You probably thought that we sank. As I post this, we have been home for some time. There are reasons/excuses for the blog-lapse, but they all sound like whining. If you still remember who we are, Windwalker would be happy to share her tale. Following the Final Installment is Chronicle X, which lingered inside our computer much longer than intended...

Final Installment a.k.a. Chronicle XI

We headed east from Canoe Cove, searching for that dotted line north of San Juan Island that meant we are back in the great U. S. of A. The US islands and water looked remarkably similar to the Canadian islands and water, but Windwalker and her crew knew that the adventure was almost over. But it was a picture-perfect September day and we were headed for Friday Harbor (on a Friday! I always like that.) It was hardly a time for regrets.

In Friday Harbor, Lynn and Rick, former Eagle Harbor live-aboard neighbors who now live in Olympia, were rafted up next to the boat in front of us. More stories. The next night, Joe and Erlene took the ferry over to meet us for dinner in Pt. Townsend; Vern and Julie greeted at our slip in Liberty Bay with a catered dinner and wine. If you have to come home, that is the way to do it!

Arriving at our homeport on the evening of September 16th, I wanted to call out to people on their boats, WE WENT TO ALASKA!!! I resisted the urge, but I did detect a swagger from Windwalker. I’m sure it was not lost on the other boats.


REFLECTIONS

What place did we like the best? We don’t have an answer. When we left, we knew we were Headed North. Other than that, our plans were open. We had charts to take us to Sitka, Glacier Bay, and Skagway, as well as many of the other places people want to see when they go to Alaska. Now, you may be thinking that you missed a Chronicle or two because you haven’t read about our visits to those places. No. We didn’t get there. We went to very few of the places people see when they go to Alaska.

Then why did we have such a good time??? The scenery, the history of the areas, the people we met, and the challenges of navigating a small boat in a large area, combined to give us an experience unlike anything we had expected. Since we didn’t have specific goals, each encounter was treated as though it was our reason for untying from the dock last May. (This was somewhat of a challenge on the few occasions when we (I) felt that we were in danger.)

So, there was no one place that we liked the best. We laugh when we try to name our favorites: Foggy Bay. Meyers Chuck. Petersburg. Oh, but remember that bay where we anchored with Allegra. Wrangle. Buccaneer Bay. And don’t forget Green Island Anchorage. Namu. The Broughtons. The hot springs. The list goes on.

We DO know what made the trip wonderfully special. It was the people we met: the fishermen, the shopkeepers, the yachties, the marina owners, the townspeople. We didn’t expect that. We thought we were going to see the scenery.

We’re making plans for next year. Hopefully, we’ll maintain our 2007 frame of mind: We’re headed North!

Thanks for sharing our dream! Jean, Doug, and Windwalker


Chronicle X (posted with Final Installment..)
August 26, 2007…

We woke up to RAIN at anchor in Blunden Harbor and went back to sleep. Since we were only going about fifteen miles that day, we weren’t in any hurry to don our raingear and stand in the cockpit. By the time we got underway, the sun was shining, we had cell phone reception (for two hours), and we were headed into the Broughton Archipelago to revisit some of the marinas we had first seen in 2001.

The Broughtons (the name everyone uses for this area) have a number of good anchorages, and a handful of marinas, each with its distinguishing characteristics.
The questions on the docks always start with: Where did you come from today? and, since it is August, How far north did you go? Earlier in the year it was How far north are you planning to go? then, Where are you heading from here? and How long have you been out? There is no doubt as to what we have in common.

Our first stop was Sullivan Bay, a series of float homes with a store, fuel dock and post office. We were at the end of the season, so the store had the look of your corner store in North Korea. Still, we managed to spend a fair amount of money on dollar-each-bananas and other goodies. We want these places to be in business when we return, so we buy their expensive float-plane-delivered goods. The young couple running the store and fuel dock at Sullivan Bay were employees who said they would not be back next year. The marina is the process of being sold and apparently things were not going smoothly.

Some of the float homes are now owned by Americans; we saw huge boats from Seattle tied up in front o the float homes, and a helicopter on one roof. The colorful wooden cabins on the floats are slowly being replaced with vinyl-sided modern structures with windows that do not leak. Apparently no one cares that the community is not nearly as picturesque as it was six years ago. Where is their sense of history?

Windwalker made the two-hour trip to Greenway Sound Marina the next day. She is curious about this abrupt change in length of daily cruises, but doesn’t seem to mind having all six mooring lines and fenders on deck all of the time. Sometimes we even haul out the shore power cord.

