Homeward Bound

 Baja Naval Astillero in Ensenada Mexico 

Our boat was launched yesterday after thanking the 30 boatyard employees with a Pizza Lunch. Traversay III looks brand-new, with her gleaming white paint and renewed navy stripes. We estimate it will take several weeks to reach Victoria. At least, we have enough provisions aboard in case we are in for a 'Long Haul'.

'Matterhorn White' top coat

L & M.A  with Bianca & Gabrielle

Traversay III with 'Flag Blue' stripes & Lettering

 

Baja Naval Mexico

 We got here to have our boat painted on May 13 after a 10-day passage. It was a rough trip along the coast until we came abreast of Cape Mendocino California. We had several equipment failures. Fortunately,  Larry had purchased a spare starter motor in 2008 and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately, when the auto-pilot failed, 1 of our 2 spares also failed.

He's now attempted to fix them Had Garmin followed the RIGHT to REPAIR regulations when they purchased Nexus Instruments, he could easily have written the code to fix 2 of the three instruments. He has attempted to repair this board with extra parts he had by intuiting  what needed to be done. We will find out whether our spares work when we set off for Victoria in about a week.

We are happy to be getting the painting done here for the second time. We got here exactly 10 years after our last visit because our steel boat needs to be re-painted regularly. Mexico is terrific because normally it doesn't rain, the mast doesn't need to be taken off and you don't need to rent a shed. We need new paint ... once the paint gets 'thin'sea water can creep under the paint and start rusting. 

Painting Traversay is a lengthy process because there are 7 coats of paint. She has 2 grey primer coats and 3 of glossy 'Matterhorn White'. In between some coats, everything around that you don't want painted gets masked (including all nearby boats who might not like Matterhorn White). Between many of the coats there's sanding and vacuuming. The work stops for rain and we're now stopped. The boat still needs it's navy (Flag Blue) stripes, lettering and 2 coats of  black anti-fouling bottom paint. 

Primer Coat

Glossy Top Coat

Leaving Notes

We’re in position to leave tomorrow. The weather is looking good for the first few days of the trip and we’re mentally prepared for the onslaught. 

I’ll be putting on a scopolamine patch … a medication that has various unfortunate side effects (like a dry mouth and extreme tiredness) but keeps actual sea-sickness at bay. We are fully provisioned for the trip. The cranky autopilot seems to have been cajoled into working again.

Even with our finances, our wills and our meds in order, I always have the same Leave-taking emotions and those are harder to quell than mere sea-sickness. I miss my daughters … they both loved sailing as kids. Of course, Alice has been gone (dead at 25 of a brain tumor) for over 18 years now, and Hope is ‘locked in’ at her home in rural Ontario. She and her husband Darin are caring for 4 children, 3 cats, 2 aged female horses, 4 ageing chickens and a psychologically-challenged Doberman. Hope’s oldest daughter (age 18) is working and living away from home, but the youngest child is only 6. 

I still ardently wish Hope could come on this trip as it’s likely to be our very last offshore trip.  I can envision how much she would love looking at the birds, looking at the sunrises or sunsets, seeing the differences in the wave patterns, and doing the actual sail-changes and physical work of sailing during her watches.

This photo of Darin and Hope on a calm day at sea says it all.

On our way to Mexico SOON!

 

We plan to leave for Mexico once the winds and weather are favourable ... we hope to leave around May 1st.

Before leaving, we want everyone who reads this to learn something important about Traversay III and our treatement of the Sea. Traversay was built with two tanks ... one for sink waste and the original tank for toilet waste was replaced with an oversized tank.  This tank is known as the blackwater tank. While we're in port and here in Victoria, we pay to have our toilet tank emptied on a weekly basis. Every civilized country has rules about waste and Traversay follows them.

Once we're far awy from land, we empty our blackwater tank into the Sea.We are not reaponsible for much black-water waste in the ocean. 

WHO IS THE GREATEST DEFECATOR INTO THE OCEAN? 

To find the answer click here

Home again ... Victoria British Columbia!

