Hi friends,
While we officially began this voyage a couple of weeks ago, (after endless delays) today was the day that it seems this dream of sailing off into the sunset has finally come true. We passed into the Jonstone strait this morning under blue skies and calm seas. This crystal green rift, at times over 700 feet deep, separates Vancouver Island from the mainland and is rimmed with glacier caped mountains and filled with uncountable jellyfish and ctenophores. As the day passed and the tempurature climbed, a fresh breeze picked up dead astern and Dalls porpoise became commonplace. A Humpback whale surfaced abeam, chasing the schools of Herring that abound. After nearly a year of hard work and sacrifice, today is the day it seems we have finally began this journey as we had imagined. As we neared our anchorage, I dropped a line in 120' of water and thought I had snagged the bottom, but alas after the due struggle, a 78 cm Ling Cod was aboard and ready for the BBq. Hyo had never seen one so large, and as it turns out, we managed to consume a full half of it for supper. Fish for breakfast and lunch tomorrow!

N 50 34.03 W126 16.182

M

June 23 2009

Leaving Gods Pocket is where we can be found, onwards and northwards chasing after Queen Charolette far into her Sound. Today the box is warning a gale, 3 meter swell and wind wave to boot, big rollers from Japan just over there, a little past the horizon. But today nothing but a pleasant tail wind at 15 knots and 0.9 meters of wave to push us along. Bahh that Weatherman, he spins his lies here too. Cautiously we round Cape Caution to starboard, 5 miles or so is a wide enough berth to leave room for the shallows.
Two weeks ago I left my beloved and ran a race around the familiar waters of Vancouver Island. In the end, after 10 legs and 1000 km of ocean wake, 3rd was my place along with my mates. Now back in IO we pass humpback whales breeching and salmon slapping, if only the ladder would take my lure. Today is our first day of rain, at least the weatherman was right about that. We have come 60 nautical miles and tonight have found a little hidey-hole to rest, Goldstream Harbour be good to us and hold our hook tight.

Gods Pocket: N50 49.8 W127 37.5
Cape Caution: N51 09 48.3 W127 47 12.9
Goldstream Harbour: N51 43 38.9 W128 00 16.4


June 24, 2009 : N52 03 30.7 W128 03 10.9
Rain storms come and go. Sailing is a bit like going nowhere fast or going somewhere really slow. There is also alot of standing out in the rain for hours at a time not doing anything except that west coast slouch. But alas, tucked snuggly away alone in a secluded anchorage is pretty nice. The fresh rock sole and greenling we ate were nice as well.
We are in a small bay with a large stream running into it at the head so the water around the boat is all fresh. That means plenty of fresh water for showers and dishes tonight!
June 29 2009

Hi All,
I hope you are well. Hyo and I are in Bella Bella (N52 9.48 W128 8.66), which is a little island on the central coast of B.C. We will be here for a couple of weeks as Hyo is doing a locum at the hospital here and I am putting together a course that I am teaching at Bamfield this fall. So far our trip has been amazing with lots of wild life (whales etc.) and lots of tasty fish. Currently there are 5-8 bald eagles sitting in the tree outside. They are don't seem to have any reservation about swooping past you to land on a tree 20 meters away. I have often seen the yellows of there eyes and the classic picture of one carrying a fish in its claws. We have had fair winds a decent weather most of the way. When there have been storms we have been safely tucked away in sheltered anchorages, which of course is the general game plan (2 days ago there was 4 meter waves and 45 knot winds hitting a place we crossed). However we have been playing a bit of a game with the weather and for the most part we have been winning. In the summer the winds typically come from the North West along with the fair weather. This is because a high pressure system sits more or less stationary about 500 miles off shore and sets up regular Northwesterlies. This is great for sunshine and stable weather but unfortunately when you are trying to travel in a general North Westerly direction the wind is in your face. Any sailing progress to windward becomes allot of work basically meaning you zig-zag your way toward the place you are heading, sailing allot of miles to go a short distance. While beating to windward, as its called, picture the boat heeled over 20 degrees pounding into each wave causing spray to fly up covering you and the boat, for hours and hours. Also the dishes and everything else in the boat gets rattled and bashed and threatens to fly across the boat with each tack (change of direction). Somehow it does not seem very warm and sunny with 35 kph apparent wind in your face filled with 12 degree saltwater. So the game is to wait for the occasional low-pressure system to roll in. With the low pressure comes unstable weather (rain) and Southeasterly winds which is great because they push us directly to where we are heading. The only catch is that, the center of the low pressure is usually gale or storm force winds which kicks up a real fuss on the ocean causing big waves and general adverse conditions. So the trick is to try to head out before the storm hits, get as far as you can before the big winds and waves hit and hope the path of the low does not change direction before you can get tucked into shelter for the worst of it. Necessarily we spend allot of time listening to the weatherman on the radio. Environment Canada puts out marine weather forecasts 4 times a day, we listen to each one and then usually cuss at their lies. So for now we will play this game until the end of summer when we get to turn around and head South. Then we get to change the rules of the game and get to actually wait for nice fair weather and the Norwesterlies to carry us down wind in the sunshine.

A few weeks ago I also crewed on very cool race boat for a 2-week long international yacht race around Vancouver Island. We sailed well over 1000 km against some very good sailors in some expensive boats. A few of the boats even had professional paid sailing crews. The boat I was on came in third over all. It was a great experience. You can view a video online. The footage is of our off shore legs, which happened to have very little wind and therefore was not very dramatic. However this meant that we had up the large light wind sails. When flying these sails it takes at least 5 people to keep them in control. We did loose control over them 3 times in the race. Basically the 38-foot boat tips over and starts dragging through the water sideways until you can get the flogging sail down and regain steerage. Very exciting. Unfortunately we did not get that on video because, as you might imagine, we were to busy. The sail that we take down in the video had a dimension of 1750 square feet. My condo in Calgary was 1250! It was fun! We did see some cool wildlife including several Brown Albatross, lots of whales and fairly large shark looked up at us over the transom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uqnJb1YmXU

All the best

m