Escorting Calliste and Captain home

At the end of season 2016, and as we are preparing for a new life in upstate New York, we made a difficult choice of where to store Calliste for the winter. We depart from our playwaters at Cortes Island mid Sept with storing Calliste at La Conner in mind, which of course influence our route decisions to favor the mainland coast.

Travelling separately in a car and in a boat is complicated of course, well this is how we managed.

15th Sep: Calliste depart 0500hrs to hitch a ride on the south flowing current. Doug will take her 45 miles to Madeira public marina in Pender Harbor, which at 5kns will take 9 long hours. So his ETA is 2pm…. Fordie depart on 0750hrs Cortes to Quadra to Campbell River ferry. That’s the earliest ferry, putting us in civilization 0915hrs, but that is not early enuf for the Comox to Powell River ferry. Got to the Comox terminal 1015hrs, just missed the ferry boarding by 15 mins! Drats! Had to wait till 1500hrs for the next ferry! By that time, Calliste was already anchored in Pender Harbor. Giving Doug a chance to snooze eh. Good thing I left my SG phone with Doug, so that we have at least SMS comms, so we can kinda track each others progress…. expensive it is, but very necessary.

Bellingham marina visitor dock. Empty for the late season.

Got to Powell River 1630hrs, then drive down the coast to Saltery Bay for the ferry to Earl’s Cove. Wish I had more time to enjoy the scenery, but nope I am busy checking the road signs and processing the info with my common sense. No Canadian GPS on board Fordie… Anyway, IMO, the Saltery Bay to Earl’s Cove ferry route is the most beautiful ride that I have been on. Sorry Doug missed this 🙂 …. Finally arrived at Madeira 1900hrs, and managed to find a free parking space just outside the marina property. Its pretty dark already, but Doug managed to see me waving on the public dock and came over to pick me up. Happily we spend the night nice and warm on board.

Gibsons Landing marina is business

16th Sep: Doug put me ashore 0600hrs and went on his way with the same south flowing current, bound Gibsons’ Landing. Its just 30 miles for him, and with the current, I would expect his to make it at 1200hrs… And as for me, its a easy day with no ferry rides, so my drive down is completely free for me to check out the sights. 🙂 Got my leisurely Macdonalds breakfast at some halfway town, then found a rest area by the coastal drive to wait and watch Calliste go by. By my calculations, Calliste should pass about 0930hrs, but she only came by 1015hrs… a sign that currents are unpredictable around this coast.

Fordie got to Gibsons 1100hrs, easily found a free parking street just 2 mins walk from the village center. With lots of time to spare, I happily check out this quaint little village. It is very interesting indeed… with a fair bit of Asian presence… Almost did a take out, but guess I didn’t want to be disappointed with the food… knowing that I usually cook much better than most joints. So I just sat and waited at the public marina wharf, where I was told is perfectly alright for Doug to drive by and pick me up. From 1200hrs, I waited and waited and waited… until I finally spot Calliste at 1400hrs. Why so late? Sigh, strange currents. So that’s always a thing about cruising, shore party just have to wait it out.

My 1st big bao since a long time.

On board and head out to anchor by Plumper Bay on Keats Island. We needed the south wind protection for the next 2 days, a system was coming thru and small craft advisory was issued. Here we rest for the night and whole of next day. Was quite pleasant really, hardly felt the system going by.

18th Sep: A calmer day to travel, before another bad system rolls thru. 0600hrs, Doug left me ashore before heading out. Its 30 miles to Point Roberts (US customs), then another 10 miles to Blaine where we meet again. I am not expecting him to arrive until 1600hrs at least. Long day for him… lots of time for me to check out Vancouver Chinatown 🙂

Chinese medical shop like everywhere else. Great supply.

Its another ferry ride for Fordie from Gibsons Landing to Horseshoe Bay, but this one is like a shuttle and frequency is very high. Since its early morning on Sunday, it was only half full. Got to Chinatown 1100hrs, perfect time to enjoy Chinese food in this greatest Chinatown in western Americas continent. Note to self, parking is not free even on Sunday. Paid $3 for 1.25 hrs, which is not much for parking in any large city right? I rather not get a ticket …

I am really quite impressed. Lots of Mandarin, Cantonese conversation going on around me, smells like Chinatown anywhere too… not a pleasant smell to most, but its strangely pleasant to me for now. Too much of it is revolting :p . And I hear so much about Dim Sum here in Vancouver, but its not so fun eating all that food by myself, so I contend myself with this gigantic pork bao…. was a good one, but not comparable to my usual in SG… see, disappointed already… better to see, feel and soak in the atmosphere, but not to buy, touch or taste.

The best Asian deli outside of Asia… so far the best I have seen.

Did a long gander down the main alley to the other end of this large Chinatown, where I found this large Asian supermarket. Check it out, a good Asian deli selection awaits me 🙂 …  Bought lunch for myself, frozen “little dragon buns” and frozen siewmais to share with Doug tonight. 🙂 Fingers crossed that it will taste authentic.

1400hrs, very long queue at US customs, feels as bad as driving to JB. 1600hrs at Blaine Marina. Doug didn’t make it until 1800hrs. Was 1900hrs by the time we were anchored in Drayton Harbor for the night. Yes, the Dim Sum was a nice treat for both of us. Impressed.

Calliste coming thru.

19th Sep: We decided to send me out to get groceries and 10 Gals diesel. It is nice to have Fordie around to run these errands with, so that we didn’t have to pay high marina neighborhood prices on anything. So there are some pluses for travelling with boat and car alongside. We stayed another night in Drayton Harbor as the 2nd system pass by.

20th Sep: 1000hrs, short day for Calliste. Only 25 miles to Bellingham, so ETA is 1500hrs right? Well, we know better already.

Fordie and Lang arrive at Bellingham Marina 1100hrs. Lots of time to check out this city and very large marina with a lot going on everywhere. Dock walks, food alley walks, marine business walks… all walked out by the time Calliste come into sight. 1630hrs is time Doug pick me up from the visitor dock. 1800hrs is when we anchored out in the opposite bay for the night.