 

The Essential Galley Companion by Amanda Swan Neal

Pender Harbour 

We’re about to leave the beautiful wilderness behind along with the underwater critters, eagles, whales, dolphins, and even a few other similarly wilderness-addicted fellow sailors who shared some spaces with us. 

 Luckily this time my re-entry into Civilization will be much easier than usual. That's because I'm looking forward to Shopping ... Not for clothes ... but getting into Full-on Grocery shopping. In central Victoria I'll be able to search for some hard-to-find ingredients not available in Northern BC. Our friend the beautiful Amanda Swan Neal has tested all of the recipes in her new book over the course of her 345,000+ offshore miles with family and later on with the International Mahina Expeditions. I estimate that there are over 1000 recipes in this collection. To it she has brought her incredible intelligence, her savvy and her well-researched knowledge to tickle and delight every palate. With this book, Amanda will keep us all healthy and vibrantly alive … even while we might be encountering less-than-optimal conditions at sea. To that issue she’s included an excellent chapter on sea-sickness. 

She has numerous tips for stretching or diminishing the recipes to feed from 2 people to a crowd, she tells us how to keep provisions fresh, how to arrange a large or a small galley, how to shop in Foreign lands (she has visited 80 countries) and she tells us how to cook some fabulous standard Authentic  cuisine, or  local food bought cheaply at a market in a distant land. You can cook a real Provencal Beef Stew or a delicious Canadian Maple and Ginger glazed Salmon. In Polynesia you can find out how to make Coconut Creamed Taro Leaf. Further along, you might even try making the Fijian Curried Octopus. 

For the more practical cook, she includes less expensive tips for making your own peanut and tartar sauce, dressings: such as Miso or Thai and she includes 10 different spice mixes. Do get the paperback version of this book (all 390 packed pages for only $31 CDN on Amazon). Paging through a Kindle version would be quite tiresome, and she has left space at the end for you to attach some of your other favourites. 

A favourite aspect of this book are the personal accounts she includes ... her youthful experiences sailing with her family, her stories on passage as a Competitive sailor in an all-woman Team and on the Whitbred and Sydney-Hobart Races. She generously includes recipes from some of the many boats she and Mahina have ‘broken bread’ with. 

 This book and its priceless knowledge should really be devoured BEFORE you set out. Displaying even more wisdom, you should internalize Amanda’s precepts BEFORE you even BUY a boat. 

However, if you’re like me and you love your good old boat – and after all Traversay’s been our home for 23 years - this book will make you look forward to introducing some new ‘licks’ to that old repertoire you have already been playing for too many years!

A cloudy day

 

North Kent Island

In the anchorage, the day started well  ... at 6 a.m. the sun shone brightly. However, by 8:00 the fog had rolled in and there was a total white-out. Later and even as the fog dispersed, it was unreleningly cloudy. 

 Undeterred, we jumped in the water and into the amazing colourful world Beneath. I marvelled at the beautiful plumose anemones ... Larry captured some amazing photos. The World Beneath is spectacular here in Supernatural British Columbia!

plumose anemone

Clown nudibranch with eggs

Our Underwater World

Excitement in the Narrows

Approaching Rait Narrows

We're gradually making our way back south to Port McNeill. The aim is to spend more time underwater. Every time we stop for a few nights, we look for suitable dive spots. We look for  steep rock walls which we can anchor close to in safety. Steep walls and deep water depth close to the wall ensure more interesting underwater life. This time of year, walls which are in shadow are preferable because kelp proliferates in the sun and we have more trouble descending into kelp-laden water. 

We've passed through Meyers, Jackson and Rait Narrows on our way here. Larry's been choosing interesting routes. These Narrows are on routes we hadn't experienced before. 

Because Traversay has a large Under-carriage, we don't want to get stuck. Getting stuck was FUN in Australia where we could wait (along with other marooned boaters) for the water to come back in and float us up. However, here in the BC Wilderness we often don't see another boat all day. So Larry approached the Meyer's and Jackson Narrows with due caution ... on a rising tide so if we did get stuck, the tide would come in and release us. 

