This ain't no marina

You might be wondering how we ended up at a branding out in Montana when we're suppose to be getting ready to sail off...

We've been spending a few days out here storing our belongings in a house that Matt and his brother inherited from their father's side of the family. That makes them the fourth generation to own the place.

The house is located in a small, quiet cattle town just on the east side of the Rockies, and they still do some real cowboying out here. It fascinates us, partly because it's not something we grew up with. So when our neighbor Helen asked if we wanted to go watch the branding we jumped at the chance. There was a whole lot of mooing and bawling going on.

All work and no pay

This week is the the beginning of me being unemployed, but it doesn't feel that way. Instead of working at a library surrounded by books and wonderful co-workers, I am now working long hours (today was a 7am to 10 pm shift) with no pay, and the boss (myself) is rather demanding. Maybe I need to unionize...

Today I ran several errands to gather various materials and supplies.
Then I went to the boat and helped Matt mark the anchor rode so we'll know how much length we've put out when we drop anchor. (We used cable ties - simple but effective.)
I also did a fitting of the partially sewn sail cover for the main sail. Then it was back home to finish sewing the cover, which took me until the evening.
Then I cut out the fabric pieces for the propane tank cover I need to sew.

The photo shows the sail cover in progress. I prefer to sew on the floor to allow all that fabric to slide more easily through the machine. It's always a bit of a wrestling match. I hope I got all the measurements right, I'll find out tomorrow!

Fish out of water

Seeing boats in the yard, especially my boat, always makes me feel a bit protective. They look vulnerable and precarious, and it's obvious they'd rather be afloat.
We're having the yard guys do a bit of fiberglass work on the hull - closing up some old holes (from a non-functioning knot meter and an old transducer) and making a new hole for a new transducer - actually a triducer. This will hook up to a display and show us depth, speed through water, and water temperature. That will be quite exciting. Our old depth sounder wasn't very reliable and our knot meter never worked at all.
It's rainy and cold though, so the spots on the hull are from heat lamps to help speed the curing process of the fiberglass work. We hope to get her back in the water in the next day or two.

Barkley Sound adventures part 4

One day while we were out exploring at a low tide we found this sea cave, which was really more of a tunnel since it had two openings. It was cool but spooky and brought out the 10 year old inside each of us. "Wow, this is so awesome! This is the best sea cave ever!" "Yah! Cool!" That's Matt outside the cave. I'm glad the only things living inside this cave were very small sea creatures.

One of the many beaches we explored. Amazingly, on most of these beaches we were the only people around. Everybody else was out fishing I guess. (They do say the fishing is incredible here.)

We did run across mink on several of the islands. At first we thought they were river otters, but once we got a closer look at one, we discovered it was definitely a mink. They love to cruise the beaches looking for yummy things to eat.

This was one of my favorite beaches of the trip. It had rounded granite boulders, faced Imperial Eagle Channel so had great wave action, and also had sand and lots and lots and lots of little shells, many that were intact, many smaller around than a penny. The sand was covered with them. Treasures everywhere, and it was hard not to take any souvenirs!

Barkley Sound adventures part 3

I took this while circling Wecantu in Zodi. We used Zodi a few times to scout out rocks and depths in anchorages. If I had a dollar for every rock we had to avoid in the Broken Group....

Exploring by kayak the shore of Willis Island. The clouds look low and dreary ahead, but we actually enjoyed decent weather most of the time. At the turn of the century (1901 or so) Captain Voss and his boat Tilikum spent some time in Barkley Sound in the month of June, and apparently the weather was so bad he had to wait six weeks before he was able to set sail. I found that out after I had already arranged for June vacation time.

The low clouds did hide a lot of the clear cuts in the foothills though, which made the views more scenic.

This is a meadow on Benson Island, neighbor to Clarke Island. This was a very lush island. In the late 1800s there use to be a resort here. All that is left are the meadows, and lots of nettles.

Here we are venturing out in Zodi to look for sea lions. To our right is Batley Island, to our left Wouwer Island, and dead ahead is the Pacific Ocean. The stuff on the water is sea foam caused by all the massive wave action that you can't quite make out in this photo. We did happen to see a few sea lions hauled out on a distant rock but were too chicken to take Zodi out into the rough seas.

