At Rest - Nanaimo

We spent the day in Nanaimo doing some “freshie” provisioning. Since both Canada and the USA restrict many fresh food items (e.g., vegetables and fruit) when crossing the border, you have to pick those items up shortly after entering the country.

Besides the food items, we bought a prepaid Canadian phone card for our cell phone so we can make cheaper calls than if roaming on our current T-Mobile plans. We also picked up more beer and wine (you are also restricted on the amount of alcohol you can bring in). We did some of our provisioning at the Nanaimo Costco store, taking the bus to and from the harbor to get there.

Despite the rainy night and morning, the sun burned its way through the cloud cover to be a pretty nice day as shown in the photo of Alpenglow at the dock.The forecast is looking good for tomorrow (5/26) and we plan to take advantage of it and do a long run the length of the  Strait of Georgia to Drew Harbor (Rebecca Spit Marine Park) on the East side of Quadra Island. This will put us in a good position to go up Hoskyn Channel and through Surge Narrows the next day into the Octopus Islands Marine Park. After that we’ll continue North along Okisollo Channel and reconnect with the Discovery Passage north of Seymour Narrows. We’ll probably follow Johnstone Strait until we can cut off to one of the protected routes into the Broughtons near Cracroft Island.

Anchoring will probably be the norm during this section so blog posts will have to wait until we get reconnected in a community or marina.

May 24 - Nanaimo

We decided to save Ganges on Saltspring Island for another day and went directly to Nanaimo since we had some shopping (a prepaid cell phone card for one) that we needed to do here.  North of Victoria, Nanaimo is the largest city on Vancouver Island.

We departed Deer Harbor around 7:30 AM and arrived shortly after 3 PM. Conditions were good although a SE wind picked up as the day progressed reaching 15-20 knots towards the end of the day. Since it was on our tail and we also had the current pushing us, the waves did not build up.

We saw lots of boat traffic since today was Victoria Day which made for a 3-day holiday weekend in Canada.

Today’s mileage – 52.2

Cumulative mileage – 139.3

At Rest

We now have “proof” that the new chairs we bought serve their function well, as can be seen in the photo of Kurt & Maggie in Deer Harbor.

May 23 - Deer Harbor

We did the short run from Anacortes to Deer Harbor. The journey was uneventful but my docking was a bit “rough,” taking me three attempts.

The dock space reserved for our yacht club is a side tie at the outside of one of the docks (visualize the top edge of a capital “T”). Normally this docking arrangement is pretty straightforward but between the wind today, the dock orientation and our boat’s layout, everything was working against us. Nevertheless, with the help of a kind individual on the dock, the third-time was the charm.

We needed to stop at Deer Harbor because Marcia had a package shipped here when it became apparent it wouldn’t arrive before our departure on the 16th. The package was waiting for Marcia when we arrived so our next leg will take us into Canada. We haven’t finalized which port of call in Canada will be our first.

Today’s mileage – 21.0

Cumulative mileage – 87.1

Trawlerfest

The Anacortest Trawlerfest is an event put on by Passagemaker Magazine, a magazine focused on slow, long distance type of boats.  Passagemaker puts on an annual Trawlerfest on many different locations throughout the United States in the areas with active boating communities. 

We’ve met many people not currently owning a boat but  interested in this category. The event provides a very effective way of getting lots of information and seeing lots of different boats and manufacturers.  The boat brokers and manufacturers like the event because the number of attendees are fewer than at a regular boat show but are more serious.  For someone living full-time away from the water it gives them a chance to walk on board and compare many different vessels all at once.

Below are photos that I took from our boat deck of the boats surrounding us.

New Chairs

The reclining chairs that Marcia ordered in February arrived in Anacortes today.  Marcia worked with the importer (they are made in Brazil) to ship to the marina we are at once it was clear they wouldn’t arrive in Seattle before we left.

We’ve tried them out and they are very comfortable with the leg support flipped out and the back reclined.  I am sure we and the cats will enjoy them.

Underway – Seattle to Anacortes

One advantage of buddy-boating is that you have someone to take photos of you from a perspective that you normally can’t obtain.  Below are a couple photos of our boat taken on the trip from Seattle to Anacortes on Sunday, May 16.

May 16 - Anacortes

The first leg of our summer cruise took us to Anacortes, a town with which we are pretty familiar since our first boat was lived here.

We got a pretty good start with casting off about 6:15 AM. Despite the early Sunday morning start clearing through Fremont and Ballard took awhile then the locks were a bit slow as we locked through the large locks with a tug boat.  We exited into Puget Sound about 2 hours after starting.

The trip up Puget Sound and through Admiralty Inlet went well because we rode an ebb tide out.  We had speeds around 10 knots for nearly 2 hours.  At 1550 RPM our unassisted speed is in the low 7’s so we had 2-3 knots of current in our favor until we hit the Strait of Juan deFuca.

The leg through the east entrance of the strait was slow as currents were in transition to the flood. It wasn’t until we started up Rosario channel that we began to pick up our flood current, which again were giving us a current boost of a couple of knots.

Engine off was at 4:20 PM (1620) in Cap Sante Marina.  We will be here through Sunday.  The TrawlerFest boat show is Thursday through Saturday and we need a few days to put away more efficiently all the things we stuffed on board towards the end of our packing.

Below are a couple of photos of the DavidEllis with whom we buddy boated to Anacortes. They are a classic “Diesel Duck” from which our sedan version was evolved.  I hope to have photos they took of us while underway in the next few days.

Cumulative trip miles – 66.1