Dragging our feet
04 August 2013 | Poet's Cove, Bedwell Harbour
Pete
So, when we last wrote an update, we were in Squirrel Cove, about to head South. Since then we’ve had a few busy days. We left Squirrel Cove, and headed for an unnamed bay that we have dubbed Soap Bay due to an incident there in 2005 ish, when my friend Marcus dropped our only bar of Soap overboard but refused to go after it because he felt he was being lewdly eyed by a local seal and he was afraid that said seal might become amorous if he went in after the soap. Being more terrified of spending another several weeks on board the boat with Marcus without the abilty to shower, I retrieved the soap. The seal was uninterested.
During the day’s trip south, I completed rigging the new running backstays, so now the mast is far less likely to pump itself to oblivion when we hoist the storm jib.
Soap Bay is a great anchorage with fantastic protection to the South and questionable protection to the NW. We had quite a southerly blow and slept great.
The next morning the wind had died out and we motored south through Bull Pass and across the Straits of Georgia, wishing for the Northerlies we motored into the entire way N. While Rachelle drove, I worked finalizing the SSB install.
Our goal was Pirates Cove, a favorite little anchorage and marine park, but when we got there, it was packed. Absolutely packed. As were our prepared plans B through E. Plan F, a little anchorage between Whaleboat Island, Ruxton Island, and Pylades Islands turned out to be a great little find. The wind was forecasted at 5-15 variable winds. This turned out to mean a steady 25kt Southerly that blew until midnight and then switched to a 20kt northerly that blew until morning. We had great protection and I was able to finish the wiring and begin receiving transmissions over the SSB.
On the morning of 8/1, we awoke and pulled out into a rebuilding southerly which again meant motoring to Ganges. We stewed in our jealousy of the boats sailing north. So again, while Rachelle drove the boat, I started working on the Pactor modem link to the SSB, and troubleshooting the link from the GPS antenna to the SSB. The latter soon left me in fits of frustration and by the time we got to Ganges, Rachelle had to gently coax me to put down the hammer and leave the boat for a bit. So, went ashore to the Tree House Café, a longtime favorite, for dinner and live music, and internet where we updated the blog and scoured the internet for information on NMEA (the language of most marine electronics) sentences and mystery diesel engine coolant leaks (yes, after hours, and hours, and hours of staring at the engine during and after running the engine for hours and hours and hours, I can still not make any determination besides that our engine is like a 7 year old; it has stage fright and will only leak when nobody is looking, but then leak all over it does! Still it’s running fantastically well, so besides having to keep on cleaning up under the engine and accessing that stupidly placed coolant reservoir, I can’t much complain about it. A better solution would be to sail more….)
I was completely scoreless on the search for the diesel leak, however, I d is id figure out that the old GPS antenna that I had kept from an old GPS/chartplotter was putting out the NMEA sentence GLL for GPS Latitude and Longitude position information, and what I needed is a slightly differently formatted GGA. Further, I figured out that the fix is relatively straight forward and involves only running another line from the current chartplotter NMEA port to the SSB. In the meantime, I will be inputting this info manually.
The next morning, Rachelle went ashore and did laundry while I continued to setup the Pactor Modem for SSB email and weatherfax, downloaded our first weatherfax, and went to every marine and electronics store in Ganges looking for ferrite chokes, to no avail. I did however meet a lot of very interesting people and learned a lot about the community. Great place.
By the end of the day, we were feeling much like very dull Jack’s and decided we needed some more play time, so went out to a local pub, Moby’s, for fantastic fish and chips, and a great live band. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, met a few more locals, and had a great time.
The next morning we were up at the crack of 7:45am and hit the local farmer’s market to resupply on fresh fruits, veggies, and baked goods. The Ganges farmer’s market is a lively market with most everything you could want as well as every trinket and bobble imaginable. Lots of fun, and after shopping and breakfasting at the market, we set off to Bedwell Harbour where we made good use of the swimming pool and hot tub.
Our original plan for today was to check back into the US at Roche, and go spend the night at Sucia Island, however, we have decided to move of f the floating dock at Poet’s Cove, Bedwell Harbour, and drop our anchor and go hike Mt Norman. Photos in the gallery to follow. Its a beautiful and a very rewarding hike.
So off to set the anchor and stretch our legs a bit!