Sat phone

3/28/11

Yeah, I got one, with 500 prepaid minutes - problem is, it comes out to about $1.60 per minute, so that 500 minutes can be used up pretty fast.  So if you're going to call me, make sure it's important.  I may or may not have the phone on, it depends if I'm in cell phone communication.  So try my cell phone first.

Cell Phone # - 831-332-0496

OK, here's the instructions on how to call on my sat phone.

Dial (+) 1-480-768-2500; when you hear "Welcome to the Iridium Satellite Global Network", enter this number: 8816-3256-3848.  That's it!

If your communication isn't that important, just e-mail me.  I should get it within a week or so at the very least.

Nanaimo boat basin, functional but costly...

Well, I should be getting a mechanic tomorrow so I can hopefully leave in the next couple of days.  It's raining, it's about 5:30, I'm going to have dinner, then I will walk a bit around the town (the Nanaimo basin is in downtown, so lots of places to visit...maybe I'll find a jazz club).

2nd Half of the Gulf Islands Tour

3/27/11

Interesting geographical formation

What a doofus!  Now that I’m truly cruising and not near any marinas with shorepower for a week at a time, I’m finding that I’m running out of electricity.  The reason: my alternator on my diesel is not charging!  It’s probably been doing that for a long time, and I never knew it. Sigh!  This boat is a lot more complicated than my old boat Bokonon (we’re talking prehistory here), which never had a generator that worked, with no electronics, and kerosene lamps for light – call it pre-Model A.  But having been exposed to modern technologies while working with West Marine, I should know better. 

Oh well, I’m sure this won’t be my first mistake.

Well, my aim now is to get that fixed and make sure it will remain reliable.  That and fix the turn-off switch which is now no longer intermittent, but plain-old not working.  And replace the manual shut-off switch as well.

One comment about this particular blog:  I really crammed a bunch of pictures in it, but the gmail blog edit system makes it really hard to place the pictures with any accuracy, if not down right impossible. I try and drag the pics where I want them, but it often doesn't respond.  If any of you know how to manipulate them, please let me know.  If I was a book publisher, I'd be tearing out my hair about now.  Oh, also, if the pics are not very clear, double-click them, and they'll enlarge to look - at least better.

I’m now in Nanaimo after a pleasant week of cruising through the Gulf Islands.  I would have spent it more leisurely, but since I was low on electricity, it would have been really hard to pull up the anchor chain with no windlass…I could have done it with a combination chainhook, some line and one of my jib winches, but it would have been time consuming.  But I will have to set up a jury rig system in case my windlass gives up.  This morning pulling up the chain, I had to help the windlass with some extra muscle on my side, using a winch handle to supplement the windlass.

South Gulf

North Gulf

To give you a better idea on where I’ve been, here’s a map of San Juan Islands, Sydney, and the south Gulf Islands, and where I’ve been. And here’s another map of the north Gulf Islands and Nanaimo and where I’ve been.  I’m not sure where I’ll go after Nanaimo.  It depends on what gets done here.  But I still may go to Vancouver (the city), or at least Bowen Island, both 30 miles away across the Strait of Georgia.

Deadhead ahead

One comment that I need to insert in this blog is how I am always on a lookout for deadheads.  Deadheads are big logs that have mostly escaped from loggers’ rafts (logs tied together in bunches), or, it occasionally might be a whole tree.  These get waterlogged and you can barely see them above the water, much like small icebergs.  It makes it easier to see them if seagulls are sitting on top, but that often is not the case.  If I’m on autopilot and need to do something where I can’t see where I’m going, often times, I will slow the boat down to a crawl or heave to if I’m sailing so I don’t run into one of these things.  I would say that’s the main drag in cruising in these waters, as running into these could ruin my whole day.

An otter on the dock at Ganges

Ganges Harbor

The last blog, I had just arrived at Ganges harbor, after a short stay at Selby.  Ganges, which is on Saltspring Island, reminds me a bit of Friday Harbor, but with many more stores on the waterfront, as if the waterfront was a major tourist destination.  Auto traffic is much more intense – one has to be careful crossing the street – with lots of people walking around.  It seemed to me that there were more young people here than Friday Harbor. Certainly the population on Saltspring Island is more – 10,000 people.  The café that I went to send my last blog was filled with people not much older than 30-35 (yeah, I was the old guy), and most of them reminding me of the late 60’s and early 70’s in their dress and characteristics (ie: hippy). That seemed unusual until I found out that Saltspring has long been an artists’ haven with art galleries concentrated all over the port of Ganges.  Just walking around the town, I saw lots of shops with locally made, handcrafted jewelry, clothing and folk art.