In contrast, the Rait Narrows gave us (and the Watch-bird) quite an exciting ride. The Rait is VERY narrow (see photos) but it is also Deep. So we didn't worry about touching ground. As we gingerly proceeded through the Watch-bird (a huge eagle) swooped up into one of the overhanging trees. He proceeded to monitor us very closely as we passed under him and through his territory. All three of us had a most exciting time.

In the midst of the Rait Traverse 

Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest

 This beautiful book is by Dr. Andy Lamb and Bernard P. Hanby. It's  invaluable for everyone sailing or  living near this coastline. The assembled photographs and basic information introduce one to all the amazing plants and animals gracing this coast from Alaska down to mid-California. We live in one of the BEST scuba-diving and adventure regions on earth (at least that's our prejudiced view). 

Nearly 30 years ago,  we took up diving to allow us to clean, monitor and dive under Traversay's hull. However we were not happy together underwater ... Larry was too fast-moving for my leisurely pace. That changed once we enrolled in Andy's Marine I.D. course and Larry started photographing animals we saw.  We really enjoyed the course - particularly savouring Virginia Lamb's breaktime cookies! Discovering the New World underwater became one of our paramount pleasures. 

We never imagined that scuba diving would become one of THE most fun, people-meeting and important skills we could have during our travels. Shortly after we met Andy we spent significant time on Lamb-organized West Coast Dive Charters.  Bernie was also 'on location' using his skills to photograph the tiniest and most improbable-seeming underwater creatures. His images literally took our breath away.

During our travels, in order to meet local people, we would sometimes print extra photos of endemic underwater creatures so people could see the wealth of beauty underneath their boat hulls. Some marine folks we met (including Dr Paul Brickle in the Falklands) wanted to use this book as a model for future Marine I.D. books for their dive areas.

Tunicate Siphon Hydroid (endocrypta huntsmani)

A few days ago, I decided to start reading the book rather than just using it as a reference. I admit I didn't get very far into the first section (on Flowering Plants and Marine Algae) ... my attention  span began to  falter with the enormity of knowledge present in these pages. Progressing a little further, I was amazed to find the I.D. of a species Larry had just photographed under the later Hydroid category. 

This ANIMAL lives with a more advanced life form - the tunicate - but rather than attacking and eating the tunicate itself, it harmoniously shares it's food in a commensal relationship. Thank goodness we had Bernie's picture and Andy's description of the Tunicate Siphon Hydroid (see it on page 103).

Emily Carr Inlet

We couldn't have guessed that such incestuous goings-on could be happening in this beautiful location!

Emily Carr Inlet 52-55.67N 129-08.77W

K'tzim Bear habitat

 

Ranger Station 

We arrived here yesterday after a 30-hour offshore sailing trip from Khutzeymateen Inlet assisted by excellent winds. Another distinguishing feature was the almost total white fog which accompanied us. By using the radar and AIS we were able to sculpt a safe course. 

At the Park we saw at least 8 bears ... alas they were at a considerable distance. I saw a cinnamon-coloured Mom with 3 babies .O.. but L only saw 2 babies .O. Regulations are very strict and we couldn't bring the boat very close. We didn't see other tourists ... a few small fast boats sped past. There's the opportunity to stay in a nearby Lodge or to pay authorized guides to take you in closer. The Lodge must be a lot of fun ... we saw people breakfasting in a dining room and the number of crabpots in evicence suggests that people get to dine on our favourite seafood ... Dungeness crab!

We tied up to the dock at the Ranger Station and Tsimshian Nation guides Norm and Al (from Port Simpson) answered questions and showed us the well-documented information boards about these bears. 

Can You See the Face?

At Khutzeymateen

Anchored in Kumeon Cove BC

In Kent Island Anchorage

While anchored in Traversay III at the idyllic tiny anchorage netween Kent and Staples Islands, Larry received a forecast predicting an unusual span of 4 days of SE winds. This prompted our decision to head North to this wilderness spot.Because of over-hunting almost everywhere, it is rumoured to be one of the last places in Canada where we can safely watch the massive Grizzly bear. If we stay on Traversay we are safe from them! 

