Our original plan was to depart White Rock on Wednesday and spend the night at Montague. so, if course, the weather gods decided to give us a storm. winds ranging up to 30 knots. That gives us a few options.
One would be to ride it out at anchor. Unfortunately, Boundary Bay is completely open to Georgia Strait, with no protection from wind or wave. The inshore winds would have presented a very real danger. Second would have been returning to the dock in White Rock. Unfortunately, with low spring tides, there was not enough water to float her during the day. she would have been grounded. Third would have been to go to Blaine (or return to Point Roberts) and weather it out there. That would mean customs twice more (once into the USA and hen back into Canada).
Instead, we departed early and went to Montague – our planned stop for Wednesday. we’ll sit here for two days, picking up Sam on Wednesday and then departing on Thursday after the storm has passed. However, the hasty departure has left Opus in disarray with a few critical tasks undone. Today we will be tackling those as well as getting the cabin back into reasonable shape.
We are supposed to meet Quijote, our buddy boat, here at Montague, but they have had a wrench thrown into their works too. unfortunately, they are holding fuel that Opus will need to proceedon the original itinerary. we’ll see what happens…
On the way we had an opportunity to refuel at sea, testing out one of the procedures. the shaker siphon performed wonderfully, and we transferred nearly 5 gallons in just a few minutes. Refueling opus from fuel jugs will be reasonably easy even for one person to do.
I didn’t sleep well Monday, frantically planning our transit, so after arriving at Montague, I slept most of the afternoon and last night. The last 48 hours took a toll! unfortunately, that leaves a lot to do today. Time to get cracking!