Nature thought they should take their ruckus elsewhere and did the only thing she could to spoil the party…kill the wind. And no wind means a very, very, very slow race. It was pretty quiet on that pier. Just us, some beer, some BB King, and a van with a horn and no one to honk it. Yes, even the organizers had given up. Finally, at around 11:00 pm, a man with a walkie-talkie came scurrying down and we noticed lights coming up fast through the harbor. It’s a boat! Crossing the finish line! No horn! What? A few distant woo-hoo’s in the dark but all else silence. Still no horn. The boat glides by us—the only accolades coming from myself, the Captain, Otter, and BB King. They tie up behind us, fold up their sails, grab their gear bags, and wearily head out. Wow, what a ruckus.

The next day however…it’s 6:30 in the morning and I am awakened to frantic cries of “Come About! Come About! Come About!” I look out the porthole just in time to see the stern of a sailboat swinging toward us; its bow had already taken out one of the stanchions on the foredeck. I ran up and found the Captain with his body wedged in between the two boats in an attempt to minimize any further damage. Then I looked behind me—there were close to 40 sailboats jammed behind us, rafted together four deep all down the length of the pier. People scurrying about, equipment everywhere, multiple flags fluttering on all the masts, people clambering from boat to boat. Wait, what? Why are those guys clambering on MY boat? Guess the guys on the SS Oops-My-Bad figured as long as they were so up close and personal with our stanchion, they may as well tie up to our decks and haul their sails and gear across us and over to the pier. I guess the Captain did give them permission to do so, but you’d think they’d at least offer us some of the beer they were drinking at 6:30 in the morning to make up for the inconvenience of…oh, I don’t know…ramming our boat perhaps?

After that little bit of excitement, we left Nanaimo and headed out into the Strait of Georgia. It’s roughly 100 miles long, 20 miles wide, and a hotbed for high winds and heavy currents. One of our cruising guides calls it a “complex geographical area”, which is a nice way of saying “sh*tstorm”. Before we had left, the Captain checked three things: the tides, the wind, and if the Canadian Navy was testing torpedoes that day (because what’s a few waves when the real threat is getting blown up?) With a departure time set according to the ebb and a green light on not dying by underwater missile, it came down to wind. NOAA forecast that the winds would start out at 15-20 knots diminishing to 10-15 in the afternoon, i.e. about as good as you can get for this stretch of water. And so we set out. And it was a bumpy ride. For one, if by “diminishing” they meant “in the ballpark of” then they were way out of the ballpark as the wind rarely dipped below 20 the whole day and gusts were well over 24. And of course the wind was right on our nose so getting the sails out would have necessitated constant jibing to get where we needed to be and we needed to be there sometime this month. Secondly, the current was hitting us at an angle so we weren’t fighting it, but it wasn’t helping us along either. So high winds and erratic current leads to something known as “chop” and “chop” gets a little sucky after a few hours of nothing but. Imagine chunky little waves playing around in big rolling waves and it’s all going in different directions but not really going anywhere at all. Then imagine trying to power through it. Up and down and side to side and waves are breaking over the bow and the winds are howling and sea spray is hitting your face and everything tastes like salt. Imagine doing that for five hours. It was exhilarating, alarming, and tedious all at the same time. Tonight we’re anchored in False Harbor to get some rest, because tomorrow we get to do it again!

 

Pictured:  Boats rafted up after VanIsle360

Pictured: Crew of the S/S Did-I-Do-That?

 

Day 17-18 of the 1st Voyage: In which the Captain performs a trifecta.