Calliste going under the bridge that Fordie went over.

21th Sep: 0700hrs, up anchor and headed back to the marina. 0830hrs, Lang ashore, Doug and Calliste heading out. We are bound Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. Doug will have lots of current going with him on this 35 miles day. Fordie and Lang crossed the bridge over waterway leading to La Conner 1100hrs and decided to wait around for Calliste and Doug to go by. Right on time at 1205hrs is when boat party arrive 🙂 Snap

1400hrs, Fordie got us to Oak Harbor. Hang out at the visitor dock until Calliste got here 1800hrs, then we headed out to anchor for the night. Its kinda shallow everywhere in the bay, not much protection from the south, but weather is not bad for tonight.

22th Sep: We decided to make the big jump in okay conditions to Port Hadlock. 50 miles and going against the flow most of the day, will make it 12hrs trip. We decided to do this trip together on Calliste, leaving Fordie in the safety of Oak Harbor marina parking lot for the night. Depart 0700hrs and hoping we be anchored by 1900hrs. Wasn’t a really beautiful trip… overcast and boring. 1630hrs, Doug made the call to take the canal short cut to Port Hadlock despite the 3kns current against us. Was a good move, cause it was a short 10 mins at 2 kns going thru, putting us at Port Hadlock anchored by 1800hrs.  Yay! We are home! Made it before the really bad southerly weather hits.

23th Sep: 0800hrs, seems calm enuf to put me ashore at Port Hadlock public dock, but we were quite wrong. Was iffy just letting me off, waves slapping the dock drama… but we did surprisingly well in those conditions… old salts us eh? Doug and Calliste back to anchor, Lang head to Oak Harbor on bus – ferry – bus.

1000hrs ferry from Port Townsend, watching the really bad sea state. Heard afterwards that the next ferry was cancelled and few boats got washed ashore. Phew! I got to Oak Harbor and Calliste was safe in the Hadlock anchorage.

1 600hrs, Fordie and Lang back at cabin. Property seems ok, no fallen trees and no flooding. … no keys, Lang has to camp in Fordie tonight? Headed out to Port Hadlock with no way to call Doug on Calliste… fortunately weather calmed down a lot… hoping to find someone with dinghy to send a message… so old fashion, but it worked! Kind soul on paddleboat delivered my SOS to Doug. 1900hrs, we are anchored again…. Lang didn’t have to spend a single cold night in Fordie throughout the journey, that’s an achievement me thinks.

Stretching our sails

A hideaway nook that is not a secret.

We don’t have a sail plan this season… we kinda think we would go the Vancouver route, up around the Redondas before heading into Cortes Bay. Bad weather system was in the area, and we kinda make a new plan as we go along. Its so easy to do that with modern day electronic charts on our chartplotter and Navionics charts on my iP4d that comes with a super good tide program that even shows current direction with little arrows and the intensity of that flow. So long as we can read, we could not go wrong, right? We shall see about that.

7 Jun 1200hrs, Just went to town and got our new depth sounder. Parked Fordie at Haven Marina, Doug pick me up from the fuel dock. Adventure begins…. despite the bad weather reports, we decided to head out and see how bad it is.

1500hrs, its not bad at all. So calm that we went right by the infamous Smith Islands. Doug notice that the whole island is covered by marine birds, a sign that somewhere there is a system going on and birds are seeking refuge.

Doug like this one….

1800hrs, anchored at Aleck Bay. There is no other boats here. A few mansions, some kayaks on the beach and lots of driftwood. Overnight we hear the winds howling through, and was a little rolly with waves coming in from the South, but no drag.

8 Jun 0500hrs, Doug decided that he doesn’t like it at Aleck Bay. Winds are not too bad right now, Doug decided to jump over to Mackeye Harbor that is only separated from Aleck Bay by a small sandy strip, but is 3 miles by navigable waters. … And its 3 miles of chopping waters, making only 2 to 3 knots…. it took more than an hour to “jump” over. But true, it was a little better, and we didn’t feel alone 🙂 … there is a small private marina and few anchored boats. Winds were up and down throughout the day, just as forecasted.

I like this one.

9 Jun 0430hrs, Winds settled down overnight, now is our chance to make a run to Oak Bay Customs dock.

0830hrs, Checked into Canada! So simple. I went on a walk to town, mission is to get groceries. We bring no vegs into Canada, so all boaters who check into Canada will be looking for fresh vegs, fruits and meats! 1100hrs, made it back to the customs dock with 2 heavy bags. Was a 30 minutes walk!

1200hrs, Anchored at Cadboro Bay. Very sleepy, both of us. Happy for the calm weather for a change.

10 Jun 0500hrs, Heading out. Calm weather for the next few days. We time our leaving to get the maximum current boost… so we made it to Cowichan by 1030hrs. In time to enjoy the free tie up till 2pm at the Fisherman Association pontoon. This is a surprising little harbor, houseboat community and touristy waterfront, but not much possibility for anchoring. We had lunch (it was so-so).

Usual sight cruising in BC. Log tugs.

1500hrs, Anchored in Genoa Bay. This is really calm and nice. Almost like Annette inlet. We decided to stay 2 nights… partly because wind is up again, and surely we both will enjoy more rest 🙂

12 Jun 0630hrs, Anchor was stuck drama. Luckily we were able to dislodge it by motoring to the other quadrant, and lift. Phew, no diving.

1030hrs, Brief stop at Thetis Island Marina, since we are too early for Dodd narrows. Got 3 internet vouchers for 3 devices. Its free, just have to ask. Was pretty good internet too. Decided to have lunch, it was so-so…. but C$50… big ouch for Doug…

1400hrs, We have a system of getting on and off fuel pontoons now. Doug will pull in slowly and I walk off, while he go anchor the boat. He may row in with the kayak, or not. Then he’ll drive by slowly and I walk back onboard. This gives me extra internet time 🙂 and maybe shopping time 🙂 . So anyway, we are off and headed to Dodd narrows. Made it in perfect time.

