Chronicle 1, Poulsbo to Pender Harbor

May 27, 2008 Day 5

We are anchored out in Montague Harbor on Galiano Island. The sun is shining, we had a great walk, and there was ice cream at the marina store. We’re going to mark this day in the log so when we’ve been standing at the helm in the rain for 6 days, we’ll remember why we do this.

Shaman’s 2008 adventure started like most of our trips north, with our first night spent at Pt. Townsend. And, like her 2007 trip, (under an undisclosed name) we met up with Ave Maria’s owner and checked out her contribution to fortunes of the shipwrights in PT before going to look at the progress on the Wells Gray. The only thing more fun than cruising is seeing what other people are doing to their boats. A few boats down from Shaman was a handsome steel boat named 10 & 2. We love boat names and speculated on the meaning of this one. Guesses? I asked the owner the next morning. He works for 10 years, sells the company, cruises for 2 years until he runs out of money and starts over. He’s on his third cycle. This boat went to Kodiak last year, which he assured me was not all that difficult. I think 10 & 2 was about 65 feet long. Shaman was not convinced and had no aspirations of ever seeing Kodiak.

She did, however, have her sights set on Sucia Island. The plan was to meet our homeport marina neighbors in Fossil Bay where they were already tied up at the dock; we planned to anchor out. They’d cook dinner for us! We hurried north. We’ve been in Fossil Bay many times, but never in a boat that draws almost 8 feet. About an hour out, we thought to look at the small-scale chart of the bay: 1.2, 1.5, 1.3. Those are fathom readings. In case you don’t use fathoms in your daily computations, they look a lot like 6 feet. The tide during the night was predicated to be –1.2 feet. Do you need a calculator?

We called the floating café, canceled our dinner reservations, and altered course for Echo Bay. Did I mention that this was Saturday on Memorial Day weekend? Echo Bay is big. It was not full; there was probably room for 6 or 7 more boats. We found a spot halfway between 2 boats, leaving a polite amount of room. Another boat came in and anchored halfway between Shaman and the boat in front of us. Cruising the Inside Passage and the Broughtons last year had altered our anchored-boat-distance-comfort-zone. We had to recalibrate for the San Juan Islands on the first holiday weekend of the year.

On Sunday, our marina neighbors joined us in Echo Bay and ferried us in their dinghies (we made quite a show of starting to launch Ratty from the foredeck and they took pity on us) to a classic Sucia Island cove with fascinating sandstone formations.

On our way to Sidney on Monday, we heard a boat call a Coast Guard cutter to wish the crew a happy Memorial Day and thank them for serving their country. It never would have occurred to me. I just worry about them boarding Shaman and finding her holding tank valve in the wrong position. I thought that was very nice. ‘Almost made me proud to be an American. Then we crossed into Canadian waters.

The Customs officials were busy with two mega yachts when we cleared at Tsehum Harbor and did not even ask about our 4 illegal apples. The crew of Herself, who we met in the Broughtons last year, loaned us their car to go fruit and vegetable shopping. At dinner that evening we got be meet Herself’s newest crewmember, Sybil, Carol and Don’s 4-month-old Springer Spaniel. Playful and loveable are good adjectives for Sybil. Cute works.

I haven’t introduced you to the new instruments. Last year, our chart plotter had a totally unacceptable habit of taking infrequent but unauthorized naps. Unacceptable behavior. And then there was the perfectly good Furuno radar, which had the misfortune of being installed below at the chart table where both the helmsman and the foredeck watch had quite a time trying to read his little green face. He was kept company below by the VHF radio. ‘Hard to hear that at the helm in the cockpit. “Atteniton all zimktonn. Klemmzph in the vicinity of Blkzumshiimm. Please simmiennl. Prince Rupert Coast Guard out.” Now that is informative. And 3 days north of home last September, our faithful autopilot went into terminal hard right rudder mode. Guess what we got for Christmas???

Day 6 We’re in Pender Harbor, on the mainland of BC, having crossed the Straits of Georgia in flat calm AND WE HAVE INTERNET ACCESS. That may not happen again for a while, so I’d better post this. Who knows when we’ll see those little cyberspace gremlins again? Port McNeill is our best bet.