Day one of the trip! Emma arrived, loaded a bunch more food and ‘supplies’

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and after saying bye to Billy we were off! At around 10.

Goodbye Victoria! See you in four weeks!

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The wind couldn’t have been better, a 10-15 beam reach all down the Juan de Fuca.

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As we sailed round the edge of Trial Island I thought I head something that sounded like a whale spout… and it was! A humpback off of trial island, first time I’ve ever seen one there!

As we turned onto the Haro strait, the wind shifted to behind us and died a bit, so we pulled out the spinny.

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Made ok time, and as we approached the gap between James and Sidney islands we put it away (as I am still not super confident using it) and put up the white sails instead again.

We soon reached sidney spit in time for a lovely sunset, having not turned the engine on the entire time!

The next day we basically ended up motoring the whole day. Eventually arrived at Clam Bay on Thetis Island.

Emma wasted no time getting in the hammock and doing some instagrams (or whatever the kids are doing nowadays)

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Later she went swimming despite it being only around 18c.

Another nice sunset

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Day 3 dawned, and we set off through Porlier Pass at some ungodly hour of the morning (to catch the current correct).

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As it turned out we had current against us almost the whole way and after a short beat into the wind, the rest of the time was rather windy slog against wind and current under the engine. Here is Emma steering the boat and drinking coffee on the small bit of sailing we actually got done. So Casual!

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Ten hours later we finally arrived at Tribune Harbour which was lovely. Water temp was 21c, which was enough to tempt me into the water for a swim.

Cue sunset picture and FADE

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Day 4 got off to an inauspicious start when on our way out of the harbour we passed two sailboats coming the other way, talking on the radio about how it was too rough out there for them… great.

Well for the first hour or so it was VERY rough. There was some nasty wind against current causing some waves to stack up and Gudgeon was pounding through and dropping off six foot standing waves. BANG BANG BANG etc.

We decided to try to get the sails up and sail into it, as this tends to result in a lot smoother ride but just then my body decided I absolutely, 100% NEEDED to go to the bathroom, and there was no arguing. It was my first time trying to use the bathroom in those conditions and maybe it was me flying off the seat and through the air roughly every 5 seconds, or the onset on seasickness but it was not a good time by any measure. Imagine you are in one of those funfair rides that shoots you in the air except its happening every 5 seconds and also you are trying to take a dump at the same time.

Eventually I staggered out and we got the sails up (reefed immediately) and it all smoothed out (here is a picture after the seas calmed down. Note the sexy reef)

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We did some good beating into the wind for a while and then the wind died so we motored until we got to the Copeland isles, on the edge of Desolation Sound!

It was pretty busy here and we arrived late so after failing to find a free anchorage we kinda found a tiny nook and dropped anchor and stern-tied.

Now I’ve written before how stern tying makes me nervous and it didn’t help we were next to a big rock

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But it was really pretty

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And we collected a bunch of oysters and fried ’em up

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And with that, the first part of the journey was over. Next up, Desolation Sound

 

 

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