S.V. CAMBRIA: the Strait of Georgia

Mitlenatch Island Nature Park | Way Bay Wednesday

Wednesday, November 23, 2016TheCambrians

Boat Maintenance Living Aboard a Boat the Inside Passage

The Third Law of Motion

Wednesday, April 15, 2015TheCambrians

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Newton may have written his Third Law of Motion to explain the nature of physics, but the principle is equally true philosophically. In the physical world, the relationship is immediate but in the philosophical world, the “action” and “reaction” can take place days, weeks, months or even years apart.

Some call it karma.

The idea that opposing forces work together to create balance in the universe is nothing new: Newton declared his laws of motion in 1686 and the Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang dates back to 700 BC. And it seems to me that nowhere is the axiom more true than on the water.

The start of this season has been no exception.

Boats leaving the United States don’t have to check out with customs unless they’re foreign registered and have entered the country under a Vessel Entrance or Clearance Statement, like we do. We had a cruising permit issued when we first arrived in the US in 2007 but found it didn’t offer the flexibility we needed, so we made the switch to the VCS. The price we pay for the added flexibility is that we have to check in and out of the country, which is rarely a pleasant experience.

After being told several years ago that we couldn’t use Roche Harbor on the west side of San Juan Island as a port of entry/departure, last year one of the officers said we could. It’s more convenient for us, so David called customs to confirm before we left last week and was given the okay.

Our passage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca was fairly ordinary. What little wind we saw was from the northwest, so we motor-sailed the seven hours to nearby Garrison Bay for the night. David decided he should call customs again to make sure our paperwork was in order for an early departure the next morning and spoke with Officer Holmes, a man who clearly hates his job. Long story short, he was told that we wouldn’t be able to leave from Roche Harbor and needed to present ourselves on the opposite side of the island in Friday Harbor – costing us 20 miles against the current.

And while we berated ourselves for being stupid enough to believe we could check out of the country based on our personal convenience (and the word of two officers), we held on to the fact that we’d caught a glimpse of at least one of J-Pod’s newest calves as we made our way up Haro Strait the day before. If we had gone to Friday Harbor directly, we would have missed the experience. And while passengers on a whale-watching boat are guaranteed to see orcas, for those of us just moving through the area, they’re not a common sight.

With the

behind us, we continued north and spent our first night in

Canada

in Montague Harbour. I woke up early Monday morning and used the computer to do some writing and shut it down when I was finished: That was the last time it would work.

David initially thought the hard drive had failed (a $50 fix) but it turned out to be the graphics card, which can’t be replaced. We had moved up to Nanaimo by then, so he picked up a drive enclosure (a case that turns an internal hard drive into an external one run off USB ports) and is in the process of transferring data to our backup laptop.

I’m not sure what positive in life will balance out the cost of a new computer, but at least we don’t have to buy one in a panic . . . or with Microsoft 8! We should be able to get through the season with what we have and might even be able to take advantage of a Black Friday sale.

Ten years gone.

On the ninth of April in 2005, David and I stood on a hilltop overlooking the Hauraki Gulf in a suburb of Auckland,

New Zealand

and promised our lives to each other. I have no idea where those ten years went, but I know they were good ones and I wouldn’t have spent them with anyone else – David is the best decision I’ve ever made (unfortunately, I can’t speak for him).

Our anniversary coincided with a layover in Nanaimo, a small city with full amenities, which meant we were able to get off the boat to enjoy a meal out to celebrate. But it also coincided with a scheduled haul-out, which means we spent it on the hard rather than in a romantic, secluded anchorage.

Planning a haul-out for April is a bit of a crap shoot when it comes to the weather – wind, rain and cold days are the norm as the Pacific High fights for dominance over the lows that roll down from the Gulf of Alaska. But we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Since we left Washington, it had been sunny and warm and we finished anti-fouling and waxing the boat in record time. After three days (two where we worked like crazy and one where we chased down bits and pieces for the laptop in the boatyard’s courtesy car), we were back in the water and moving north again.

What goes up must come down.

A falling barometer announced the end of our beautiful, sunny days and the weather was forecasted to take a turn for the worse late Friday afternoon as a large low pressure system formed in the Gulf of Alaska. We were expecting rain and winds around 10 to 15 knots from the SSE and that’s exactly what we saw when we left Nanaimo. But the wind quickly built to a steady 20 knots with gusts around 25, and the Strait of

Georgia

lived up to its reputation of being an ugly stretch of water. Getting across was hard work and getting harder every minute, so we decided to stop halfway and pulled into Deep Bay, Jedediah Island Marine Park (insert link).

It turned out to be for the best. Deep Bay is one of the most protected anchorages in the area and was a good place to ride out the gale-force winds that blew for four days.

It all even out in the end . . . sort of.

So, we may have travelled more miles than we needed to, had yet another problem with US Customs, lost our main computer, brought out another thousand (BOAT) for a haul-out and were stopped in our tracks by bad weather but we got to see orcas, had a backup laptop aboard that should see us through the season, celebrated ten years of marriage and had a safe anchorage offer us shelter when we needed it most.