With so many people in town, I was still amazed to see a river otter eating some mussels on an empty dock when I was walking back to my dinghy.  I tried to take a good picture of it, but it decided to scram when I got closer to get a better picture.

Canada comment: every town that I go to has an inordinate amount of book stores – people love to read in this country.  And since I also do a lot reading, I usually visit those stores, which I did here in Ganges, which had 3 bookstores!

Montague Harbour

My next stop the next day was Montague Harbor.  It was another resort/marina and like Otter bay, it was closed, but unlike Otter bay, it was completely deserted – nobody around.  I took the dinghy to the resort and walked about 2 kilometers to a park, not seeing anything exciting, but good to be stretching out my legs.  The boats around where I was anchored were on moorings with no one around.  There was a Hillyard 9 tonner (it could have been a 12 tonner), same as my old Bokonon, but with an aluminum spar and a radar on it - hull still made out of wood.  Another boat was an eyesore plywood trimaran with tons of solar panels and wind generators – obviously a cheap residence for someone.

Princess Cove - QUIET!

Next day, I left (early again, as the currents were going my direction) and stopped at a really nice spot called Princess Cove, which is on skinny Wallace Island, a marine park.  The cove itself is skinny too, but had enough room that I could swing on a single hook.  I noticed hanging along the cliff shore on both sides were chains marked with bright-colored ribbon where one could tie stern to, with their front anchors out, thereby allowing much more boats to stay there, which I’m sure happens during the summer a lot.

This place was so scenic, that I had to take my kayak and paddle inside and outside the cove, finally stopping at a public dock to get out for a hike.  I saw a river otter (very briefly), and raccoons, one standing up to look at me before running off before I could take any picture.

Overlooking Blue Bossa on cliffs in Princess Cove

It’s obvious to me that I’m going to have to be much more clever in taking wildlife shots.  There are a lot of geese flying around this time of year, and I guess they are in migration.  My point is that I still haven’t gotten a good telephoto lens shot of them zipping by, squawking, usually in twos. 

There was one house overlooking the bay, with what looked like an old gentleman living there.  Other than one sailboat that briefly anchored before heading to what I think was Nanaimo, since it looked like a charter boat, I was totally alone.  During the night, it was REALLY quiet.  I could hear the occasional soft rumbling of the anchor chain as it would shift with the boat’s position to an occasional puff that would come from the south, and occasionally some rustling of bushes overhead above the cliffs and a raccoon call.  Princess cove was definitely my favorite spot in the Gulf Islands.

Looking west from Wallace Island

I would have liked to stay for another night, but with my electrical problems, I weighed anchor and left to go to Nanaimo, where I had to time my approach to Dodd Narrows.  It states in the guides that you have to be there during slack tide (no currents going one way or the other), so I motored slowly to it so I’d get there a half hour before, which I figured was close enough that I wouldn’t get into trouble.  No problem, as it turns out, and I headed to Nanaimo.

So here I am, batteries charged up, and waiting for tomorrow (Monday) to start calling.  I hope that when I get these problems fixed, this will be the end for a while; but, knowing Murphy’s Law (if it can break, it probably will), I’m not holding my breath.

Leaving Dodd Narrows

South Gulf Islands Part 1

Sydney - boring, but a good place to get stuff done on a boat

So we left March 20^th to Sydney, after saying goodbye to some friends on the docks (specifically Nick and Gail_, who have lived in Friday Harbor for over 10 years, having done a lot of trips to Alaska and back, and who had a ton of info on where to go, weather maps, etc.).

It was a cold North easterly, and we were bucking a head wind until we got around the top of San Juan Island.  Once we got around and had some clear wind, I unrolled the big jib (a 150 genoa) and got a lot of horsepower from just that sail alone (remember, I couldn’t use the mainsail, as it was ripped and I didn’t want to rip it anymore).  But since I didn’t leave until 12:30 on a Sunday (to have the tide run with me), I needed to get to customs before they closed as well as the marina to check in.  So I kept the engine on, but at my economic speed and moved along at 7-8 knots through the water.

