08/14/2009, Otter Bay, North Pender Island
Yes, I freely admit it. That's the worst title yet. We're getting desperate.
Arrived at Otter Bay yesterday after a grueling hour and fifteen minute run down from Ganges. I mean, the engines were hardly warmed up and we were here. As feared, the weather is cloudy and cool, not particularly conducive to lying around the swimming pool. And that's too bad, because Otter Bay has come up with one of the greatest ideas we've ever seen: two pools, one for adults and one for kids. Great concept.
We trekked over to the ferry dock and picked up a geocache there. We managed to arrive just as the ferry did, so we had to wait while they unloaded, then loaded, before we could get across the access road to where the cache was hidden. Then, today, we put the Waugal in the water and went across the bay to where another cache was supposedly hidden. This one, however, apparently disappeared soon after it was hidden. No one has yet found it, including us.
Tomorrow, we'll head down to Fulford Harbour, at the south end of Saltspring Island. There's a little craft store there, along with a sort of general store. The ferry to Swartz Bay comes in there, too. After that, the plan is to go down to the Sidney area for a couple of days, hopefully taking advantage of our reciprocal privileges to stay at one of the area's yacht clubs.
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08/12/2009, Ganges, Saltspring Island
Another layday in our slow trip south through the Gulf Islands. Truthfully, if we had a slip to go home to, we'd probably have been home by now. But it's not altogether a bad thing to be forced to take it slow. It is also significant that today is our 100th "Boating Day" of 2009. We've managed over 100 days twice before, most recently last year, when we achieved a record 104 days of using the boat. The real milestone will occur 5 days hence, when we break that record. By the end of the year, we expect to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 125.
Ganges still appears to be thriving. We got some exercise by finding some geocaches, one of which involved a couple-mile hike out to the Long Harbour road, followed another that took us up the hill beyond the bakery. The weather has shaped up again and the forecast for the weekend is for sunny with increasingly warm temperatures. This, of course, is scheduled to occur AFTER we leave Otter Bay, which has one of the nicest pools in the area. Figures.
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08/10/2009, Telegraph Harbour, Thetis Island
Okay, not Spain. Telegraph Harbour.
Oh, yeah. Go cruising in August because the weather is SO much nicer. It blew "with gusto" most of the night and, when it finally stopped blowing, the rains came. As in BUCKETS. There was probably 20 gallons of water in the dinghy this morning.
Fortunately, we'd scheduled this as a layday from the start. We had toyed with the idea of taking the ferry over to Chemainus, just for something to do. We decided we didn't need something to do quite that bad. We did scope out a couple of geocaches nearby (another unfortunate addiction Charlie picked up a few years back) so we may go search for those. Other than that, it's a good day to sit inside and watch DVDs.
We did take a moment to note that, had we gone through with our plan to go to Vancouver, we'd have been coming back across Georgia Strait today. How fortuitous THAT decision turned out to be!
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08/09/2009, Telegraph Harbour, Thetis Island
If you've been following this tiresome tome from the beginning, you'll recall that Telegraph Harbour was our first stop after leaving Friday Harbor back on June 4. Here it was that we almost caught up with Night Music as they were ignominiously towed out of here to Nanaimo.
So today we have returned. The photo above is our attempt to recreate the one we took in June. If you're energetic, you can compare the two. Actually, there are still empty slips here tonight. Amazing! It's still pretty full.
We came around from Clam Bay, arriving about 1330. There are a couple of other TYC boats here, too. But it's not the Broughtons. No group Happy Hours here. Everyone does their own thing and keeps to themselves.
Layday tomorrow. We may take the ferry over to Chemainus. We've done it a zillion times before, but it's something to do. There's a good grocery store over there, if nothing else.
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08/08/2009, Clam Bay, Kuper Island
What's better than cruising in August along with just about everyone else who owns a boat? Doing it in crappy weather! It just doesn't get much better than that! We left Nanaimo at 1045, timing our departure to arrive at Dodd Narrows (which everyone up here seems determined to rename "Dodd's" Narrows) a little before slack water. The wind was the typical "we're heading south toward home" wind, i.e. 15-20 knots right smack out of the south. It's happened so often that we're only surprised when it doesn't.