We left Bedwell Harbor in the morning for an easy jaunt up to Ganges Harbor where we spent the night. I will remember this place for two reasons (and I am writing them down here because I know I will forget otherwise): First, you had to climb Mount Everest to get from the dock to street level. I’ve never seen a gangway that steep, although the toe holds they had embedded in it should have been my first clue that this would not be an easy traverse. Once you got to the top of the first gangway, there was a landing with about a dozen recycling bins and a small closet (I’m guessing that’s where they stashed the bodies of those that weren’t successful in the initial ascent). From there, another long gangway that swayed precariously over a deep ravine finally connected to the street. It was an exhausting climb to the summit. We had to hire a Sherpa for the Deck Boss or I think she would have tapped out at base camp.

The second thing I will remember about Ganges Harbor is that they had the first decent-sized grocery store we’d seen in a long time and apparently I don’t know how Canada works. We were picking up a few items and, not finding one of our staples (no, don’t worry, we brought plenty of bacon with us), I asked one of the employees where I might find the beer. His eyes widened and he got all up in my personal space and said, “BEER?!!!” I sensed I had asked a loaded question and when he immediately asked if I was “from the States or Quebec” I very nearly went with, “Oui! Quebec!” thinking that might be the lesser of two idiots. As you may have guessed, Canadian grocery stores are not allowed to sell alcohol of any kind. Which suddenly explained the 16 liquor stores we had passed in the three blocks from the Marina to the Thrifty Foods.

Editor’s Note: there was a third reason that involved two navy training vessels, a bunch of new recruits obviously docking and securing a large boat for the first time, and the yakkity-sax music playing through my head while watching them bumble about, but given my own very limited skill set I thought it kind of pot-calling-the-kettle-blackish, but at the same time…it was awesome!

Early the next morning, we left for Nanaimo—or at least tried to. The dock had seemingly taken such a liking to our boat that it would not let us go. No matter how hard the Captain gunned the engines to get us away from the dock, current and wind conspired to keep us there. So the Captain simply faked them out—he slowly backed us down the length of the dock at a nice, steady, stealthy pace till the stern slyly peeked out from the end of the dock and then—PSYCH!—sharp turn of the bow and we were off the dock and on our way. Like a boss.

While setting the course for this journey up the Inside Passage, the Captain has identified a handful of “Navigational Nemeses”—particularly difficult bodies of water that have “bad reps” so to speak. The first of these lay between us and Nanaimo: Dodd’s Narrows. It’s not just a clever name—an entire body of water literally narrows down to a slim passage between two rocky outcroppings. It’s so narrow that only one boat may go through at a time, and it has to be timed correctly with the tide or else the current will push you through so fast that you won’t have the ability to safely withstand the slingshot into the immediate dogleg. Yes, you heard right—slingshot. As in, the water narrows, then blasts out, hits the water coming through the other side of the island, and shoots off to the left taking whatever gets in its way with it. A small sailboat, then a powerboat, both made a play, backed off, tried again, finally made it through. The Captain settled in behind two commercial fishing boats and followed their course; once he saw the trajectory they made during the slingshot, he was able to steer Raven into a better course. No muss. No fuss. Captain = 1; Nemeses = 0.

Editor’s Note: did you notice how I mentioned there was another way through (around the other side of the island)? It’s much wider, but is so littered with shoals and reefs that it’s extremely difficult to get through. They call it False Narrows because Sh*t Creek was already taken.

On the other side of this nasty stretch of water is Nanaimo, one of the larger cities in BC and a big center for boating. The harbor came up on us rather quickly so while I was readying the fenders, the Captain radioed the marina. That’s when the directive came in to “raise all the fenders one foot!” What? “They’re putting us on the big dock!”  The big dock in this case is a large concrete pier that acts as a breakwater for the rest of the marina. It’s generally reserved for commercial boats, extreme fat cats, and—apparently—us. The only problem? We were rigged for a starboard tie, and they wanted us on the inside. Normally this would necessitate moving all the lines from one side of the boat to the other so we could tie up portside, but not today. Because awesomeness likes to come in 3s, the Captain merely approached the pier, turned us on a dime, and backed us in…like a boss.

 

Pictured: Ganges Harbor with the Mount Everest of gangways in the background (high tide)