ReCap

Well, we're home. After 12 days of travel, 65 1/2 hours of motoring, 14 hours of sailing, and $320 in diesel (we started with a full tank), and about 9 inches of rain, we arrived in Bella Bella.

I believe when we left you last, we were anchored in Montague- that was quite a while ago! We have slowly and steadily chugged up the coast, making progress every day but one (we spent an extra day in Nanaimo, scratching our heads over why our alternator was not charging our batteries. Turned out to be a blown fuse…doh!). We have anchored out most nights, and motored most days. Of course we would prefer to be sailing, but we have had very light wind and spend most of our time in narrow passes without enough space to really shake out the sails.

A few highlights:

~The anchorages have been spectacular. Occasionally there will be one or two other boats, but frequently we have the whole place to ourselves.

-Having Sarah and Trevor with us for the beginning of the journey. They were a huge help in Victoria- buying all of our groceries and liquor while we were dealing with customs and banks. They took their turns at the wheel so we could tinker and relax. They cooked and they did the dishes. They were great spirits and great company. Thanks to you both!

-We had a few good sailing days, and one perfect sailing day. This was in the Strait of Georgia, headed to Nanaimo. The wind was behind us and strong, the sun was out, and the sails were up! We took the opportunity to finally raise our spinnaker (that big colorful sail)

-Miles inlet was one of our favorite spots. It’s just 10 miles south of Cape Caution (see next highlight) but totally protected. You feel like you can reach out and touch the trees on either side of the inlet.

~There are a few milestones as you head through these waters, and we can now check a few off them off. Seymour narrows is one, where the current can run up to 16 knots! It’s all about timing. We hit it perfectly, right at slack before the tide began to ebb and it was calm and peaceful. Another one is rounding Cape Caution, which leaves you completely exposed to the Pacific. The going can be pretty rough here, with big winds and huge waves. We woke up at Miles inlet, however, to this:

We rounded the cape  early in the morning and while there was intense fog, the wind was settled and the seas calm. I took this picture less than ½ a mile off Cape Caution- isn’t it a beautiful piece of land?

~ Namu was probably the most interesting place we stopped. It is an old cannery, built in the 1800’s but active until the 1980’s. It is a ghost town now, with the exception of three wacky individuals that live there all year. It is very obvious that when the cannery shut down, everyone simply got up and left. There is a store front window, glass broken, with books and can goods rusting in place on the shelves. The cannery buildings are literally falling down.

There is an old tanker that the owner of the place bought intending to fix up, but apparently “hasn’t gotten around to it”

This is one of my favorite shots- I snapped it quickly in 35 seconds of sun we got between cloud bank and horizon.

~Arriving in Bella Bella! It seems like such a dream actually getting here. More on this soon.

A few lowlights:

-We have spent many many hours in the stomping grounds of orcas. It’s July, prime time to see said orcas. We have not seen any. Not even one. We have, however, seen one humpback, hundreds of porpoises, and dozens of bald eagles!

-The weather has been less than wonderful. It’s rained most days and is not getting much warmer than 60. We have even had to fire up the arctic heater a few nights. That long-awaited northwest summer has not yet arrived up here. People keep promising me it’s on it’s way. And so we wait, with rain gear on.

-Our VHF antenna did not seem to be working well (we had to be very close in order to transmit/receive calls) so we decided to replace it. We were in Campbell River, one of the few places with a marine store, so we bought a new antenna and John hoisted me up the mast to swap them out. Pretty simple. Except that the old antenna had a different connection type and they weren’t compatible. Four trips to the marine store, three trips up the mast, and 7 hours later, we had a new antenna (and a new splice and attachment on the end of the coaxial cable). Boat owners joke about boat projects taking twice as much time and money as you can ever expect, but it is no joke!! The fact that it was Sunday and every store but two were closed did not help the situation.

On the 2^nd or 3^rd trip up the mast, I took my camera and snapped off one or two pictures of our pretty girl

-We ran out of water in our tanks a few days back and have not yet been to a place with potable water. So we don’t have running water, and must boil everything we drink. It’s getting a bit old. Apparently Bella Bella (we are technically at Shearwater, across the way) has potable water. Tomorrow we will investigate.

-Diesel is expensive! Another reason we would rather be sailing.

Ok, back to the good stuff. We arrived in Bella Bella at 4pm on Thursday and gave ourselves a tour. We did a drive-by of old Bella Bella, Whiskey Cove (where our bosses live), and settled at Shearwater marina. Shearwater is the ‘tourist’ spot, with showers, laundry (only $10 a load!), power, a post office, a restaurant, and a general store. We probably won’t be here much, as the tourists are not our target, but  it might be nice to come by and have someone else cook for us every once in a while.

Yesterday we ran some errands then went to find some fishing. We caught a few small rock fish-just enough for dinner for two. Then we anchored in Whiskey Cove and waited for our bosses to return. They got in around 9, we moved the boat to their dock, they toured our boat, and we went up to their house for some wine and to start mapping out our jobs!

It is such an understatement to tell you that we are so excited to be here, but I don't know what else to say about it!