Okay, so we had some foolish idea that if we got there half an hour early for slack, we'd avoid some of the crowds. Yeah, right. Dodd Narrows looked a little like Highway 16 in Gig Harbor and Tacoma used to look at rush hour before they built the new bridge. There must have been 30 or 40 boats waiting on the south side, afraid to buck the blistering two-knot current that still trickled through just before slack water. Wimps.
On down Trincomali Channel we went, crashing into waves that were worse than those in Georgia Strait two days ago. Needing to find some place to hole up for just one night, our plan was to see how crowded Princess Harbour was, keeping Clam Bay as a backup, one we were fairly sure we'd need. We didn't even get close to Princess Harbour. From two miles away, we could see the boats anchored deck to deck the length of the harbor. We turned around and headed back to Clam Bay.
When we'd passed Clam Bay, we'd noted half a dozen boats already there. It took us maybe half an hour to get back there, by which time the number had increased to eight. We were number nine. Clam Bay is big and open (making it not the most ideal of anchorages when the wind is blowing) so we were able to find an acceptable spot to anchor. Then we sat back and watched as boat after boat after boat arrived. By day's end, there were 22 other boats at anchor. Remember, in our opinion, Clam Bay is a somewhat marginal anchorage in a blow. It is a good illustration of how horrendous the crowds are that that many boats would be forced to use it.
We'd love to have someone complete this sentence honestly:
"We LOVE to go cruising in early August, along with everyone else, because..." And if they say something about the weather being better, we would simply note that the forecast for the next few days is "periods of rain" and continued southerly winds. Oh, yeah. Good stuff.
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We really hate to carp about the "good old days," because there are a lot of folks out here cruising that were doing it when we were still in elementary school. We can only imagine how THEY feel. When we first visited Nanaimo, it was on Charlie's parents' Spree II back in 1971. We negotiated the dreaded Dodd Narrows at slack water at 5:20 in the afternoon on a day in early August. An hour later, we arrived at the commercial basin and found plenty of room to moor. Try to imagine doing that nowadays.
The fact is, of course, that the "doubling time" for Earth's population is down to under thirty years so there are more than twice as many people on the planet now as there were in 1972. And if the same percentage of them own boats as did back then, there would have to be twice as many boats up here as there were back then. But it's worse than that.
We feel we can thank Bayliner and Catalina for that. Now of course we have no hard statistics to back up this opinion, but we'd suggest that, in 1972, a much smaller percentage of the general population were boat owners. Bayliner and Catalina have done for boats what Henry Ford did for the automobile: cranked out a zillion and three boats a year, well-built, and reasonably priced. Now every doofus with a bit of disposable income can afford a boat. And they're ALL up here during the first two weeks of August.
Even that might be tolerable if all of them knew what the hell they were doing. But there's a sizeable number of them that think "seamanship" has something to do with sexual activity. Good example: the moron in a small outboard we heard on the radio today talking to the Coast Guard and demanding that they come and help him because he'd run out of gas! And where was he? Tied up to some dock a short distance from the Petro Canada fuel float in Nanaimo harbor! The Coastie operator tried to get him to get off Channel 16 and over to 84, their working frequency. He claimed he "had 16 and that was it." Finally, she got him to call her on his cell phone to clear Channel 16. Then she put out a "marine assistance request," asking any vessel in Nanaimo that could assist, to please do so. A couple of boats responded.
Soon the idiot was back on 16. "I'm still waiting," he said, somewhat arrogantly. "The boat that came to help me only had diesel." (We are NOT making this up!) He apparently felt that someone was supposed to come out and deliver his fuel to him. It was all we could do to keep from grabbing the mike and suggesting that he get out the PADDLE that the law requires he carry, and start paddling his sorry ass in the direction of the fuel dock. We heard some comments on the radio later that indicated that others who had been listening shared our opinion.
So here's to Bayliner and Catalina (and yes, some other manufacturers as well). Thanks for making boating accessible and affordable for the masses. Please don't do us any more favors.
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