 Making this trip could demonstrate that we STILL have our 'Offshore Credibility'. We were able to assert our mastery over some common short-handed Offshore problems we had:  no problem with sea-sickness even without medication; were able to stomach a hearty soup & lots of Honolulu buns; made sail changes ranging from 30knots and quickly down to only 5knots; engineered sail changes when the wind direction reversed. 

We were able to read the  AIS (AIutomatic Independant Surveillance) on our computer screen which not only shows approaching  vessels but also posts valuable information about how big they are, when and how how closely they'll approach our boat, and what speed they're at. I had to review how to interpret the  radar which is invaluable in heavy mist or rain and we re-learned how to use toilet and & stove '"on the slant".

Our Failures:: we unsuccessfully tried silencing the various bottles or metal pots adding unwanted percussion. This included a sudden loud metallic  rattle which reverberated through the boat seemingly from inside the mast We had some trouble learning to sleep on our offwatches  with that Symphony of worrying sounds

About 12 hours after leaving Kent Island, the winds almost died and we ended up motor-sailing most of the way here. The sails only added about 10% to our speed. We look forward to making our way to the Ranger station and seeing some bears tomorrow.

Summer 2023

Forward Harbour B.C.

Our summer trip started with purchasing new anchor chain ... this happened 2x as the first chain got ensnared by rocks in Brentwood Bay near our Home Port of Victoria. The 100m of good chain is still there ... if anyone is adventurous enough to try to retiieve it!

log boom on the Fraser River 

Baby racoon at Newcastle Island Nanaimo

We've visited friends in Nanaimo and spent time at Milltown Marina on the Fraser River near Vancouver. We spent a glorious week swimming and sunning in Prideaux Haven in the George Vancouver-named 'Desolation Sound'. This is not an apt name for the area which boasts excellent anchorages, spectacular mountain scenery and warm summer waters.  

We have seen moon snail egg shell masses, ochre stars, dolphins, and hooded nudibranch in the shallows. Soon we'll be diving underwater. Above the water we've seen masses of dolphins, whales and bald eagles.

We sped through the rapids at Yakulta and have been here now for 4 days of Boat Projects for Larry and piano playing (Bach n Brahms) for me. 

Moon snail

Ochre stars (purple variant)

Moon snail egg casing

Hooded Nudibranch

A close look at green surf anemones!

The above GREEN SURF ANEMONE photo was taken last February.

We've managed to dive several times in Effingham Bay. If you choose to sail here, BEWARE as there's a high wooden deadhead which is grounded to the seabed. It shows up on radar if you come in at night.

 I was anxious to see the green surf anemones which are clustered around the islet in Effingham. The best time to see and photograph them would be at high tide, so we anchored nearby and Larry tied 2 lines to the islet shore as a precaution. We hung on to one of the lines and snorkelled over ... they are very beautiful. Unfortunately, when I tried to descend I wasn't able to dive down this time (that has happened to me about 5x over the last 30 years). 

In addition we realized that a horrid accident had happened (due to a minor oversight) and our faithful camera was flooded! Fortunately, 40 good pictures taken in our earlier dives here this year are stored as well as this favourite photo of green surf anemones taken last year. We'll have to decide about whether to get a new camera.

A Sunny Day!

 We awoke today to another rainy day. In the forseeable future only rainy days parade across rhe weather forecast.  

So we were fortuntate to have a day with mostly sunshine on Tuesday ... that's the day that we detached from our secure anchorage and motored to Refuge/Toquaht Bay to see the waterfall. We saw our first other boat far in the distance. We theorize it might have belonged to the owner of an aquaculture farm in the vicinity of Refuge. The boat left from a brand-new caravan parked up above some wooden buoyed platforms which betoken aquaculture activity.

As per our cruising guiides' instructions we  approached the waterfall at high tide. The falls were most interesting because of the foam ... looking much like soap bubbles ... collected in the vicinity of the falls and stretching all the way out to the Bay. Of course, in this complete wilderness, the 'SOAP' is not due to human intervention ...  it is likely whipped up by the force of the water tumbling over the rocks.