Greenway Sound Marina has been for sale since before we visited in 2001. How do you get rid of a business that is only open four months a year and requires constant upkeep in a harsh climate where transportation costs are horrific? An additional perk is the seven-day-a- week job dealing with the public all hours of the day and night. Hey, who wouldn’t jump at the chance? Tom Taylor and his wife are not in good health, so if you’d like a change of scenery, they’d love to hear from you. We did not make an offer.

At dusk, Tom came down the dock and suggested that two big Grand Banks motor yachts move to the other side of U-shaped marina because a “big blow” was predicted. We were across from another sailboat way out on the end. No one suggested that we move. What are we, dog meat??? The configuration of the marina and the way that the wind patterns come down over the hill and across the bay, make one section of the dock vulnerable to strong winds. Tom was concerned that those boats with so much windage would tear up the docks. Boats on the end were not a problem; I guess we were too quick to take offense.

RAIN greeted us in the morning, The Lying Canuk (BC’s attempt to placate citizens who demand some form of weather forecast) told us to expect disgustingly strong winds. We decided to expect them right where we were and stayed another day, consuming books and the last of the store’s Double Fudge ice cream.

Our next stop was Shawl Bay, a marina we had not previously visited. This is an old-timey place with the original owners still there, first, second, and third generation, as far as we could tell. Think movies. Think hills of West Virginia. Picture people who are resourceful enough to survive in a harsh environment, but might not feel at home at the Kitsap Mall. Grandma, son and daughter-in-law, and mid-twenties grandson. Six or eight buildings built in the ‘50’s on log floats piled high with things that were needed in the past. Buildings painted more recently, but not THAT recently. Some cabins are for rent; not fancy, but clean: a quote from my guidebook buddy with the rose-colored glasses. Laundry. Store. It was probably actually stocked earlier in the year. There are two pictures of Shawl Bay in our cruising guide. I am so impressed with what a good photographer can do.

We had a great time. Happy hour was at five o’clock and the crews of the four boats gathered with drinks and goodies on the covered float to swap stories. Pancake breakfast the next morning. I’d go back again, but it might have to be with my next husband. Shawl Bay is not high on Doug’s list. I think he was put off by the 107*-year-old lady who took the moorage money. Or maybe it was her kitchen. (*That is just a guess….)

Doug made me go in to pay the moorage, although he went with me for moral support. Aunty Jo was seated on a bench in the far corner of her kitchen behind a table, smoking cigarettes that came from a huge can. I don’t believe I’ve seen canned cigarettes before. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with something. The table was piled so high with papers and boxes that you could hardly see her little body.

She carefully wrote the name and length of our boat and then started her meticulous computations. I was fascinated. I didn’t know whether to watch her manipulate the sheets of notebook paper and 3x5 cards or look around the kitchen. Not to worry; there was time for both. I was sure I was either back at the museum at Wangle or my in my Great Aunt Ada’s kitchen.

No calculator here. I didn’t dare talk to Aunty Jo for fear of distracting her. Eventually, she located the right line on the tax table and gave us a total. They only take cash, and I wished that I had brought change so I could pay the exact amount. How will she ever make change? Better than the kids at McDonalds. She was not addled, just slow with her movements. V-e-r-y s-l-o-o-o-w. But she’s WORKING! She’s living independently. And in a beautiful part of the country.

We talked a little after the transaction was completed and went out the door back into 2007.

From Shawl Bay, Windwalker and a few Dahl’s porpoises moseyed around the corner and a few miles south to Pierre’s Bay Lodge and Marina. Pierre and his wife started their marina in 2001 and have added on to it each year. The big float home has a living room open to the boaters, two nicely furnished suites with kitchens, and rooms to rent to the “timber cruisers”. The whole complex (on floats and logs) is tidy and well constructed and the little bay offered a beautiful setting. The marina is known for it’s warm reception, entertainment, and good food. Windwalker was there on Fish and Chips night, along with five other boats. Good food and good company. I think the boats enjoyed themselves, too.

North to beautiful Kwatsi Bay where Max and Anca are raising their two children in a pristine wilderness setting and offering a place for boaters to gather. When we were here in 2001, the kids were quite young and it was pouring down rain. They came aboard to play and were appalled, that the teddy bears (fourteen in number) did not all have names. That took some time to remedy, but Russell and Marieka were up to the task. The marina was new, and there was only one other boat. Max gave us two crabs and loaned us a book about the slaves at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. How is that for hospitality!

Our experience was not unique. Now EVERYONE goes to Kwatsi Bay; there were more than a dozen boats there the night we visited which is fairly impressive because the bay is way up Heck and Begone Channel. Max and Anca have created a covered gathering place on the floats, so we once again shared wine, food, and stories with other boaters. Quite a contrast to our days up north when there we’d see a handful of boats each day and were often the only boat in an anchorage, AND HAD NO ONE TO TALK TO BUT EACH OTHER. You can see why we enjoyed The Broughtons.

