Today was the day to make miles down Johnstone Strait while things were good. Johnstone can be a serious menace, and we had favorable current from 6AM until noon. We figured if we popped out right at 6, we could ride the current all the way down to our turnoff from Johnstone. As a bonus, winds were predicted to be mellow (unusual for this stretch). It all turned out to … Read more
Early (5am!!) departure today, and a long day to boot! We cruised just over 60nm from our anchorage at Tribune Bay up past Campbell River, through Seymour Narrows (timed perfectly, of course), and onto Kanish Bay. It was a bit lumpy out, with some current against us as we headed north in the Strait of Georgia. We had three-foot wind waves on the bow for four hours or so. Not … Read more
The Environment Canada forecast didn’t look all that great for the Strait of Georgia this morning, but after discussing the hourly reported condition (Windy.com, buoy reports, looking at the hourly trend, etc.) with Laura via the group chat, it looked like a little chop was likely the worst we’d get, so the group pulled anchor and left Clam Bay around 8am this morning, headed for Dodd Narrows. The plan was … Read more
This morning we left Ganges a little before the 11am checkout time (after wandering up the hill to a nice bakery). We’re of course watching the weather forecasts for the Strait of Georgia, and we were greeted this morning with this, for both south and north of Nanaimo. Waterspouts?? Waterspouts are not on our Flotilla Bingo cards. At all. Next year maybe we should make a limited edition “Catastrophe” version … Read more
We continued our cruise out into the Strait of Georgia yesterday (after waiting for the cable ferry across to Denman Island). The red/green lights on shore (letting vessels know when and when not to cross) are much easier to spot on a foggy gray day than they are in bright sunlight. Oh good, back to flat. Whew! The strait was lovely yesterday. Not much traffic, not much wind. Originally we … Read more
We left Gowlland Harbour yesterday morning around 7:30am and had a nice push out past Cape Mudge (and the gazillion little fishing boats, holy moly were there a lot of boats…wish I’d have taken a photo, but was too distracted by going 11 kts at 100rpm lower than usual). Most of our cruise down the Strait was a little bumpy (which we were not used to after our last several … Read more
We left Sunday Harbour in the dark (again) this morning, planning to get ALL of Johnstone Strait behind us today. We had just a touch of fog this morning, which eventually cleared to this: …which eventually cleared to this: We had a great boost of current this morning, and at about the max current against us for the day we had only about a half a knot against us. Complaints … Read more
Today was our 20th rounding of Cape Caution, and the calmest one yet! A few minutes after we exited Fury Cove, we spotted a group of humpbacks cruising from east to west, so we slowed so not to cross their path. They dove as I tried to get a couple photos, but both slight fog and low light were a little too much of a challenge for my autofocus! Reported … Read more