Campbell River, as seen from April Point.

1830hrs, Anchored at Mark Bay Nanaimo. Usual spot. Lots of space, maybe its still early this season.

13 Jun, Finally a day to launch the dinghy, so that we can both go into town. We have only 1 kayak this time, sigh…. I need good internet for banking and Doug needs lots of nuts to last him the whole summer. Paid C$5.50 to Nanaimo port authority for parking our 7ft dinghy at half day rate. Good for 9hrs they say. Horrible internet at the marina. Found the bus to Woodgrove Save on foods. C$2.50 each, one way. So it cost us total C$10 for the day on bus, but it was well worth it. I got lots of productive things done on the free Save-on wifi and Doug got more nuts that he can eat 🙂

Anchoring hole in Blind channel. This is my next favorite spot after Annette inlet.

14 Jun 0800hrs, Started late this morning in consideration of the currents. A full 40 mile day to Deep Bay… Yes, we lazy people consider 30 miles as a full day. It usually only takes us 6hrs to do 30 miles, since we normally time the currents so well, but not today… Arrive Deep Bay 1700hrs. That’s 9hrs! Its overtime!

15 Jun 0900hrs, Lang went ashore with trash. No charge for dumping at Deep Bay marina. No free wifi here… 1100hrs, Doug cant wait to leave this horrible anchorage. Some crazy guy is just zooming around the bay with his 200HP skiff.

1800hrs, Speeding into Campbell River at 9kns. Current around here is usually not slack, highly possibly strong, so there is no way to anchor out in the open roadstead. Upon seeing the whirlpools at both entrance at Q-cove, Doug refuses to go in there for the night. Went further north to April Point. Surprisingly it had no whirling waters and was easy to follow the red buoy. Anchor down at 9pm. That’s another day that’s too long for us.

I find it so peaceful to be tree gawking.

2200hrs, Even till today, we were still changing our route plans. 1st we were going to circumnavigate Quadra Island…. Then we couldn’t resist not going further north and see even a little part of Johnstone strait…. but what do we do with the infamous Dent and Yaculta rapids? Could we time it to perfection? Our gadgets and my smarts has worked very well so far…

16 Jun, Motor over to Q-cove at morning slack. Was hard to find a good place to anchor, but we did anchor just 500ft north of the public dock. No we didn’t want to tie up even tho 2 hrs is free. So Doug is on anchor watch while I take the ferry over to Campbell River for groceries and internet. I managed to get back in time for the next slack tide to North flowing ebb current.

Yaculta Rapids… we have seen worse.

1545hrs, Depart Q-cove, bound Blind channel anchoring hole via Seymour narrows and Johnstone strait 🙂 . Made it to anchor at 9pm. Still plenty of daylight to enjoy the views. Love the long days.

17 Jun 0710hrs, Up anchor 1 hour before current change to flood. Flood current is the one that we want a ride on today, but before that we want to be at Dent rapids at slack and hopefully 1 hour later at Yaculta. Just as we planned, the infamous Dent was quiet and despite having 3.5 kns going with us at Yaculta, the whirlpools are not even comparable to Kanmon Pass in Japan’s inland sea… That was the most scary ride ever.

Well… we were prepared to stop at those little pocket coves before these rapids if the situation feels too dangerous..

1200hrs, Made it thru the east opening of Hole in the Wall. 1300hrs, Too early to try exiting the treacherous west opening, so we anchored at Florence Cove and snoozed.

1545hrs, Going thru the west opening of Hole in the Wall was another anti-climatic experience. … After reading so much about how dangerous the rapids and whirlpools are, we sort of were looking for a little glimpse, but nothing! Perhaps this is proof that I timed our cruising day to perfection? Well, not so at Surge narrows. By this time we are 1 hour late and fighting the ebb flow. It took us a long while to pick our way thru a winding passage of rock islets till Whiterock passage.

1700hrs, Made it thru the Whiterock passage. Other that the very narrow and shallow dredged waterway, it was not difficult to go thru this pass as there were no significant currents here.

2000hrs, Anchored at Coulter bay on Cortes Island. … and fouled the anchor trip line on the prop. Drats! … Doug had to dive, otherwise we couldn’t trust the anchor to set. 2200hrs, re anchored. Terribly late for us, but we were feeling pretty good about hitting all the highlights in that route that we picked, all in 1 day 🙂 What would we do without the electronics!

18 Jun, When we look out over the stern this morning, it was low tide and gulped! Calliste stern was 30ft from a rock! Doug had wanted to anchor further in and I said no to it. Lucky me, and good thing Doug listened to me this time. Got the anchor up and left.

1300hrs, Arrived D&M’s dock in Cortes Bay. Phew! That was some journey 🙂

 

 

 

 

The HOLY GRAIL of cruising in the Pacific Northwest

So says the Wagoner about cruising to the Princess Louisa Inlet. Another says “No man can be at the Princess Louisa Inlet and remain an atheist”. Well, we are about to find out if the lady is worthy of such high praise.

29th Jul 0600hrs, We chose to leave at early dawn as it is already daylight and we want a boost from that south bound current. This will be a long day with 2 detours planned, still we hope to be anchored at Pender Harbor around 1700hrs so that I can row in for groceries before they close for the day. According to Wagoner, there are 2 well stocked grocery stores within 5 min walk from the public dock at Pender Harbor… we are desperate for fresh meats and vegs… some stuff are hard to get on Cortes and what we brought with the car from Campbell is gone by now. Island life… sigh… there is a price to pay to live in paradise.

Ads on the public dock at Pender Harbor

0800hrs, Made it to Lund, just a quick turn and we are out. A historic village with nice eating places, but I don’t think we are attracted to visit it anytime soon.