We motored to Lagoon Cove Marina in sunshine the next day through beautiful country, sharing the sunny waterway with a humpback whale. The whimsical owners bought Lagoon Cove (formerly a marine repair shop for the many people who used to live in this area) when Bill retired from advertising. He and Jean brought their creativity with them. This marina is attached to land, and you can walk past their flowers, LAWN, and tidy home to the burn barrel where a sign on a “totem pole” made out of used engine parts warns you that if you if you put anything in the burn pile other than burnable material, you will be plagued with evil spirits. There is also an Exercise Area that looks a lot like a pile of wood waiting to be split, with detailed instructions and an ax. We didn’t exercise, but many people do; they also pitch in to trim the trees and do other upkeep chores. The local black bears also pitch in to help, trimming the trees and eating the fruit.

At Shawl Bay, we had met Carol and Don on board Herself, a lovely Bill Garden designed trawler that Don built himself. One day the lumberyard delivered a huge pile of materials to their home, and eleven years and nine thousand labor hours later, a graceful trawler appeared. They rafted up next to us, and we enjoyed Lagoon Cove prawns at happy hour. Every day during the boating season. Bill goes out to catch prawns for that evening’s gathering. EVERY day.

RAIN and WIND the next morning. We decided to stay another day, playing Mexican Train Dominos with Carol and Don and gorging ourselves on the Labor Day potluck that night with batter-fried halibut as the centerpiece. You don’t go hungry in the Broughtons. We’ll plan to be back next Labor Day.

As we neared Johnstone Strait the following day, we had to decide whether to anchor and wait for the tide to be with us the next morning, (with moderate to strong winds predicted) or go for it the rain with the current against us, but minimal wind. The minimal wind and not-yet-maximum rain won, and we motored east, then north into Sunderland Channel, anchoring in Douglas Bay.

Herself came into the bay right after we did; we launched Ratty (in the RAIN) and motored over to spend the evening with Carol and Don. Looking out their windows (some boats have windows that allow you to see more than the trees, rock walls, and sky while seated) we were treated to a scene out of a Japanese painting: low clouds shredded themselves in thin layers along the shore. We all laughed as Don and I took pictures. Our little digital cameras’ flashes were flashing mightily, trying to light up the scene hundreds of feet away. Just doin’ their job.

Ghost Rider was anchored in the bay! Remember the phantom boat and her only-seen-once crew? We motored past in the dinghy. No people. This is a big boat with big windows in the living areas. Where do they GO??? We had fun with the possibilities.

We were going the “back way” to avoid most of the Johnstone Straits. This involves less exposure to contrary tides and prayer-inducing winds. Instead, you (we) get to navigate four (4) sets of rapids, Whirlpool, Green Point, Dent, and Yuculta, plus Gillard Passage.

Windwalker hung out in a calm, sunny Phillips Arm with a pod of killer whales to wait for the tidal exchange at Dent. Possibly the whales were not waiting for slack water. (I am disturbed that there is no apostrophe in "Phillips". And don’t ask me be about the “arm” part.) Dent Rapids with Devil’s Hole is potentially the most dangerous of the four rapids. We fell in behind a gill-netter about 45 minutes before slack and Windwalker played in the whirlpools. We did have to ask Mr. Kubota to chug, chug, CHUG at his highest rpm for a while, following the gill-netter through Gillard Passage and into Yuculta Rapids.

Coming out of Yuculta at six o’clock we were still debating where to spend the night, when Mr. Kubota said “Chug, ah, chug, ah, chug, chug” which means “my fuel filter is dirty and I’m having a little difficulty here”. Doug has learned to speak Kubota Very Well. That answered the question about where to anchor. We headed for nearby Francis Bay and Windwalker spent the night with her nose into a fifteen knot wind, secure on her 200 feet of chain. We felt like Alaska veterans.

Sunshine again the next day. After changing the fuel filters, we headed for Heriot Bay on Quadra Island. (Quadra is the island across from Campbell River, so you have some idea of where we were.) We hadn’t been to grocery store since Prince Rupert and were in need of some fresh veggies… and more wine. Oh. And laundry.

