Pacific NW

Expeditions

Another big-distance day, one that really felt like two or three days. Christoph and I awoke in the dark and motored out of Oleo’s while Lee slept soundly below. It was a calm morning and we had a successful transit of Greene Point and Whirlpool Rapids at sunrise. Things got exciting in the afternoon as the wind and rain picked up. As we entered the Johnstone Strait, we hoisted our jib and were greeted by a brisk 30 knot southeasterly wind. Johnstone Strait has always given me an uneasy feeling, even on flat calm days, I don’t know why. Today it threw up 4 foot waves and we had a terrific sail, achieving average boat speeds of 9 knots and surfing occasionally to 11.6 knots. It was a great test of my new standing rigging, which I now have strong confidence in. Lee, during this time, did an excellent job navigating and answering my questions as they came, one after the other. Alas, we swung into the Havana Channel and into more protected waters. We celebrated our good sail by eating the chocolate cake that Oleo had given us “for the road” (we ate the other one last night). Chocolate cake never tasted so good as we ate it behind the protection of the dodger, which by this point was blocking the bucketloads of wave spray. Thank God for our dodger! Toward evening the wind dropped, sun and rainbows appeared, and we proceeded slowly and cautiously into peaceful Pott’s Lagoon, where we are spending the night. Lee caught a few crabs for our dinner and I made a salad. Both were excellent. The water in the lagoon is so clear that we could see our anchor set into the sand on the bottom. Tonight again, Orion, the Dipper and the Milky Way are reflecting from the water of our anchorage. Few things please me more than rowing out around the lagoon and looking back at “Silent Partner” set amidst another peaceful place, with a plume of wood smoke rising from her chimney.