1100hrs, Made it to Powell River, a sprawling town built on significant upward slope. This is a interesting view. And there is such a thing as a breakwater of ferro-cement ships… Doug and I was just gawking. 1130hrs, impromptu decision to turn in at the public marina, hoping that I could go in and get some brochures. Wagoner says that its a great place from re-provisioning so I must check it out for future use. I am impressed by the friendliness of the staff and the facilities, so I think we would come back in a weeks time to provision before we return to the isolation of Cortes Bay. 1200hrs, underway again.

1600hrs, carefully navigated around the rocks going into Pender Harbor. Busy place, lots of boating activity everywhere. 1700hrs, was hard to find a good anchoring spot that is not too deep and not too far from the public dock. We found 1 just 0.3nm NE of the dock, phew! Launch 1 kayak, only me going to town while Captain Doug rest.

The roaring rapids at Malibu. See the white line of water? It says, “thou shalt not pass”

I visited both grocery stores and both were well stocked… IGA was the bigger store and has a bigger selection of everything. I being the lazy shopper, always like to buy from 1 store only so that I am not standing in line twice, so I got everything from IGA despite the higher prices than the other store… and after the check out, I was told that I could just roll the cart to the dock. Wow, that’s great. I bought so much that it would be a struggle to carry them and walk 0.5km.

1900hrs, back on board and cant wait to whip up a feast for us!

Rapids no more… looks clear to me, but there is still a strong current

30th Jul 1000hrs, anchor up and away we go. We are following a strict tide schedule here, we must arrive at Malibu rapids +/- 15 mins of the high slack at 1920hrs. So we have 9 hrs and 20 mins to make 45nm with a friendly current as we are heading in for the high slack. Got Doug to slow the engine to lowest rpm that he could tolerate (low rpm kills diesel engines IHO), still we are making above 5.5kns…

The famous beauty, Princess Louisa inlet

1300hrs, we went from a place full of boats to this winding water ways with no boats, and we begin to wonder if we are making a mistake here… is this a bad time to head up to Princess Louisa? Did I misread the tide tables? Why is nobody else cruising to the Holy Grail of PNW cruising? In the meantime, we are enjoying views of the Rockies and fresh foods 🙂

1730hrs, yup that’s when we got to the Malibu Rapids, almost 2hrs ahead of time. Good for me to get a snap of the rapids going, and then we did circles around the outside… we are still the only boat going in…

Full moon shining through our meshed hatch.

Malibu Rapids is the entrance to the Princess Louisa and there is a nice resort facility… I think its YMCA or something like that. Its nice to see human activity at the resort, some kind of assurance that we are not the only people here at a major cruising destination.

Shore party and Calliste at Princess Louisa’s

1830hrs, a sailboat appears to be heading our way. 1840hrs, a powerboat overtook the sailboat and head straight in thru the rapids… while it is ahead of the slack, the rapids appear to have calm down a lot. The white line of water is gone, that’s the 1st sign that its possible to cross. 1845hrs, a sailboat heads out from inside. 1850hrs, here we go, its early so expect some turbulence. We manage to clear the twisty narrow parts with no problems, only to be swept by a strong force as it opens up. It figures, current is still coming in so turbulence is on the inside. Anyways, this is nothing compared to our experiences in Japan Inland sea.

Landing party having fun at the Chatterbox outlet rapids.

1930hrs, inside the Princess Louisa inlet on a beautiful summer day is gorgeous. Look, snap! Lots of pictures of bald mountains, some with a bit of ice. 1950hrs, no space for us on the public dock again. Surprise that so many boats are here, they must have come in on previous slack tides and stayed longer. Ok, so our planning was right and timing was almost perfect. 2000hrs, anchored at 50ft depth. Was hard to find a shallow spot on this steep bank to anchor at all. We were the closest boat to the Chatterbox falls, like front row seat 🙂 and hear it all night long.

My turn for the fun of feeling the rapidly moving water around me.

31st Jul 0200hrs, I woke up to a bright light in the cabin. It was the moon shining thru our meshed hatch and shining on me. Went to the hatch to enjoy the moonlit view of Princess Louisa’s. She’s pretty by night too, and the Chatterbox kept going. This is a special place, we are here at the right time and anchored in the right spot to have this experience. Those boats at the dock were in the moon shadow.

The never stopped chattering chatterbox. Very reliable it has been

1000hrs, launched kayaks. We sure are going to explore the coast and walk to the falls.

Lots of fun pictures taken here. Us in our kayaks playing with fast moving waters.

A Zen hobbyist work of art, standing pebbles.

1200hrs, tied up to the dinghy finger at the public dock. Did a short trail walk to the falls. There is a wardens residence, campsites, bathrooms and community firepit. A well manage dock and facilities to cater to us tourist (“pilgrims”, as some people say).

Me! At the Chatterbox falls in Princess Louisa, BC.

That’s me at the Chatterbox falls, Princess Louisa inlet, BC Canada. Yep, I had a good time coming here and hope to return again and again.

1st Aug 0630hrs, woke up suddenly…  its daylight and we should be at the Malibu Rapids at 0710hrs and its 4nm away. I thought we are never gonna make it, but no harm trying anyway. In record speed, Doug pulled the anchor and we powered away at full speed.

0740hrs, at the rapids, we are definitely the last boat leaving at this slack, but we made it. Again, since we were late, there was some turbulence, but nothing Doug and Calliste cant handle.

1500hrs, anchored at Saltery Bay. We couldn’t make it all the way to Powell River in daylight, so this is a good rest spot. There is a weather system going through the area, not a really severe one, but we are appreciative that we experience none of it in this bay overnight.

2nd Aug 1000hrs, anchors up, ready to handle the great weather with residue wave action from the day before. Just a little uncomfy for about 2hrs.

1300hrs, we are in Westview Marina, Powell River. This is a very tight marina, so it was a little scary going in and not knowing where we can turn around, but we made it ok and found an empty spot just right for us. Stopping here. To be continued.

