Our Pandemic Idylls

Traversay tied up behind SV 'Lapse of Reason'

 How wonderful to have a Boat Home and a dinghy and to be able to escape the Pandemic Woes which have ruled Our World. We chose to escape to the Winter Wilderness. The destinations we chose were free in January and February even though they tend to be crowded in the summer.

In January of 2021, we left the dock and made our way to Princess Louisa Inlet. We were shocked when we got there to find another boat at the dock. Duncan, Theo and Andrew were aboard and also escaping the city on a safe, wood-burning boat amusingly called ‘Lapse of Reason’. Instead of being stranded and jobless in the city, They had been exploring Wild BC. When we met them, they'd just been climbing the surrounding mountains, sleeping there in the freezing cold, and free-skiing down. We saw footage of their kayak passages in the Egmont torrents. We got to know them rather well because around the time we wanted to leave the Inlet, it froze over as a result of both colder-than usual temperatures and the large quantity of freshwater emanating from the Chatterbox Falls next to it. Our boats were frozen in, and it was impossible to leave safely so we had a warm and congenial time together ... sharing stories and food.

Frozen Princess Louisa Inlet

January of 2022 mimicked the 2021 scenario and we were lucky to find a similar solution. On Christmas Day, we took down our lights and headed to Montague Harbour where we were the sole liveaboard boat. New Years found us making our way across the Strait of Georgia, wearing many layers of PPE: in this case protective warm clothing and not medical garb. We made our way to the anchorage of Ballet Bay off Jervis Inlet. We had to keep a constant watch aboard for logs because even water-logged telephone poles can be barely afloat like huge and hungry missiles. We endured snow and very cold weather. Despite a number of residences and mooring balls in the bay, we were alone again. 

Ballet Bay

When it was time to re-provision and go home, Larry consulted 3 sources of weather information and determined that IF we wanted to get back to home turf, the only day in the proximate future which cited favourable NW winds on the Strait of Georgia would be January 7th. All 3 weather sites forecast 20-30 knot winds. This turned out to be false, although some later changed these to a more realistic ‘After-cast’. The winds growled at us as we lifted the Main. This unprepossessing sound persisted until we left the Strait. Of course, it was preferable to other strong winds in the course of our travels which seemed to scream like banshees. We started with a double-reefed Main and had to reduce further to triple-reefing as we broached 40 knots. Our speed was well over 8 knots for most of the day going up over 9.6 knots at one point.  At that speed, we were relieved when Winchelsea Control radioed back that they weren’t presently firing off any torpedoes!

With the wind behind or on the port quarter, we faced South for most of the way and the sun blocked our gaze from the overly plentiful supply of water-logged logs which barely grazed the surface of the Strait. We felt lucky to avoid log strike, and exhilarated in the bright shiny day and with the speed, the wind, the spray sheeting off the whitecaps and in the performance of our boat. It was a very cold day … only slightly above freezing temperatures. Hot lentil soup, a double-sided German hot water bottle and diesel heater made it all tolerable for me. As we sailed up to Dodd Narrows, a group of at least 9 stellar sea lions surfaced near us, snorting and frolicking in the waves with their noses above the water.  It was their kind of weather. We decided to start the engine to traverse the Narrows, and let out the full Main to reach our anchorage.

We had to lower the Main and anchor in the intrusive presence of a chorus of bobbing logs and detritus but eventually we succeeded and were rewarded with a beautiful sunset and more welcome loneliness in this beautiful spot on the gorgeous coast of BC. 

January 16 …  under way back to Victoria

The weather moderated, and we were able to take a few photos on our dives near Ruxton Island. 

February 1-24 2022

Cape Beale at the Entrance to Barkley Sound, Pacific Rim Park

We left our dock to re-visit the beautiful peace and quiet of Pacific Rim National Park. There, on the edge of the great Pacific Ocean we found the beauty which is difficult to find in our event-driven lives in modern cities. We had made several previous visits to this area  ... once in September of 1994 on Traversay II and on chartered Dive Tours with the great fish/invertebrate expert Dr. Andy Lamb. This time we were all alone for three weeks except for one short visit by a boat sent out by the DFO (Department of Oceans and Fisheries) which investigated us and found no evidence of fishing gear aboard ... just photos of the beautiful sea stars and underwater creatures we had taken.

Bat Star asteria miniata

Some of the species which are only prolific on the edge of the ocean are the 'Bat Star' which comes in shades of bright red (ahown here), teal blue, green, brown purple/white and mottled purple/red. 

Larry was able to capture photos of the green surf anemones on a dive during the high tide at Effingam Islet. We saw very few fish, a few nudibranchs and many of the beautiful and prolific iconic white plumose anemones which can be seen clinging to the underside of docks all over British Columbia.

green surf anemone anthopleura xantho

  

giant plumose anemone metridium farcimen