04:30 A light anchorage wind pulls us out into the dark blue until a firmer type of air grabs hold. The sun is still to rise, the sky is pink, and everything is waiting for the sun to rise. Except me, it will cook me today.
11:00 WILD sailing!! Position between Balenas Island light and Mistaken Isl. average of 4.5 knots. Surfing on waves makes the boat vibrate like its going to explode. everything is building still, we will be out of it shortly.
14:50 Lookfar and I come loping in around Neck Pt. on the final gusts of a dying breeze. Nanaimo is crazy, I am ashamed of the impact of the city here. Just the noise and self centered busyness creates a very rough scene to the mind adjusted to Otter Time. it is hard to verbalize. I am sorry.
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04:00 Saturday I think, woke early to a perfect morning, loons call across the water as I slip along beneath the moon. To the east the mountains are orange with the new light of a fresh day. Will we ever get there? I don't mean Tribune Bay, our resting place to wait the ebbs coming, I mean the lights home. Where is the tide running? and why on mornings like this do such questions seem prophetic.
12:00 Flopping about in a calm just two miles south of Tribune Bay.
I showered, used a phone, got water, ditched the garbage ect, at the ferry terminal on the west side of Hornby. A good tide stopover. Now I am underway again inspite of being very short of sleep, the wind is just too good.
In gusty madness I surf on wind alone covering two miles in 15 minutes. Nearly knocked down in a lapse of mindfulness.
Now with 20 knts forcast I am in the doldrums off of Qualicum Beach. I feel a lull before the blast...
21:30 No blast. at about dinner i rowed back to Tribune Bay as it was the closest land. A good swim took what heat the poncho couldn't keep off earlier. Then a good visit with Ron and Diane on Water Music. It is good to have friends. This beach and all its people is a weird place to arrive in the middle of such a journey as this, I feel rather out of sorts---the odd duck
Tomorrow I will try again early to make miles south. A big northerly is forecast.
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10:30 after hauling Lookfar back to the water, loading, breakfast, ect, we are finally underway in a light easterly against the flood. We seem to have a full escort from the seal clan, maybe fifty onlookers blowing and snuffling like only a seal can. Today I'm aiming for Hornby Island.
18:00 Finally rounded Cape Lazo, not going to make Hornby today. An evening speed row against the flood finishes the final two hours of the day and leaves me watching the sunset on Whidbey Shoal. This place is stunning. After weathering the sun and little wind from sunrise to sunset, I am really out of it. I chose to sail most of the day even though I was only making a knot from the current. Now this place looks like somewhere else, somewhere on the west side of Africa with all its birds and odd plant life, huge lagoons and the deepest blue sea.
*I am posting these log entries at a later date, a few at a time as I get the chance. It is good to see they are being read, and thought about. Please continue to use the comments section as a forum if you like, as for me I will only post from my log/journal. I am not trying to teach anything to anyone, simply sharing what I find closest to my heart. I will try in the future to be more mindful of using absolutes in my speech.
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07/11/2008 | John (jkjrcox att hotmail dott com)
Thanks for sharing all the wonderful experiences you have had on your trip. Don't avoid using absolutes, use of absolutes shows conviction. It's a bit scary when you say "I am a God" coming from someone who was raised in a Christian tradition. That is sure to invite comment from anyone who is a believer in the Triune God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Keep your focus on God when you see His wondrous works. The fathers of the church and the desert fathers all were very much in touch with nature, especially the desert fathers. They never ceased to keep thier focus on God as they lived out thier lives of acetecism in the wilderness.
What are the White Fire and the Wave? |
06:30
Depart for Comox via Henando and Mitlenatch. Light westerlies, overcast, raining. Wearing Suit. Looks like a good day for crossing.
09:00 The rain becomes fat and steady as I round the NW point of Henando Isl. and plot a course for Mitlenatch. Fog is rolling across the strait and the sea feels big. Lookfar tracks along nicely in a 10 knot NWerly and we are beating the tide with the leeboard up making 2 kts.
10:30 Mitlenatch is drawing near as the rain subsides, it appears to be covered in snow. This is due to the large quantity of seabirds that nest here. Also the flowers look to be in bloom- there are a lot.