Got to Sydney, checked in with customs (the lady there gave me a hard time for being single-handed, and I just told her it was a challenge…), and got checked into the Sydney Marina.  The biggest problem was that I couldn’t turn off the engine…the electric push button wouldn’t work, so I ended up having to open both hatches in the main cabin (which entails unscrewing the table from the floor) to turn it off. 

The next day, I called UK sailmakers and they quickly had a guy down here to help me unroll the main, pull it down and fold it up, and he took it to the shop where they replaced the rotten Dacron along the leach with sun-resistant Dacron and resewed some stitching, doing a nice job, but costing an arm and a leg. 

That day, I also turned the engine on and could then turn it off using the switch.  Don’t you just hate it when problems are intermittent?  It makes one feel like a fool.  I still called a mechanic to come down and check it out.  He fixed a problem that I was having with the engine throttle control in the pilot house, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with the engine electrical cut-off switch, but he did mentioned that I had a mechanical shut-off switch located in the starboard cockpit locker…duh!  Did I feel stupid.  But even more stupid, the next day I found out that the cable for the manual shutoff was frozen and would need to be replaced.  Oh well, I can probably do that myself when I get to a place that has parts (Nanaimo).  In the meantime, I set up a lanyard system where I could shut off the engine with just opening one hatch, which didn’t entail taking the cabin apart. 

Boats.  They can be frustrating.

A few observations about Canada:

Canadians, at least in British Columbia, are really nice.  Since I’m a “foreigner”, I’m required to fly the Canadian flag on my mast (called a courtesy flag), and show the US flag on the stern.  When I dropped into Tsehum Harbor, just a little north of Sydney, to pump out my sanitation tank, there were at least 2 people who waved to me from their boats and say “welcome!”  Like the English, they are quick to give directions.  And in shops and restaurants, they are unfailingly polite.

Because the Canadian dollar is the same as the US dollar, I’m getting blasted with sticker shock…now it costs $50 a day to stay at a marina. I told the Sydney West Marine manager (yes, West Marine even has stores in Canada) that staying at a marina costs as much as staying at a motel (of course, my idea of a motel is Motel 6).  He laughed and said, “Not if you compare it to our motels!”  Everything is expensive here, including food.  I will need to watch expenses, giving me plenty of reason to anchor out as much as possible, and staying away from marinas as much as possible.

What irritates me about Canada is its insistence that it be a bi-lingual country (English and French).  Normally this wouldn’t affect me, but it does tweak me when I’m listening to the weather report on the VHF…half of the time, they talk in French, which means it takes twice as long to hear the weather report.  Oh well, at least they have good weather reports.

Otter bay marina/resort - BB is way over on the other side of the bay

March 23: After studying the charts and looking through some cruising guides, I decided to dive right into the Gulf Islands and head towards N. Pender Island, to anchor in Otter cove.  It was a beautiful sunny day…almost warm!  What a nice change!  Maybe Spring is just around the corner.  But it was bad timing, tide-wise, as we were bucking against some wild currents ranging .5 to 2 knots.  We still made it by 2:30 and anchored towards the south side of the bay.  Otter Cove has a pretty marina/resort on the north side.  I took the dinghy over and walked around a bit.  There were lots of activity, getting ready for the season, as they were busy doing roadwork, and remodeling their store, which was closed.  There looked to be a lot of rental houses or look-alike vacation homes along the cliff side.  At anyrate, it wasn’t all that interesting and I got back to BB to relax and read.  The ferry landing is just right around the north point, and the ferries leave small wakes, which rocked the boat a bit, but not enough to bother me. 

With sunny weather comes nice sunsets

March 24: Our next stop was to Provost Island to a sheltered narrow little cove called Shelby. The cove is surrounded by cliffs, with one house perched on the west side. It barely has enough room to swing on an anchor (I guess when it’s crowded, people tie their sterns to shore). Luckily I was the only boat here.  Very quiet, very scenic, very cold.  Time to catch up with my reading, which I did until the NW wind started coming up, blowing right into the cove.  I decided I was bored (I remember it takes at least a year to climate myself to the point where boredom and time passing is not an issue, but I’m not there yet), so I upped anchor and went across the channel to Ganges Harbor (on Salt Spring Island), a sizable town up a large fiord.  I anchored in a small cove, well away from traffic and buzzed my little outboard to town and found a café and now I’m sending this blog. This cafe is wild, with nothing but young hippies coming in and out.

