Chart: Osprey’s planned route in 2012.

The accepted route to circumnavigate Vancouver is counterclockwise: north up the protected east side and south down the exposed west coast with the prevailing NW winds behind. But our plans this year are to circumnavigate the “wrong way:” clockwise.

Why go clockwise? For years Steve and I vacationed by sailing north, part way up the west coast, then turning around and heading back south -- staying on the exposed outer coast the whole trip. My book, Voyages to Windward: Sailing Adventures on Vancouver Island’s West Coast was based on this route and I’ve been talking it up at the Seattle Boat Show and local yacht clubs ever since. Then when we retired in 2006, we started sailing to Alaska and the northern B.C. coast. On three of those trips we returned to Seattle via the west coast of Vancouver Island. But although the prevailing winds were supposed to be behind us, by August when we reached Vancouver Island, we found fall storms already settling in. Getting south against them was a challenge.

It was time to take the windward route again.

Will this work? What adventures will we have that will be unique to this route? Stay with me on this blog as we find out.