Month: June 2022

Last night was terrible. The reviews of Thurston Bay were dead on. Current held us broad side to the incomming waves. With us tied to Quijote, Opus would be hit first, try to rise, Quijote would put the brakes on that. Then Opus would try to descend while Quijote was rising. This was quite an unpleasant motion. 4 times through the night I was out on deck checking things that had fallen, broken free, or just a strange sound. Rod, captain of Quijote, had a similar experience.

The motor from Thurston Bay to here was just as unpleasant, presenting the classic wind against the current scenario – wind in our teeth, steep chop with a short period, for 8 1/2 hours of travel time. The bright side was that the current was fairly benign, 1 1/2 knots or so. Faster current would have made things even worse.

Port Harvey has some sort of shipyard, where they are repairing? renovating? building? breaking? some barges. Not the most scenic, but well protected. Winds are predicted to be light tonight, so I’m not sure we need protection, but it’s nice to know we have it if we need it.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to warm up. That will be a welcome respite from the cold of the last few days. I do find that I miss my connectivity. I am, it seems, addicted to that information flow. Hopefully, withdrawal is short.

Upon arrival, we agreed on mud for lunch – we were all chilled and something hot and easy and hearty appealed to us all. What is “mud”? On my first voyage with Quijote, I made the observation that all the best Indian food looks like mud. We started calling the boil-in-a-bag Indian food packages that I brought, “mud”. Quijote arrived, side-tied to us, and thoguht that mud was a grand idea. 2 more packs into the boiling water. I’;m such a chef…

Now the sky is clearing up. I’m bundled up in my sweater and under my comforter in the cabin on the settee, finally beginning to feel warm again. I think I’ll stop here, read a book until I fall asleep and nap for a bit.

Sam piloted through Seymour Narrows today. I have to make a note for Kay to do so on the southbound leg.

We left the dock at 9am to catch the ebb tide sweeping us north towards the narrows. I admit to a bit of paranoia about timing those narrows. I’d rather arrive very early and idle about than be there 10 minutes late and have to wait 6 hours for the next slack time. As it was, we arrived about 30 minutes early, enough to watch a freighter and a BC Ferry slide through making it look easy. Man, they have a lot of power at their command!

We also saw the backs and flukes of some whales, humpbacks we believe. The gathering of the whale watching boats was a big clue as to their presence.

There was also, as usual, a bit of debris in the water, but about average amount. It was certainly not the heap of deadheads that others have reported.

Marine weather predicts up to 30 knot winds from the northwest tonight, though we haven’t really seen any evidence that is truly in the offering. Barometer has gone from 1030 to 1028 in about 6 hours. Still, better to be cautious and be prepared for the most pessimistic forecast – our or the professional’s.

Thurston Bay is big and mostly open to the channel. There is a small island that offers some, small, protection from western waves, but that is pretty scant as we can see all the way to Vancouver Island from here. If the NW winds come, we do have protection from a range of hills in that direction. Still, I’ll be happy for our oversized ground tackle in that event.

The thing that makes here a bad choice from my point of view is how steep the bottom topography is. It makes it very difficult to get enough scope out before running out of enough water to float the boat. Fortunately, Quijote also has oversized tackle AND they are all chain. They anchored and we side tied to them after they let out 200 feet of chain. It should be enough.

I just felt us swing hard on a gust of wind. Maybe it is coming. I’ll sleep fully dressed tonight in case we need fast action.