 

 

 

Cortes to Port Townsend … by public transport

Big shell.. one day it will have all the creature comforts

Cortes is like Tioman in many ways. A island of 1050 full time residents, and unknown number of tourist in summer. So there is no bus service and no cab service. Walk is the way to get around, and if you are lucky, a local passing by will offer you a ride. The tourist with vehicles will drive right by…. but hey, what d’ya expect right?

Calliste at Don’s dock. What a treat!

On our 1st night, we tied up to Jonathan’s dock. He had a cabin, but it has nothing in it and certainly no internet. We walked up the road looking for his main house, and met neighbor Jenny tending her farm, and then met Ruby who was living up a road before Jon’s. Nice folks. Finally found Jon’s place. It was a grand… un finished house…

Manicured path from dock to house.

From there we walked up to the RVYC… got internet password from another guest there … 😉 well, me the internet pirate… but I am desperate! … I read that internet is precious on Cortes as it is a private service provided for the island, and its not a large bandwidth. .. I promised to not abuse that bandwidth, so all this blogging is only done when I am back stateside.

We found that there is no wifi reception on Jon’s dock… so we paddled over to the public dock and viola, we could get it there 🙂 . We asked around, trying to find Don’s dock. Its the next dock over. A short distance to the public dock… and yep, could get wifi… but just barely and not reliable. Wish we could get on Seattle YC wifi as they are much nearer… maybe we’ll meet somebody that would help us out. .. Anyway, some is better than none, so we moved Calliste over to Don’s. As we were kayaking around the bay, we met Alan and Emily on Sookie, a Falmouth cutter. And there was a 34ft BCC on a private dock too. Its a gathering of Hess’s boats right here in the bay.

Next day, I was bored enough to think that I am going on a 3 hours walk to and back from Mason’s landing. Had to check out the “downtown” of Cortes. It was 8 mins to walk from the dock to the road… then is it left or right? A steep climb up is to the left… so I walked right, only to find it leads around the cove. Now to walk all the way back up the hill and beyond. Why is there no signs and distance markers … Life on the island eh…

The grand waterfront at Victoria harbor.

50mins into my walk, few cars passed and never stop even tho I waved. Finally got a ride, and it turned out to be the owners of the 34ft BCC. OMG, small world! Doug is dying to know more about them and here I am meeting them without him. HA!

Got small fresh grocs from the store… but I didn’t walk over to the coop where I hear the selection is better… wanted to catch a ride back with those guys… picked up some travel info while there. To check out online later.

Cute little water taxi. They are decorated just like colonial land taxi.

We had to route ourselves back to PT somehow… need to get Fordie over here.. feel so stranded without our own means of getting around. .. Cant be walking 3hrs each time for limited selection of grocs and as with most island prices, it expensive. Okay, so I used the limited internet and managed to put together a plan. Booked online and saved a bit of money…

24th Jun, 0830hrs, walk from Don’s dock. Dump garbage (C$6) at public dock. 0900hrs, the Cortes Connection van picked us up. Was a hoot riding the van round island. Went by Squirrel cove, an Indian reserves community, Whaletown ferry dock. The van goes on the Cortes-Quadra ferry, 45 mins ride. Drives 10  mins over to Quadra-Campbell ferry connection, gets on the ferry ahead of all the cars lined up for the ferry ride.. Its a confirmed ticket to Campbell, and it got us to the Island Link bus pick up point at Tyee Plaza right on time. All for C$39 for 2 of us.

1130hrs, Island link arrives on time and picked a full load of 18 pax. Was a comfy ride… but no plush reclining seats. 4hrs 20mins on this bus with 5 mins stop at Comox and 10 mins at Nanaimo ferry… we needed to stretch our legs for sure… Oh, BTW, there is no stop long enough to get food. Lucky us, I cooked ginger fried rice this morning in anticipation of being hungry and no desirable food stop.

Houseboats at Fisherman’s wharf

1550hrs, arrive at Victoria conference centre. Its a short walk (10 minutes) over to Blackball ferry terminal. We packed light, knowing that we have a lots of walking to do today, but its still 2 handfuls and a bother. Have 3.5 hrs to kill before the next ferry to Port Angeles and too much baggage to wanna walk around town, we just sat at the terminal and indulge in the free wifi. After all updated with emails and world news, Doug was happy to sit around and watch the stuff while I walked with just the camera over to Fisherman’s Wharf. A 20 mins walk at least, hope to get dinner from Barbs.

Well, there’s lots of pictures to take around this historic city. Grand colonial buildings and waterfront touristy businesses. I like the cute water taxi concept. Instead of running it as a touristy business, it is really a cab service to the community and the charges are really like cab fare. $5 per ride or get the day pass, and monthly pass is also available. And check out the community of house boats. So colorful.

Long queue for fish and chips.

1820hrs, at Barbs. Long queue deter me from getting the dinner. It wasn’t enuf time to stand in line and get the stuff. I decided to walk back, and just in time for gathering our stuff. 1915hrs, we are on board MV Coho. 1930hrs, on time departure. 2100hrs, on time arrival… but it wasn’t until 2130hrs that we cleared immigration.

Being late in the evening, we had to walk 1 mile to the hotel… sure there were lots of hotels on our route that cost lots more than our budget for hotel stays. 2230hrs, it took us 1hr to walk 1 mile uphill and will our bags… at least it was cool …

25th Jun 0900hrs, at bus stop just outside hotel. That’s nice for a change. Got on bus 30 to Sequim and caught the last morning departure to PT. 1130hrs, we are re united with Fordie! Yep! We hope we dun have to do this again… but I know that 1 day we will have to reverse our route back to Cortes and return with Calliste….

 

A different way of raising the mast.

Crane operator at Calliste stern

Doug saw this being done in Australia on Calliste and thought it was so simple that there is no reason to do it any other way… but the expert and the regular boat mast raising crane operator here in Port Townsend don’t agree.