In calmer waters we would see lots of these guys. Pigeon Guillemots (I call them Pigeon Willies to avoid butchering the pronunciation of a French word) are an often spotted sea bird. Maybe not as exciting as whales, but I really like them. Their feet are bright orange and are quite visible on their aquatic take offs and landings.

Barkley Sound adventures part 2

The Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound offered an abundance of things to keep us busy and entertained. We were amazed by the amount of whales we spotted, although I have no photos to prove it. We did actually have a few hours where we actually sailed and whale spotted at the same time but I have no photos to prove that either. But Matt, Bobbie and John will corroborate my story.




This is my kayak paddle hovering over the Clarke island lagoon. The beach there is mainly white shell, so when the tide covers it, it transforms into a tropical blue color. It was an astounding setting to paddle around in. I know why kayakers love these islands.

The mussel beds along the rocky shores are prolific, and the sea stars are into the all you can eat buffet. Masses of these were not uncommon to see.

This is a little beach uncovered at low tide on Willis Island. The beaches were quite a delight to explore. It could be a little frustrating though, as you could look but not take - the Broken Group islands are not only a National Park Reserve, but also heritage lands to the Nuu-chah-nulth cultural group. I did not want to anger any ancestors and jinx our trip!

On one of the islands we found quite a collection of moon snail shells. Other visitors had also respected the islands and left the shells for others to discover.

The moon snails deposit eggs in the cases above. We found many of these when we looked closely enough.

Barkley Sound adventures part 1

After our rest day at Neah Bay we got up really early to start our 54 nm leg to Ucluelet. Fifty four nautical miles doesn't sound like much, and compared to ocean crossings it's nothing, but at an average speed of 5 knots it meant about 10 solid hours of the two of us sitting in a small open cockpit of a Westsail 32 with no auto pilot. (We meant to get one installed but the model we really wanted was on back order everywhere.) I learned just how wonderful an iPod can be. Our crossing up to Ucluelet was a relatively calm motor, so we both succumbed to some pleasant little cat naps. The trick was not to fall asleep while at the tiller.


This is Neah Bay marina, where fishing boats rule. We actually felt a little out of place.

We left Neah Bay at an hour when all the fishing boats were headed out. We liked the remote and wild feeling of this part of the strait.

This is buoy 'JA' out at the mouth of the Juan de Fuca strait and is one of many buoys which mark the middle of the shipping lanes. In the far distance you can see an inbound freighter. We were very happy to have our AIS receiver out here - we often knew who was coming even before we could see them. The info we get is a bit more basic than what the marine traffic website offers but knowing the speed, course and position of these big beasts is plenty helpful.

We used our radar a bit too, for practice and for anchoring. (The photo shows a radar image of Sequim Bay.) It has a VRM (Variable Range Marker) function with which you can measure how far away different targets are. This was very helpful in many of our snug anchorages as it allowed us to know exactly how far away the shore or rocks were, and what our anchor swing was doing. Neither Matt or I are good at eyeballing distances yet, so it was nice to have the radar tell us that a rocky shore that seemed 'kinda close' was actually 300 feet away.

This was one of my favorite anchorages in the Broken Group, although all the anchorages had something neat about them.
This is at Clarke Island, one of the outer islands. A view to the open ocean is literally just right around the corner, giving the anchorage a wild air. We did some kayak exploration here, and in the photo Matt, and Bobbie and John (who met us at Toquart Bay to do several days of cruising with us) are returning to Wecantu for a bite to eat.

This is Zodi (an inflatable Zodiac) and her sidekick Suzi (a 4hp outboard). She was a recent aquisition and played a big role in this trip. We used her as our little 'commuter car' and took her day exploring to islands away from our anchorages. She also made it easy to anchor out (versus docking) at Ucluelet and Bamfield as she can carry either 4 people or 2 people and all their laundry and groceries. Our previous tender had been a borrowed sit on top kayak which made for a wet ride, and had a very small cargo capacity. The funny thing is Zodi can go about as fast as Wecantu, but she is nowhere near as seaworthy. She's got a pretty big attitude though.