Day 3 | Flotilla to Alaska | Pender Harbour to Squirrel Cove

Today’s cruise from Pender Harbour to Squirrel Cove was about 48nm. A longish cruise, but the conditions were perfect — calm water and just the slightest breeze. A long but uneventful cruise is nice sometimes, especially when we have internet! We took advantage of the calm cruise to catch up on blog posts and some other flotilla business. (New flotilla t-shirts for 2018!) Cassidy (Nordhavn 40) and Rhapsody (Ranger Tug … Read more

Day 2 | Flotilla to Alaska | Silva Bay to Pender Harbour

The Strait of Georgia is the first “gate” on our way to Alaska. It’s only a few hours across, but if it’s windy it can be a miserable few hours. We look at a bunch of different forecasts before crossing any of the gates. Most of the time, the forecasts are pretty much in agreement. The trends are the same and predicted wind velocities are similar. For the Strait of … Read more

Day 1 | Flotilla to Alaska | Roche Harbor to Silva Bay

The beautiful weather continues! We awoke this morning to bright sunshine and our group was so excited to get going that we left Roche Harbor by 8:00 a.m. — an hour earlier than originally scheduled. All but one of us has Nexus (the trusted traveler program that lets us clear Canadian customs by phone most of the time), so one boat had to stop and clear customs at Pender Harbour … Read more

Safe Harbour | Solar in the PNW?

For the last several years, Kevin and Laura have had solar panels installed on Airship. As we cruised together, we compared notes about electrical systems. Despite their enthusiasm for solar, I remained a solar skeptic (maybe even a solar curmudgeon!). I figured I already had a fancy alternator and reasonably sized battery bank. I only used the generator occasionally, typically when I needed hot water and hadn’t run the engine … Read more

Baja Day 11-13 | Cabo & La Paz

The first night in Cabo was a blur. We arrived late in the afternoon, had a celebratory drink with the Brown Eyed Girl crew, and headed to dinner. More celebratory drinks, then a cab ride to San Jose del Cabo for more celebrating. We stayed at Marina Puerto Los Cabos, a huge, modern facility a few miles outside San Jose del Cabo. The marina caters primarily to sportfishing boats and … Read more

Baja Day 9-10 | Magdalena Bay to Cabo

The trip so far has been uneventful. That ended today. We departed Mag Bay in predawn darkness for the 185nm, 28 hour run to San Jose del Cabo. This is the most barren section of coast on the Baja Peninsula. No services, no anchorages, just bluffs and beaches and maybe a few villages here and there. The first ten hours were easy. A bit of fog as we exited Mag … Read more

Baja Day 6-8 | Magdalena Bay

The last week has been a flurry of activity and near constant movement. Officially we’ve spent nights in two Mexican ports—Ensenada and San Quintin—but we’ve yet to really see anything in Mexico. In Ensenada, we cleared customs and went to dinner at the marina, never venturing more than a few hundred yards from the boat. In San Quintin, we arrived at night and departed before dawn, never actually seeing the … Read more

Baja Day 3-5 | San Quintin to Magdalena Bay

We didn’t intend to run 67 hours, but that’s what happened. And it was great. Most people view overnight passages as an occasional, necessary evil. They can be exhausting. Running at night can be disorienting. Someone must stand watch at all times, watching the radar and other instruments and avoiding traffic. With just two of us on the boat, that means sleeping four hours at a time, then standing watch … Read more