Here comes the hook

So instead of using Olympic Crane (formally Julian Arthur Crane services), we hired a larger and better crane from United Craftsmen to do it Doug’s way. Business owner Dan was very positive about the plan and overall Doug just like his attitude.

So this was how we did it.

2 halyards in the hook, mast is set to go up.

BTW, check out the blue skies. It was kinda hard to find a nice day like this in April… is this an unusually windy and wet spring? Newbies here wants to know.

Doug handling the butt end.

Mast upright

A man on the crane, the signal man on the hook and Doug on the ground manning the butt end with a trolley. .. and me to record all this … seems like I have the best job of them all 🙂

As the top end of the mast is being raised, the butt end on the trolley draws in until the mast is upright. That is simple isn’t it? The trolley idea came from Raffles yard in Singapore.

Its going up!

The best part of using the halyards (instead of strapping under the top spreader bases), is that the mast is raised upright (and not at an angle), so there is less muscling the butt end into the hole. Notice how upright the mast is going up.

A new way of looking at “hanging by the thread”

Up up and away!  Now its time for the signal man and Doug to run up the deck to guide the butt end into the hole.

Men at work, securing the rig.

Once its past the deck hole, its time for Doug to go into the cabin and guide it onto the keel plate. That’s done and next to secure the rig with staysail, shrouds and backstay.

Hooks down, halyards back.

Job done, hook comes down with the halyards in tow. Halyards released and back in position.

The sexy mobile crane going home

Crane transformed back into a vehicle and off it goes. How nice, a modern and fully hydraulic crane manned by 2 man who hardly spoke… just hand signals. Comparing that to the scene the regular crane operator working on another boat …. that was a old crane, cussing operator and took way longer than 20 mins than we did.

… and much to our surprise, the sexy crane cost less than the other bid … cos it was done in less time. $100 for 1 hour job… that is fabulous! Raffles cost us $450! For reference, the other bid was $125.

 

Getting Calliste ready for new adventures

Calliste’s chariot awaits.

We put aside work on the cabin to prepare for the sailing season early. We hear that the yard gets really busy as soon as it warms up and people wanna launch their boats and go play, so we try to get it done before the crowd.

Our security officer is on watch as we fuss about moving Calliste

Since Oct 2013, Calliste has been stored on the hard at Bayshore storage yard. Its has been a very nice home for Calliste and occasionally us too. Sometimes the paper mill smell gets to us, but otherwise its a fabulous open space with boats and trees and animals.

The interesting machinery at Bayshore storage.

Sam, the owner has become a good friend of ours and Bruce the yard manager has been very helpful during our stay. Even with Calliste gone, we are continuing to rent space for Eleanor, my 20ft container which Eleanor come over in and a 40ft container for Doug’s workshop.

Just perfect!

An effective vintage machinery under the masterful command of Sam, was in action again for loading Calliste and cradle onto the trailer. And it was done perfectly! Next to remove the slings and travel lift, then strap down to the trailer, and Calliste will be ready to go 2 miles down the road to Port Townsend Have Marina yard.

Calliste at PT Haven marina.

And we made it there, and was off loaded by the yards modern marine travel lift. As usual, with so many people working at the yard, there is always a little drama. But I got it all sorted and Calliste was given a more ideal location for me… its near the bathrooms 🙂

We are expecting 2 weeks on the hard, getting the mast in and bottom paint down in those places that was covered up by pads on the old cradle. Then we’ll be launch and the fun beckons.

Sailing Okinawa to Jeju

We have enjoyed our rest time in Ginowan Marina, Okinawa.. we were hiding from typhoon (which fortunately none hit Okinawa directly this year) and working out with shipping companies to bring our little Calliste to Seattle. Yep, we decided not to sail the North Pacific, a whopping 50-80 days out at sea… not for me… not at this time, but maybe in future…

We found that we could only ship from a major port, such as Taiwan, Busan, Osaka/Kobe, Tokyo/Yokohama… and we settled on shipping from Kobe being the best for Calliste at this time. Surprisingly, Seven Stars offered the best price and most convenience for shipping, but we refuse to go back to Kaoshoing, Taiwan due to potential typhoon in this season and no safe harbours along the way, plus we’ll be fighting currents and winds all the way back.

Somebody’s gotta do the hard work…

Alright, we settled on Kobe and so we need to bring Calliste there…. plus its time for Doug to renew his Japan visitor visa (84 days passed so quickly eh?), so we decided on a side trip to Jeju, S Korea… There was this Korean craze and almost everybody is talking about visiting Korea and the beautiful Jeju island where much filming is done for Korean dramas. .. Well, so here’s my chance to do what some people dream about 🙂 .. but since I don’t watch TV much, I have no inkling about the craze…. just a convenient visa run with not much expectation on my part.

Evidence! CRAP!

Aug 8 2230hrs, Calliste left her berth at Ginowan, bound Jeju. Weather is expected to be cooperative for this 5 day trip, and it was really good but just to scorching hot in the day.

Lighthouse at inlet to Amami-O shima

Aug 9 2345hrs, We were making such good progress with the currents moving along with us and then suddenly our motor sounded strange and we cut it off immediately. Checked the engine compartment, everything seems okay in there. Therefore, we must have picked up something on our prop that is not allowing it to even spin. Unlike picking up a bag or fishing line, the prop can spin, but forcing the motor to spin may cause more damage that is expensive to fix. We opted to drift since we have plenty of sea room to do so, and Doug to dive in daylight to see what can be done.

I mean, its scary to dive at night and maybe there’s jelly fish or sharks…. and you couldn’t see what you doing anyway. .. plus we need to rest anyway.

Aug 10 0530hrs, Doug prepared his gear etc… Lang slept like a log… 🙂 … until 0630hrs anyway… Diving alone without on deck visual is not allowed on Calliste, for obvious reasons. Lang on the lookout for fins and jelly, with camera in hand and poised to shoot on sight 🙂 … nope, its not funny if I did see fins or jelly, but we could joke about it now.

