A little fuel miscalculation excitement

We spent another lazy day in quiet False Harbor, Lasqueti Is.

Saw the latest in brick boat design in the bay while on an evening row about.

We headed out for a close hauled sail to Hornby Island. Took us past Sisters Island Lighthouse that stands on a couple of lone rocks in the middle of the Straits of Georgia. It doesn't look it from this photo, but we had a nice little blow, about 15 knots on a close hauled tack.

Bull Passage

Tribune Bay on Hornby has a gorgeous 1/2 mile long beach and was packed with locals enjoying the sunshine when we arrived. The water temperature had not made my mandated minimum temperature of 70*, so I didn't go swimming with the locals. (It was only up to 67*.) After a night in Hornby we dead on reach sail back across the Straits of Georgia, over the top of Laasqueti Is and down Bull Passage on the back side of the island then across the straits to Pender Harbor on the mainland.

Pender is a completely enclosed group of bays with a small town and a lot of high end housing.We went into the town of Pender Harbor to pick up some of that delicious cider they make here, while there we did some car shopping on Pender for our friends Di & Ken. We found the Vanagon you've been looking for (that's Canadian $)

BC is pretty liberal in a lot of ways. Take a look at this boat anchored in Pender Harbor. Looks like they updated the Canadian maple leaf flag!

Passing the Merry Island Lighthouse

We hit 19knot winds on the nose coming out of Pender the next day and scurried into Secret Cove. The next day however we had a nice all-day downwind sail to Howe Sound. Were we anchored in the unfortunately named Plumper Cove.

Sunset over Plumper Sound, with smoke from the BC wildfires

Next day our sailing luck ran out. No wind. We motored for about an hour through Howe Sound and under Bowen Is. The night before I'd checked our fuel gauge and saw 1/4 tank. As we sounded the bottom of Bowen Is going up toward the busy ferry lane into Horseshoe Bay the engine did a short, mournful stagger and quit. We quickly set the main and drifted. I went below, lifted the engine cover and looked. Looked god to me. I checked the fuel gauge. This time I got a flash light and looked a little closer. It was on E. We had listened derisively on the VHF to so many calls to the Coast Guard on this trip declaring emergencies from power boats that had run out of fuel, there was no way we were going not get ourselves out of this predicament.

First plan was to use the really light wins to sail into Snug Harbor on Bowen Is, anchor under sail and take the dink in for fuel. A quick call to Snug Haarbor harbormaster determined there's no diesel there. The closest fuel stop is Horseshoe Bay. This is a medium sized bay that is a major stop for BC Ferries (big ones) and has a small marina. Three years ago a giant BC Ferry lost control and drove the boat through the marina to slow it down. Took awhile to actually slow down.     

This incident was on our minds... Next plan was to go into Horseshoe Bay under sail, pull on the north side of the marina and drop the hook. As we got close to the steep land near the harbor the light winds got really fluky. It seemed a little unwise to be sailing at 0.2 knots in front of ferries. We turned and slowly sailed back out of the harbor mouth. Finally, the ultimate plan was hatched. We put the outboard on the dinghy. Tied the dink fore and aft to the side of the boat. This way we can use the dink as power but steer with the boat's rudder. The only rub to this plan was that the dink engine only wanted to run close full on. It would stall anytime we slowed  it own. After getting a head of steam on Jeorgia was moving at close to 3 knots.

Here's the errand boy in Horseshoe Bay bringing back the vital, life giving nectar for our engine.

We headed into the harbor and found out that the anchorage area didn't exist anymore, being covered with mooring chains for very large, sail boat eating barges. We spotted an open outside dock behind the seaplane dock. It looked pretty straight forward t get into. The only issue was controlling the boat speed. We were moving to fast, so at some point we'll need to kill the dinghy engine ad drift.  On the approach Chris jumped into the dinghy and killed the engine. Then she leaped out to grab dock lines.  I swung the rudder back and forth to burn off speed. In the end, we landed a little on the fast side and some hard pull ups on the dock lines to avoid ending up half way down the dock and harming innocent boats, a la BC ferry style.

