Sailing the Karina C

The popular tame "wood deer" at Montague Park

After a long hiatus from sailing due to my (Anita) injury and still very sore wrists, we took off Aug 12th for a lovely sail to Keats. Walked up to the lookout via the back route. (Across to Keats Landing to meet the road marker 27 on the pole, up the gravel road to marking 34 on telephone pole and then bare left on trail.) We had some difficulty finding the trail, but were glad we persevered. Aug 13 we headed to Vancouver.
After setting the hook in front of Stamps Landing, we dinghied over to the welcome centre for our permit. I didn't want to take the big boat there, as it is under the bridge, and the birds are in full bomber mode. However they waited for us under travel at 5 knots in the dingy to all let loose on command and plastered us for our "Welcome" to Vancouver. All this to find out that the Welcome centre no longer does the permits, it is Stamps Landing (right where we were). With this "shitty " start, and finding out that North Shore Refrigeration was on holiday,(now strike 2), we were hoping not to totally strike out as we searched for Skookum Yacht Services. We had won a $200 voucher at the Blue Water rendezvous and we were anxious to get some paint. They usually do work on boats and don't retail, but once he found out that we had won this voucher he bent over backwards for us to DHL in 2 quarts of Perfection paint for us. Very nice and decent of him. So Vancouver was looking a whole lot better with 2 free cans of this pricey paint.Things just got better as we discovered free hot water showers and the Creek Side Community Centre, enjoyed jamming trombone and piano at the piano on the walk way, and had a lovely visit with Patricia, and with Malcolm.
Dingy docks were limited to 3 hours, which I feel is a mistake, as it doesn't give a tourist the time to really do Vancouver up proper. I know they don't want the docks plugged up with the owns of derelict boats, but Vancouver is missing out on a lot of tourist dollars in restaurants, tours, Science World, Bard on the Beach, Stanley Park ,Planetarium, etc. if a different dinghy situation existed. Maybe instead of free anchoring they should have no anchoring, and pay $4 or $5 for a mooring ball, which would give you all day access to dingy docks, and maybe a pump out mobile service that comes around and puts dye in your holding tank. This could get rid of the squatters, stop the problem of boats anchoring too close to each other and those that pull all over the small anchorage plus making it a tourist destination highlight. We were constantly resetting a stern anchor to pull us away from a huge steel boat that kept dragging down on us. The owner was quite unconcerned that he had started out clear across the bay, and was pushing us onto the docks.
We left early of our assigned time as the "pass the Grey Poupon" issue was just getting too much. Aug17 we sailed with perfect 15 knots winds across to Montague Harbour. Approaching our spot to drop the anchor, another power boat decided that the exact spot out of all that open space should be his, as he roared in almost hitting our side to try to squeeze us away. We cut the engine and immediately dropped the anchor on the fly, as is our usual. his face dropped a foot as he veered away from a collision he was causing with a now anchored boat. After settling in we noticed all the boaters out with cameras, and dinghies clustered around. The attraction was 2 orca whales in the anchorage. They gave us a good show.
Aug 18 off to Poets Cove. Had a little adventure when the engine quit part way. Jay ran down, changed fuel filter then turned on recycling fuel pump to find bubbles. Opened inspection port (no fuel gauge) to find out the tank was empty. out with the sails, followed by the dingy strapped to the side to push us in. Wind was too strong for the lack of control dinghy assist power, so we tied to the break water and borrowed the smallest little diesel can I've ever seen.The one time we came without our diesel can in tow. Four trips with this 5 litre can gave us enough to bring in the boat on her own steam, once the winds calmed. We enjoyed the pool, hot tub WIFI, and Bob and Deedee's company.We had a good visit by the pool and they drove us over for "Turkey Tuesday" at Port Browning, plus a grub run.
We left on the morning of the 19th for Montague . We noticed the bilge was full of water (the automatic bilge pump was covered and hadn't come on (to our horrors). We cleared out the sail locker suspecting the stuffing box needed to be retightened. It was OK. After a little more inspection, we noticed the auxiliary water tank was leaking. We tried to drain it into the main tank, but my frugality with water consumption prevented the auxiliary tank from draining until we got home.
We had an uneventful trip to Montague Harbour and walked the park. The next day, we made for Nanaimo and made Dodd Narrows about 15 minutes early. We bullied our way through the 2 knot current and made it home in good time. From there we drained the auxiliary water tank and secured Karina down.
Jay thought about a couple of minor issues we had come across: One was the ham radio. It was working very poorly. Jay managed to tighten the feed line and that helped a lot. With time and tools, we managed to get a good fix on it a couple of days later. There was another issue regarding the propshaft pumping as we accelerate. Jay feels that may be due to growth on the prop. That will have to wait for next Wednesday when we can take Karina into Departure Bay, clean the prop and check the ham rig. Then we should be ready to go off and bust something else. We hope to be out again in late September for the Pender Harbour Jazz Festival.