Boat Maintenance
Poulsbo
Puget Sound
Sum It Up Sunday: Back Aboard
Sunday, April 22, 2012TheCambrians
We’ve been back on the boat for three weeks now with mixed results. The weather, for the most part, has been good enough to get things done, but sometimes it takes more than fine weather.
The easy things have been crossed off the list, but the dinghy is in need of a complete overhaul. The hull was welded by a local guy after Sally and I wore holes in it with years of trips to shore. And I just finished sanding the hull and pontoons so that it can be patched and repainted this week. The five horse outboard is ready for another season but, sadly, it looks like the generator has given up the fight –something that’s essential to recharging the batteries on days the solar panels can’t.
On the days that it’s been raining and we haven’t been able to work outside, we put together a cruising route for the year and are beginning to get excited about our plans. If all goes well, we’ll sail as far as 52° 50'18"N to the Central Coast along mainland British Columbia. It’s going to be challenging, but we’ll be rewarded with some of BC’s most spectacular scenery and wildlife as we travel up and down the remote inlets to bathe in hot springs and search for bears – both black and grizzly. The weather will be difficult: the area is renowned for mist and fog. And taking Sally to shore may be a problem – the water is very deep up north with little opportunities for landfall – but we’ve chosen our anchorages carefully, which is all we can do at this stage. Our time in the Central Coast won’t be long – a month, if we’re lucky – and the rest of the season will spent visiting some of our favourite anchorages and, hopefully, adding new ones to the list as we travel through the San Juan Islands in the US and the Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast, Discovery Islands and the Broughtons in British Columbia.
In the meantime, La Niña has officially ended which means the summer should be drier with warmer temperatures this year. At the very least, it should be better than last year, which is all we can really hope for.