Apollo Ono entering the harbor (see him skating on the side of the ferry?)

We used our magic $4 automatic siphon to empty the jerry jug into our tank.

Then it was a motor into Vancouver city.  

Paul

There's Goats on the Roof

Sandra was clearly rooting for number 440 with her wolf whistles at  he warm up forthe Bath Tub races. Not being a local, I put my money on 440 too. The start was right in Nanaimo Harbor and it was already blowing hard. Note the big blue and yellow Bath Tub on right is the official start line committee. 

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It was so rough when the Tubs got into the Strait  of Georgia that at least half dropped out or had to be rescued by their chase boat. 440 didn't win, so I lost interest fast. Here's the first place winner approaching the beach. These guys have to hit the beach, then run up the beach 50 yards and ring a bell. Their legs are so beat up from the trip that lots of them jump out of the tub and do a face plant.

Next we were off to Coombs. The big attraction in Coombs is the country store with goats on the roof. Leave it to the  Canadians to develop a ploy like this to make you a successful entrepreneur! 

Note the goat on the right eating ice cream. 

Goats trimming the store roof.

Next day we sailed off toward Tribune Bay on Hornby Is. It got late and it looked lke it would be blowing stright down into the achorage there so we headed into False Bay on Laqueti Is. Lasqueti is known for its hippy, back to the earth,counter culture and export/import businesses. We're real estate shopping now...

Mural on the Lasqueti pier.

B.C. couldn't be better than on this trip-- we've had bright sunshine, blue skies, golden grasses on the hillsides and warm breezes since we arrived and we've appreciated every day of it. Add to that the good friends and million beautiful anchorages here and we begins to wonder why we would ever head south.
Oh, Canada!
Chris & Paul

Waiting for the Bath Tub Races to begin

We headed up slowly through the Canadian Gulf Islands with a few nice light air sails. Anchored in Pirates Cove Park, DeCourcy Island. We went ashore to look for the bare chested lady with the whip who used to run the place when it was a cult commune. No luck. It was pretty sunset with light winds.

About 11:30pm the wind decided to pick up. A couple of power boats started to drag anchor. The smaller one got themselves reset pretty quickly. The bigger one with baby blue Christmas lights around the cabin spent about 45 minutes using their noisy bow thruster to try and hold their position. Then they spent about another hour re-anchoring, ending up with them right on top of us. I finally went back down to get some sleep about 1am.  About 45 minutes later I heard their engines roaring again. Not a lot of sleep that night for me; Chris, on the other hand kept true to form and slept like a baby.

The next day we headed up to Naniamo via Dodd's Narrows. The Narrows has some wicked currents through out, maxing out at about 9kts. We headed through a little early, just before absolute slack tide.The currents were still pretty strong. Here's the middle ground on entry followed by the swirls on the exit.

 
We visited our friends Don and Sandra in their new house in Nanainamo. Great view from the deck and kitchen. They treated us to some hot showers and good BBQ. Chris and Sandra have been friends for about 150 years, since their California hippy beach girls days.

The anchorage in Nanaimo is pretty packed now. Sunday is the start of the International Bath Tub races. Contestants come from all over the world to compete in racing a bath tub (yes, a real bath tub) glued to a small surfboard hull with an 8hp outboard stuck on the back. Should be interesting since the start is right behind the anchorage. Here's the anchorage from New Castle Island. We are somewhere about mid-pack.

 The seaplanes take off from the anchorage too.

The anchorage is created by a bite in New Castle Is sitting in front of Nanaimo. We circumnavigated New Castle Is. on the hiking trail. Here's Chris examining the world's largest Madrona tree on the west side of the island..

The night before the Bath Tub races the city puts on a great fireworks show. No cheaping out on the explosives.

Paul