7/31/11 Wallace Island to DeCourcy Island

This morning began with a little bit of water play as I had to dive on the propeller to remove our swim ladder line from it being wrapped around the shaft! Turns out that in our motoring last night to reset the anchor someone, one of the kids, had let loose the non-floating line that is normally kept wrapped neatly out of the way, and it had managed to get sucked down and bound around the shaft. It had been cut or town clean off and my big worry was that we had bent the shaft or ruined the transmission.

It came from the deep!

I heard from some Friday Harbor friends that their round Vancouver Island trip this summer had to be cancelled because near Campbell River they had wrapped a mooring line around their shaft and managed to bend their shaft and destroy their transmission. Of course, their boat is a fin keel with that long expanse of shaft exposed.

7/30/11 Left Friday Harbor and anchored Wallace Island, BC

The grand trip north began at 8:30 am from Friday Harbor with me and my boys and a friend from Bainbridge and his son. The five of us were headed up to Lund, BC on the Sunshine Coast where these friends would depart and Amy and some other friends would join the boys and I for a week in Desolation Sound. Bill, my Bainbridge friend, is a lifelong sailor and I was excited to have him along to coach me on some of the finer points of sail trim. He grew up in a salty family back east and counts Peter Isler as a family friend, so he really knows his sheets from his halyards. His son is a school friend of my older son Elliott and so were were out for a father son trip.

Owen and Aeolus getting ready to depart

The trip began with light winds and so we motored north to Boundary Pass on customs at Bedwell Harbor. After customs, we were able to sail north in a lovely building breeze from the SSW and did about 5 knots in the 10-15 knot wind. Skies were mostly sunny and the temp was around 70.

A series of posts on nearly three weeks of sailing in the northern Salish Sea

I've just returned from nearly three weeks of sailing in British Columbia and have so many tales to tell and photos to post that I am going to do it as separate posts based on islands and anchorages. In overview, my boys and I were joined by some Bainbridge friends to sail Aeolus from Friday Harbor up through the familiar Gulf Islands across the Strait of Georgia to Lund on the northern Sunshine Coast. Those friends left, and Amy and some other friends came up from the Bay Area and we all spent a week cruising around Desolation Sound. Returning to Lund, I dropped everyone off and sailed Aeolus back to Friday Harbor by myself.

The Windrope boys on top of Jedidiah Island's highest peak

It was a profound and adventurous exploration of the northern Salish Sea, and we are all still walking on water with the memories of it. 

In total the trip was nearly 400 miles and I am happy to report that Aeolus had no mechanical problems of any sort! The weather was hot and sunny, the salt and fresh water swimming was out of this world and the good times with friends were priceless.

Saturna, Wallace and Russell Islands

Anyone paying much attention to the recent posts will notice that I have managed to do a lot of trips aboard Aeolus recently. Well, the boys and I are just back from yet another week of sailing up in the Gulf Islands and have more tales to tell! With the boys on summer break and me not working at the moment, there has been no impediment to getting out for extended periods of time. And of course, my desire for trips is insatiable.

Me on top of Saturna Island, looking South

This latest trip began with a quick night at Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, as this is the closest good anchorage to the Bedwell Harbor customs dock for Canada entry. The next morning we zoomed through customs and headed over to Winter Cove for a few days at Saturna Island. The winds were calm and so we motored. Winter Cove is a really lovely little hurricane hole of an anchorage. That first day the boys and I played on the beach and went over to Boat Pass to watch the rushing current go through. It's quite a spectacle if you haven't seen it. When flooding, the water rushes out of Winter Cove toward the Straits of Georgia, and reverse for ebb. Speeds can be quite high, and the passageway so narrow, that the hydraulics involved are just wonderful to watch.

Tumbo and Prevost adventures

For this recent trip my boys and I headed north into BC and visited locations that were new to us. We had heard from a few people about Tumbo Island on the east side of Saturna, and it had long caught my interest due to the remarkable location. So we took off from Friday Harbor and had an easy motor in calm seas up to South Pender Island to clear Canadian Customs. As always, the Canadians were polite and familiar, pulling our name up on the system and not requiring passport numbers or anything lengthy. In literally a few minutes, we were on our way back into Boundary Pass to catch a strong flood east and around the corner to Tumbo.

Can it be more beautiful??

Happy Boys

The anchorage there is exposed to the north but the forecast was for consistent south winds. There are mooring buoys, but we chose to drop anchor. Right away, I could tell Tumbo was going to be a magical place to stay and it was. Cabbage Island is just to the east of the anchorage and it is famed for the white sand beach it contains.

Finished with new foam in cushions

For about a year now I have been slowly working on placing new foam into all the cushions aboard Aeolus, and it is certainly high among the most worthwhile projects I have undertaken. At least from a comfort point of view. The old cushions were pretty dead, where when you sat on them your butt sank quickly and firmly down to the bottom of the bench and after a short period of time you had to shift around to avoid bruising!

I first tackled the cushion at the navigation and instrumentation table as I sat there constantly and it was dreadfully uncomfortable. Next I did all the foam in the starboard berth as this is where my wife and I usually sleep.

Friendship and Fun

My best pal is an odd man, and I love him for it. A mix of contradictions and symmetries, riddles and clarity. Among his oddities is that he does not love the ocean as much as I do. How can that be? He does not like wind, or being cold or wet. He is a wildlife tracker, and a rock climber, and an elf in the forest, but water is not his world.

After all these years of my kayaking and sailing, he had yet to ever join me on a boat. Sailing has been the guiding principle of my life for ten years, and yet my best friend had not so much as raised a sail once.

We fixed that this past week! He came up from his cozy confines in Marin County, CA and I took him up to Friday Harbor for an overnight on Aeolus. He was game, but worried about getting seasick and the wind and other things he needn't have been worried about.