My friends Adam Mims and Peter Frost just returned from their off season voyage around Vancouver Island on Peter's O'Day 27 "Silent Partner". He and she are veterans of several trips into northwestern Alaska and she is well outfitted for offshore trips. Still, weather offshore in April can be dreadful.
Turns out they had remarkably good weather and sailed 85% of the time. They said they had SE winds going up the inside and NW winds coming down. They hit rough water at Nahwiti Bar and the Brooks Peninsula, but nothing beyond their comfort zones. I think they said their highest winds maybe hit 35 or 40. Gales, but not storms. They had to hold up in Bamfield for several days to wait out one strong storm, but then did a 100 mile day from there straight to Victoria. Left Bamfield at 2:30 am and made it to Victoria at something like 7pm. Said they had rough patches at Swiftsure banks and did a lot of surfing on the way in.
They had a tremendously good time, with all the usual highlights of a trip like this, but perhaps the most unusual and special place they visited was the upper reaches of Knight Inlet. They went all the way up and gained anchorage on a sand bar off one of the countless drainages. Sounded truly extraordinary. Huge mountains and countless waterfalls. They saw a pod of about 100 pacific white sided dolphins in the upper part of Knight Inlet, and Pete said that is where he sees them most often, is up the inlets.
It was a pure pleasure to host these sailors at the start and end of their voyage, and they were all the better for having done it.
1 comment:
Thanks for posting the pics of the Silent Partner sailors. I have been thinking of them lots as they were on their journey.
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