Left Squirrel Cove 8-ish this morning as I was concerned about the strength of the flood tide outside Campbell River and wanted to get there before the tide reached maximum flow. There’s little more frustrating than to have the engine running at full power and sitting still or, even worse, going backwards. That’s a fate I wished fervently to avoid.
We rode the ebb tide for a while but it wasn’t as strong as predicted – we didn’t get as much of a boost, and then it turned against us as we turned into the last passage to Campbell River. I was watching our speed over ground drop, and slowly notching up the throttle, eventually pushing it to max cruise RPM. We did make it, though, and it was a relief to turn into the protected waters of the marina and out of the current flowing down from the north.
We fueled up at the dock, putting a bit more than 1/4 of a tank + 1 jerry can of fuel (5 gallons), which yielded a fuel burn of about 0.71 gallons/hr at 2500 RPMs (cruise RPM). That’s a big relief as I was worried we were burning a lot more fuel than that per hour!
Discovery Harbour is quite nice. The best part is that the showers are “free” or at least come with the price of the slip. Wave your card and you get 15 minutes. If that runs out, wave the card again and you get another 7 minutes. I’m not sure if you can extend again… and again… and again… I didn’t need more than 20 minutes of hot shower. Laundry, though, is expensive. $3.00 for wash and another $3.00 for dry. Slip was expensive too. Guess they have to pay for the free showers somehow.
It’s conveniently located near shopping for provisions, restaurants, and a well-stocked chandlery. Dropped a fair bit of cash there getting supplies to continue the repairs and upgrades to Opus that I hadn’t had time to do yet.
We tried to find storage for the stuff we didn’t want to haul to Juneau. Due to our rushed departure from White Rock, we hadn’t had time to put it ashore there as originally planned. Unfortunately, Campbell River was asking several hundred dollars for a few months of storage, so we decided to haul it anyway.
Dinner was at the restaurants both nights. First was at an upscale pizza and beer place and second was at a fine dining called Moxies. Good food each time.
Spent a lot of time cleaning the bilge plus other work and hiking all over the town getting supplies. The bad news is that while fixing (failing to fix) the hole into the engine room in Kay’s berth, I ended up re-injuring my hip. It was either take the fall on my hip or else drop the still-spinning radial power saw on my foot. I took the fall and held on tightly to the saw.