Sunset at volcanic islands

And here’s what we caught! Jumbled fishing lines that our spurs couldn’t cut thru. Sigh, that cost us 7hrs (or 35nm), but since we drifted 4nm in our intended direction, we were only set back 31nm (yeah right!).

0700hrs, moving along again. Heading for the west inlet at Amami-O shima. Hope to pick up internet and check weather for the next 2 days at least…

1300hrs – 1500hrs, went 3nm into the inlet and no internet! So disappointed. Another couple hours of lost miles… But we think the fantastic weather is going to hold, and maybe we’ll get something from Takara island in 12hrs from here.

Flat calm waters at Fukue…

Aug 11 0200hrs – 0300hrs, picked up DoCoMo network at Takara, but still no internet. Just phone service. Send a few SMS and away we go.

Aug 12, another quiet day at sea. Mostly flat, hardly any wind, no islands that we wish to visit, very hot in the day, motoring along, passing more volcanic islands along the way… and my Navionics charts says these are active and some are underwater, depths are subject to change….

Just like a painting… panaromic

Aug 13 0500hrs – 0900hrs, approaching Fukue shima, the last Japanese island before we turn West to Jeju. Finally picked up internet. Weathers great and nothing major happened while we were out of net 🙂 .. phew? …

Rock Island at Fukue shima

Well, okay, we get to enjoy the beautiful morning at Fukue. Just like what you see in Japanese painting, layers of mountains in early morning mist, flat calm seas disturbed only a little bit by passing ships moving slowly. Its like nobody is in a hurry around here.

Look! More interesting rocks.

We were attracted by the beautiful rock island at the entrance to the bay…  so we turned into the bay on the South side just to relax and take in the view. No hurries 🙂 . .. feeling quite zen … oommppphhhhh…

I was feeling a little sad that we couldn’t hang out a bit around here. Technically, we are checked out of Japan… therefore we cant anchor or land in Japan.

Exiting the South bay on Fukue shima

1000hrs, leaving the picturesque Fukue in our wake, on the last 90 nm open sea. Heading WNW. Surprising current carried us along at a nice clip for the whole day and night. Hate to think we’ll be heading into it on our next leg to Fukuoka.

A stunning landmark on approach to Jeju

Aug 14 0200hrs, we see a huge bright loom in the direction we are headed for. We were confused, isn’t Jeju a touristy island with beautiful scenery? The bright loom suggests a great city with all the lights on… but as we got closer, we started seeing the squid fishing fleet with enormous bright lamps everywhere. Ahhh soooo des neh….

Light bearer heading back to port.

0500hrs, we are approaching Jeju earlier than we anticipated. Surprising current pushed us along at 5 to 6kns constantly. We feel its so much cooler here and we were much appreciative of relief from the heat. Daylight crept up upon us and revealing a crater like mountain right there on our approach. It was a beautiful sight, and I wonder how its formed… most likely volcanic of course..

Passenger and car ferry cut right in front of us too

0800hrs, we are passing in between Jeju and the island on its NE. So much haphazard fishing traffic around here. Surprising amount of wind generators here.

Calliste berthed at Gimn Yeong marina.

1030hrs, we are tied up at Gimn Yeong marina. Mr Heo (introduced to us by Yap) was there to meet us. 1100hrs, we were visited by Customs and Quarantine. 1130hrs, we caught a ride downtown with customs officials to do immigration. It was a long ride and they were closed for lunch. So we went across the road and had our 1st Korean meal which turned out to be horrible… then back at immigration and was informed that it was the wrong place.

Gimn Yeong marina office building …

1400hrs, at the ferry terminal immigration office. Cab driver ripped us off 27000 won! That’s US$27 for a US$3 cab ride. Yes, we were so new to the Won that we couldn’t tell between 1000 and 10000 bills. Anyway, we got checked in and free to move around now.

1500hrs, 17000 won cab ride back to Gimn Yeong marina and back to work for Lang… Yep, Lang brings work along wherever she goes… got to do something to feed this lifestyle right.

Sailing Ishigaki to Okinawa.

Nobody we know have been to or even heard about Ishigaki. Its one of those out of the way places that nobody really talk about… unless its in your backyard I suppose… but its not in ours.. We are there because we found it was the nearest port for checking into Japan from Taiwan.

Superstar Aquarius and us at Ishigaki. That may be the better way to travel….

…..So we made it here and what do we have …. A Star Cruises Ship! Superstar Aquarius, in port at the same time as we are.. and I wanted for a long time to cruise this trip too… but it was too expensive for me. Nothing makes sense ok, it was really more expensive to sail our little yacht than the cruise ticket, but we didnt have to share the amenities with fake smiling crew and loud tourists. See small little Calliste in the picture? Out at sea, we are our own government.

We stayed 3 nights tied alongside a black steel hull sailing boat that was rotting away. A friendly sailor near us called the owner to ask if we could tie up, so we had permission to do so. Its not nice if we just tie up ok. As yachties we do not like to side tie to another boat without asking, altho rafting up without permission is very common around Taiwan and Japan.

Did we like Ishigaki? Well… really… no… but it was convenient for us to check in there and the officials were very helpful. I guess the biggest put off was language. We had a lot of difficulty communicating our need to get personal mobile internet, or internet cafe, or free wifi. It didnt make sense that such a advance country like Japan, does not have prepaid internet for tourist who needs internet. We just couldnt believe what we were hearing … and so we thought they were not friendly to us tourist. Well, the best thing that happened to us was meeting Mark and Brandy on SV Restless.

Inside the foreboding pass.

There is a well stocked supermarket about 15 mins walk, restaurants in about 10 mins walk, unsecured wifi in 10 mins walk, coin laundry in 5 mins walk, city in 20 mins walk, free water from faucet at the park. .. All these walking in different directions, asking questions and not getting good answers wore me down to a point that I felt it was difficult to do anything here. It was frustrating… and Doug was going into a funk… so we left as soon as we reloaded our water and reprovisioned with fresh foods.