11:00 Wandering the trails I see eggs tucked away among the flowers, I looks away, the gulls pretend not to see them also. Down on the water Pigeon Guillemots *?spelling* perform odd rituals with fish while Wood Ducks preen on the beach. David and Peggy Thomson invite me in for tea and tell me about their time on the island, they've been volunteering there since the 80's.
I ask if there is any hope for this place. They say it's hard to say what the future brings, but one thing most naturalists can agree on, mass extinctions or on the way for one reason or another. Mostly human impact. Just yesterday someone was out shooting the baby seals here.
Citified humans are completely out of touch with reality.
12:45 Set sail for Cape Lazo- the wind has backed to the south east, and a strong wind warning blares out on the VHF as I head out steering due south. I trim the boat, seas are building, skies grey and ominous to windward. It seems I may be in for it awhile
16:00 Heavy air and white caps push my course to leeward, toward vancouver island. I bash on, plunging into the grief as they say, bailing everynow and again. I am alone out here.
On the beach there are RV's and what looks like sand, I bear off some more, the wind is still building and its already somewhere near 20. Time to get off this ride. I pull the leeboard and turn downwind, the rudder starts humming at 4-5 knots, now it is nearly vibrating the boat apart. Surfing is scary but awesome. I lunge forward, kill the sail, pull the rudder and row like Voss through the breakers and onto a rocky beach. I manage to get some plywood (my bed) down on the rocks before they eat my bottom. It turns out my bed makes a good runway and I pull the boat out of the seas reach, skidding it up driftwood and bed.
I'm feeling pretty on today.
To the north I can barely see Cortez enshrouded as it is in rain. I note my rough hands and salt covered everything, I feel like a bird or a seal, hauled out on the rocks to rest. I feel like I crossed this sea with the power of my own body. Engines, like war, are obsolete.
23:00 I couldnt stay on the beach where I was and everything is private above, so once the sea subsided enough to get back out there I did.
2 more hours of beating yield less than a mile.
Wham, coming in two close I see the bottom and tack away putting the board deeper in the water and running aground. Minor damage. Getting tired is bad for judgement. Its been a long day.
I haul the boat through the surf Voss style once again and make camp after humping everything, boat included, a few hundred feet up the beach. I light a fire and pass out
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07/08/2008 | John (jkjrcox att hotmail dott com)
Citified humans are also created in the image and likeness of God. I guess we all need to examine ourselves and see where the true reality is.
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07/09/2008 | The River Pilgrim (dcondron att juno dott com)
Citified, made-in-God's-image people can also be wrong. Admitting our wrong begins repentance and the process of conversion. We turn from the wrong toward Righteousness. Liver flukes can kill you, but no one lives forever but those with the righteousness of Christ. We each find this in different ways and we need each other to find help along the path. May your path take you deeper in Christ.
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07/09/2008 | Corb (corbettndpriebe att gmail dott com)
A wise man once set me on the path to freedom. It has been a long road to tear down the labels society (even the church) created, to thus recreate myself in the living image of God. Labels inside and outside Christianity now exist that merely create a realm of comfort, out from - in most cases ignorance (or lack of self examination) - blind belief. I think, maybe, there is a difference between 'made in God's image' to 'living in God's image.' I believe that most things a man does, stems out from what he believes (or does not believe, or hasn't thought about yet, or examined within himself). So in order for me to best live in Christ's image, I must know what I believe, all labels must be torn down to find the truth beneath. At least for me that is, for my path is not the same as anyone else'.
Ps Miss you Casey |
09:00 Rowing out of Roscoe
10:00 Breakfast on Beach
11:00 finally sailing!!! to weather but atleast my arms can rest.
13:00 Rowing again.
caught a fish and ate it. less than 5 minutes from catch to finished eating. try that with a grocery store.
15:00 in Cortez Bay
rest and re stock for tomorrow crossing of the Strait of Georgia
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07/08/2008 | John (jkjrcox att hotmail dott com)
You don't get liver flukes in a grocery store either!
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