It may not have been the best start to the season but, all and all, it hasn’t been a bad one either and sometimes that’s all you can ask for: The rest evens out in the end.

Destinations the Gulf Islands the Inside Passage

Jedediah Island - The Gem of the Strait of Georgia

Wednesday, January 14, 2015TheCambrians

For one reason or another, Jedediah Island in the Strait of Georgia is a black hole in the world of charts. David suspects it’s because there is no commercial interest on the island, but I’m not convinced. There are plenty of island and islets in the area that are charted and, yet, have no commercial interest either. Jedediah Island, on the other hand, has a nice hidey-hole in the way of “Deep Bay” for passing fisherman and tug boat drivers to duck into (sans barge, of course) during bad weather so, it seems to me that a chart would be handy for all of us. Until that time comes though, we recommend consulting the cruising guide, “Best Anchorages of the Inside Passage” by Anne Vipond and William Kelly. You can find helpful information in Dreamspeaker’s "Vancouver, Howe Sound, and the Sunshine Coast" by Anne and Laurence Yeadon-Jones as well but the book “Best Anchorages” is . . . the best.

There are several anchoring options available throughout Jedediah Island, but both of our stays coincided with southeasterly winds leaving us only one choice: Deep Bay on the island’s northern end. Considered to be one of the safest anchorages in the area, Deep Bay offers all-weather protection. And we agree. While it was blowing over 20 knots in the Strait of Georgia, we only saw a breeze inside the anchorage – just enough to keep things pleasant and cool. However, the holding is fair in rock and the anchorage is , requiring a stern-tie to shore.

A trail leads from the head of the bay through an old-growth forest and a meadow before branching off in two directions: One leads to Driftwood and Codfish bays as well as to the trail to Long Bay and, eventually, Mount Gibraltar, the island’s highest point. The other leads to Home Bay, the former homestead of the island’s previous owners, the Palmers.

The Palmers may have been the last private owners of the island, but they weren’t the most colourful. That honour clearly belongs to an Irish farmer by the name of Henry Hughes who owned the island in the 1920s and ‘30s. He didn’t care for strangers and suspected those visiting the island of poaching his sheep – going as far as greeting some people with the barrel of a shotgun. He bought Jedediah Island as a working farm, bringing a manservant, gardener, cook and a shepherd with him. But, by all accounts, he was more interested in reading than in farming and soon went broke.

With no money to pay for his help, he lived on the island alone with his dog, Caesar, until meeting an English nurse by the name of Jenny. One summer, a small group of people that had arrived by sailing yacht dared to venture ashore and walk the trails. They ran into Hughes who invited them to his house at the head of Home Bay. Jenny ultimately became his wife and they lived on the island together for years. Hughes eventually hoped to sell Jedediah to the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company for development into a summer resort but the CPR purchased Newcastle Island near Nanaimo instead.

In 1949, the island was purchased by Mary Palmer and her first husband who used it as a retreat. In the 1970s, she moved to Jedediah full-time with her second husband, Al Palmer, and they became the private owners. Wanting to keep the island pristine for everyone to enjoy, the Palmers decided to sell it to the government as a provincial marine park; thus starting the fundraising efforts of the Friends of Jedediah and contributions from hundreds of individuals, groups and corporations throughout British Columbia. The island became a marine park in 1995 – any visitors will tell you that the funds were well-spent. The Palmer’s left their horse, Will, behind along with some sheep whose descendants continue to graze on the island today.

Beyond Home Bay, there’s a short trail to the aptly named Driftwood Beach – a stack, ten feet deep, of logs piled together as if they were toothpicks – clearly not where you want to be during a winter storm. And beyond Driftwood Beach, further to the south, lies one of the most beautiful anchorages on the island, Codfish Bay. Situated on the southeast side of the island, Codfish Bay lies off Sabine Channel which separates Jedediah from neighbouring Texada Island. It offers good protection from northwest winds and a group of small islands near the entrance of the bay offers some protection from the southeast and the swell. The bay itself is dramatic – a narrow inlet with steep-to granite cliffs and a driftwood strewn beach at its head – and would be a lovely spot to spend a few days.

From there, backtrack along the trail until you’re close to Long Bay on the opposite side of the island. Along the trail, just before you break from the forest into an open paddock, there’s a gravesite marked “Will”, the Palmer’s horse. Not far beyond the grave, the trail breaks off to left, exits the woods and enters a paddock where it’s not uncommon to find the sheep grazing. Continue to the left and re-entered the forest where the trail is clearly marked with fluorescent pink tape.

The trail, made by animals over the years, climbs 500 feet through woodland and moss-covered granite and is well-worth the climb. The view from the summit looks out into the Strait of Georgia and from there you can see the neighbouring islands and Jedediah’s rugged shoreline: It’s nothing short of spectacular. It’s also a good place to catch a glimpse of the island’s feral goats, believed by historians to be descendants of those left by 18th century Spanish explorers to graze on the island.

After making our second trip to Jedediah Island in September, David and I were left to wonder, once again, why we hadn’t visited before. It offers a lot of what we look for in an anchorage: good protection, a marine park, hiking trails and, above all, peace and quiet even when it’s busy.