Its about 250nm to Okinawa… and I thought we make it in 3 days for sure… but wrong! We had a unexpected bad weather on the 2nd day out… and dah decided to heave to, altho we were making 6 knots. It was uncomfortable either way, but we lose ground heaving to and that hurts. We continue to have heavy weather on the 3rd day, but I decided to plow ahead. It took us 3 hours to regain the 6nm that we lost heaving to.

As we approach the island group that is 40nm West of Okinawa, we find that we could not maintain the heading that we wanted to. A strong current and headon winds were pushing us 45deg to starboard. Ok, so it seems that we can try the passage thru the group instead of going north of it… Navionics on my iPad seems to think that we can, so did the non-detailed CMap charts on our Standard Horizon chartplotter… but opps… right at the pass, we saw the depth sounder saying crazy numbers. 1 minute we were in 60m, and the next we only had 4.5m ! It was choppy, we could not see thru the water and there was nothing that suggest it was shallow where we were… we panicked… of course.. slow down.. and then we were back in 50m again. Just like that. And this happen for a few more times, then we figure out that we were going over som serious underwater peaks! OMG! Fingers crossed!

We decided to name this the foreboding pass. It look so unwelcoming as we approached it, and then it gave us the scare of this whole trip! Fortunately, after passing between the 2 larger mountains, we got back into consistently deeper waters. Phew! Altho the going was still tough, we did manage to get 3 kns. We observed a blue hulled sailboat ahead of us… it seemed like heading the same way as us, but then it turned back, and then turned up again… why? strange… maybe those on board are looking for somewhere to anchor and wait out the headon N wind, but I think they didnt manage to find a good spot for this, so they move northwards again. Later on, as we were exiting the north passage, I saw the blue hull boat anchored at the village on the north island of this group.. oh okie.. so we dont have company going to Ginowan. Alrighty, we are on our own. There a chance we might make it just before midnight…

10 miles out from Okinawa, we are finally getting better weather conditions now. And what a view! Lights everywhere and constant stream of planes flying into and out of Naha. Certainly was a interesting last 10 miles… and even a fancy wheels light show.. No mistaking, we are headed to a big city.

Calliste at Ginowan Marina.

It was midnight and we are again approaching a island at dark. We navigated with Navionics on iPad, followed the lights and made it in, found a open end dock and just tied up. There is no working staff that would welcome us and assign our berths anyway.

We turned on the VHF, thinking that we might call the coastguard or something… then we heard Restless calling for us! Wow, they were checking if we made it yet.. they overtook us on our 1st day out and also got that same bad weather as we did, but they do better with the bigger boat and arrived 1 day before us. ..

After 35 days of travelling, limping along with the motor knocking problem, we decided that we will stay at Ginowan for a month at least. We feel pretty secure in here and this seems to be a great place to be staying while exploring Okinawa. We love walkon berths with water and electric! Yeehaa!

 

Another few more days now…

Well…. as usual, we never could leave at the time we thought we would. Day before our intended departure, we are still working on the lifeboat. Installed a Walker Bay 8 RID on Fatty knees and it work out okay.

Installing the RID, working under covers 🙂

Then its testing if the custom made canopy would go over the RID, which it did perfectly. Things are working out… its just taking us more time as we discover more things that we should have done that were not on the list when we started.

That’s our cute little lifeboat 🙂

Finally the last of electronics are installed, the radar worked ! Phew! The last we used it was 2006 and there was this possibility that it wasn’t going to work after all these years… now the SSB? we’ll see. Doug have 2 primarily winches to bed, oil change for the motor and a bit more bottom cleaning to do…

I am going to hunt down that 1 chart that we haven’t got, the one of Okinawa waters. Our regular chart store did not have it last week.

Getting a new perspective of things.

1st load of provisions are coming this morning. Courtesy delivery by Giant stores for purchases above S$200. Just drinks and canned foods today. Perishables tomoro or day after…

Oh, and we have a 1st test on blog post by SMS via help from sis 🙂 . That was what the short message yesterday was about. This is how it should work. I send 1 SMS (150 chars) that is a condensed coded message and she runs it through the PERL program that will decompressed SMS into a post ready page, then cut and paste the message into a email and send to my wordpress email address… Viola! Next, she cut and paste on the long. lat. on my google map page and add a placemark 🙂 and cut and paste Calliste’s Log in the description. Yes! System is working quite well and we are ready to be tracked 🙂 for a small fee of 1 SMS / day on our satphone .

1 more week to go

New crew members. Chartplotter, iSatPhone and AIS.

We are getting ready for an adventurer. Something that we have worked for years to be able to get this far along. In 1 week from now, we be sailing SV Calliste from Singapore to Okinawa and maybe make our way up to Fukuoka.

Checking up on our list… Got rigging done. 3 brand new Varta AGM batteries installed, dodgers repaired… Soon to install the electronics… the old SSB and Furano radar. … …Our new crew! Addition 2013, Digital Yacht AIS, Immarsat iSatphone and Standard Horizon Chartplotter. They keep us on track and if we are watching, safe from being run over by a bigger ship. Thats the key right, whats the use of gadgets if we dont pay any attention to them.

iP4d and the little red Bluetooth GPS receiver.

And new additions to our old crew. External Bluetooth GPS antenna, Navionics Gold charts. Now my iP4D is the backup chartplotter and no need network! Real GPS is much more accurate too. Oh yes, BTW, IMO, using iPad (unbroken) for navigation is great if the proper (paid) charting software are installed and a real GPS to really put us in our place 🙂

Finally, nothing beats the real security of paper charts… if all gadgets fails…. who do ya call for directions eh?

Okie, we are most systems set and almost ready to go…. except that we still have to clear our underwater garden, fuel up and water in, clear the stuff that we are not going to bring off the boat… like the 230V window A/C 😦 . So out goes the tools and in comes the food.