The Heriot Bay Hotel dates back to the early 1900’s. The laundry room for the campground and moorage guests is tucked in the basement. It is not actually tucked in the basement. It is lurking in the basement. The elderly washing machines (only one was out of order) were cowering on one side of the cavernous room. Their commercial dryer counterparts were standing a lonely vigil on the opposite wall. In between were two (clean) tables and one chair. Standard bare light bulbs. Ah! But there WAS a window and, with the door open, the terror and depression of the place were diminished. We checked out the showers next door, and hurried back to the relative cleanliness and structural soundness of the laundry room. Sunshine and good books read in chairs under the trees made the laundry interlude pleasant.

We waited at Heriot Bay for two days. Not for the laundry. For the wind to Go Away. Quadra Island is at the north end of the Straits of Georgia, and boats heading south can either go down the Vancouver Island side, or the mainland side. The nearest places to anchor or moor are thirty or forty miles away. That is six or eight Windwalker Hours, which means we would have to leave in the morning. In the morning, the wind was blowing twenty knots, and Windwalker was Stuck. An especially beamy boat behind her and the broadside wind smusheing her against the dock made it impossible for us to leave. By the time the wind abated for an hour, it was too late in the day to get to one of the far-away destinations before dark.

The wind pattern repeated itself the next day. We found three strong men to take lines to the opposite dock and, with the help of horsepower and manpower, Windwalker escaped into the sunny Straits with a fifteen knot northerly pushing her south. We could SAIL! Of course, we had not sailed for weeks and had finally taken in the jack lines. And had neglected to re-attach them before we left. The jack lines attach at the pointy end and are stretched back to the square end. (Windwalker is protesting. Her stern is not square.) They are a safety device. They are only a safely device if you attach them in port. When you (me) attach them in two-foot following seas, they are a safety hazard. The possibly of going overboard while attaching the device to prevent me from going overboard, made me wonder, once again, why we were allowed to untie from the dock.

We sailed for forty-five minutes. The wind dropped to twelve, ten, eight…. You know where this is going. We motored into Westview about six o’clock. Westview, right next to Powel River, (like you know where THAT is) used to be a rough town full of timber and lumber mill workers. I guess they’re still there because the mill is open, but the town is more welcoming to yachties now. We had a nice explore. Nice, not great. No ice cream cone.

We planned to be in Nanaimo the next evening, so we headed for the Straits of Georgia at dawn (which is a somewhat later than it was in Alaska in July) with predictions of 10-15 northwesterlies building to 15-25 in the afternoon. For the first part of the day, the wind and the tide were coming from the same direction, so the seas were not a problem, but that old tide just can’t maintain one direction for more than about six hours. We were still doing fine as the wind built and the current changed, but we had apparently stowed our brains with the spare life jackets and did not reef while we could still do it safely. The headsail became a diaper, then a handkerchief, and then we sent it to roll-up mode. Windwalker and her crew and her full mainsail did not like the last hour with beam seas and 20-25 knot winds. We assumed that when we got into Departure Bay, north of Nanaimo, the winds would Go Away. Some of them did, but 15 knots of them remained. Not one of the highlights of the trip.

When we tied up at the Harbor Authority marina, I kissed the dock, we gave thanks, and added more requirements to the job description for that guardian. Ah, but ice cream awaited us…

Dodd Narrows’ slack water was at the very respectable time of 9:30 the next morning. Sunshine and about ten other boats accompanied us through the Narrows. The wharfinger (no, that is a job title, really) at Nanaimo had told us that this was the second nice weekend of the summer. Everyone with a boat was on the water. As we headed toward Musgrave Landing, Mr. Auto Pilot said, "I’ll be happy to keep working, but my Port seems to be worn out. My Starboard is still fine, so I will just steer you over here to the right. And here. And here. A little more right. OH. Circles won’t work?"

No, circles won’t work. Mr. Autopilot won’t work. We have six separate instrument displays in the cockpit. A salt-water environment, electronics, and eighteen years. Yuck. As our trip has progressed, we have left the covers on the instruments that have ceased to function. One was a duplicate at the helm of the sailing instrument on the cabin face, so we didn’t rely on it. The other was the analogue readout from the wind indicator. We have that information on the (functioning) sailing instrument. Mr. Auto Pilot also has a back-up. It is called Doug. Or Jean. This is a bummer. But we WERE almost home. Could have been worse.

Our final BC destination was Canoe Cove Marina in Sidney where we had an appointment with Blackline Marine for rigging improvements. Blackline did an outstanding job when we limped in there for emergency repairs in June. We wanted to leave them more money.

Doug and I love marinas and boat yards. We enjoyed working with Brent and Jeff making Windwalker safer to sail and doing boat-stuff in the sunshine. Once again, the insanity of allowing ourselves to be owned by a boat, surfaced, but we brushed it off. Dreams of boats and boating have been a part of our lives since we were puppies. We are happy and grateful to still be dreaming and planning.





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