More later about Ganges and my trip.

Preparing

What a treat!  While I was playing with David George’s band that I described last blog, his brother Scott brought out a video recorder and taped a warm-up tune on Saturday called “All Blues”.  And of course, there I was grinning like an idiot because I was having a lot of fun.  Ha ha!  I was able to get this digitally and load it into u-tube so that everyone can take a look. 

Check it out on U-tube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOyRdsVSIqg

While I was down in Santa Cruz, my friend Andy Fuhrman, as a going-away present, gave me what looks like a small ipod, but is in reality a movie camera, which takes high-def movies!  Too much to load on this medium, but, I think I've loaded a couple of selections in u-tube, so check it out if you want...there's not much to look at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOyRdsVSIqg&feature=autoplay&list=ULO0VL1Dyh8cg&index=1&playnext=3

Computer chart at work - the radar in back can also be a chart

After I got to Friday Harbor, there was a constant stream of bad weather, heavy southerlies or south-easterlies, causing me to hang out at FH much longer than I anticipated. Originally my plans were to leave March 1, but, oh well...I will not be a slave to itineraries.

Just three days ago, I took a quick trip on Blue Bossa to Anacortes to get supplies and refueled.  Fuel and food is cheaper than here in FH.  So I filled the tanks with diesel, and bought a ton of food that doesn’t perish over a length of time: rice, pasta, can food – enough that if I was stuck at a lonely cove unable to move because of problems with the weather or boat or whatever, I had at least enough food to carry me over.  When I got back to FH, I spent time storing all of this in all of the hidey holes in BB.  It’s surprising how much storage is in this boat.

omigod!  We're sailing  - going to Anacortes

Anacortes is an interesting town.  I’ve been there a number of times by car, but have never approached it by boat.  It’s not very pretty from the water, as there is a lot of industrial shipping around it, as well as all of the oil refineries in the background.  I’m glad I didn’t winter in Anacortes, as there is much more noise, airplanes taking off from Bellingham, commercial boats coming in and out of the harbor at a fast clip, and much more traffic noise.  But it’s a good place to load up with a Safeway in close walking distance (yes, you too can take advantage of HOT Safeway discounts IF you have a Safeway card!!).

The back side of Anacortes - the harbor is right around the peninsula

After fueling up, I was keen to sail back, as, as usual, I was shocked by the cost of filling up with 74 gallons (I have roughly figured that I burn 1.4 gallons/hour).  Luckily there was a lot of easterly blowing (20-30Kts).  So off I went, winding in between all of the islands, jibing, jumping all over the boat, pulling and letting out sails – so by the time I got to FH, I was exhausted. 

And I guess I didn’t roller-furl the mainsail the right way, because with the heavy wind and the sail flogging in the wind, I ended up with a large rip along the leach of the sail.  After looking at it closely, I realize that it doesn’t look like it had any sunbrella protection along the leach, because the Dacron along there looked rotten. It’s a 12 year old sail that’s been exposed to the sun along the leach (roller furling mast), so I imagine I’ll need a whole new leach. I’ll know more when I get to Sydney, BC, as there is a first-class sail loft.

So this is my last day in FH.  I played music last night at Andy and Jill Urbach’s house – Jill sings with the big band as well as the San Juan Island Quintet – she picked some great tunes for us (myself and Cecil, a great bass player) to accompany, and enjoy some wonderful home-made pizza. And only a few days before that I had a nice dinner at Rich and Margaret Barker’s house, talking, of course, about music and gigging. All of the people that I’ve met in Friday Harbor have been super nice and hospitable.  It’s very easy to see me eventually settling here.  We’ll see…the future looks bright, but very hazy!

So my adventure really starts as we’re (BB and I) leaving to Sydney to check in with customs – we’ll probably be in Canada for 2-3 months until reaching Alaska.  I’ll be a lot more consistent in sending out blogs, as there will be a lot more things to talk about and pictures to take. Stay tuned!