On our way out, we were fascinated by the beautiful scenes on the river. which were mirrored in the water

Back to Barkley Sound

 Here we are again ... totally isolated in the little 'thumb' of Effingham Bay where we dove last February. We left Victoria's Inner Harbour with an afternoon tide and motored to Becher Bay ... next day we awoke to challenging weather. The wind was good for sailing, but we encountered a lot of  detritus in the water and we kept a constant watch. In the two days of sailing, we had to evade a complete tree and two huge deadheads which disconcertingly vanished beneath the surface and then would bob up in their own eccentric rhythm. The wave heights were at 2-3 meters. Luckily, we still retained our 'sea legs' and didn't get sick. The rolling never stopped. Our night in Port Renfrew (which faces South ... just the direction the waves rolled in from) was quite miserable. We arose ... somewhat fretful  ...   but the beautiful sunrise erased our prior surliness.

The weather was forecast to be horrible, so once we got here we decided to tie to trees. We have one bow tie to the North and two stern ties to the South. We always spend an hour driving around in the dinghy to find suitable trees to tie to after anchoring in the middle of the little thumb and launching the dinghy. Then, Larry runs out the portside line to the shore while I monitor the line run smoothly. Larry ties it over the water with enough clearance to undo the knot at any state of tide when we want to leave. We usually seem to use nearly all of the available rope, and I drag back enough line to secure it (with 3 turns) to the portside winch. Larry then winches us in. This way we'd probably already feel safe with forecast winds coming in at 55 knots.

We then follow up with the same system for our other rolled sternline and Larry we connect the 'flaked' line from the forward hatch to the bow and yet another tree. We now feel perfectly secure here. Not only that, but we've been able to dive and take some beautiful photos. I/m grateful to the folks who fixed my knee to enable scuba diving once again: Dr Galas, Dr Torstensen, Dale Rainsford (physiotherapist).

... the above written on Sunday January 8th ...

The Sound of Repair

 Pender Harbour April 7, 2022

a broken forestay & Sail furler

We’re in one of Canada’s most beautiful harbours … in fact it is one of the most perfect harbours we’ve ever visited. But we are not enjoying ourselves on this beautiful day!

It’s a perfect day for travel or for scuba diving. It’s still quite cold out, and as algae relies on the warmth of the sun to propagate tiny seedlings (called Algae Blooms) they're not around to cloud our vision and also wreck the photos Larry takes.

Larry has just announced: “If I were a dentist, I’d be really good at this!” The sound of his dremel fills our small living space. He’s trying to clean the tiny holes in the fuel injector on our auxiliary generator which powers the dive compressor. Without the generator we can’t fill our dive tanks, go scuba diving or take underwater photos.

Boat repairs are a Constant in our sailing adventures. Since we stepped onto Traversay III in 2000, Larry has bought spares and equipment to fix almost anything on the boat. This includes main engine maintenance and repairs, window repairs, generator repairs, toilet repairs, windlass repairs and refrigerator and freezer repairs. 

We normally share cooking and cleaning while we're offshore, but if there's a major equipment breakdown, I take over all the domestic work so Larry can focus on the repair. He’s made many major repairs in the last 20 years while we were away from any outside help with repairs. He has actually repaired the windlass (the motor which lowers and raises the anchor) twice. These did not need to be PERFECT repairs, but they were good enough to keep us going when we were far from land or far from any help. We knew we were in precarious situations both times and we HAD to keep going ... once in Chilean Patagonia in 2010 and once on the Northwest Passage in 2013.  

On December 23, 2004 our forestay broke 400 miles from New Zealand. I was able to help with the forestay failure by circling around the mast about 30 feet off the deck while suspended by a line and sitting in our tiny bosun’s chair. With the heavy wave action, I felt like I was at the end of a clock pendulum making bigger and bigger concentric circles around the mast. I was trying to remove a length of rope which was obstructing a halyard which we could use to temporarily replace the steel forestay in the genoa sail furler. When you consider that the entire rig including the mast and attached sails could fall down, one of us had to be willing to brave the heights. The decision was made that I would go up, because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to turn the heavy winch often to get Larry up there. In order to free the halyard, I needed to use both hands, so I swung like a pendulum … into and off the mast many times before I finished the job. 

the 50' furler had to be stretched across the deck

I ended up with multiple bruises which matched the beautiful sunset photo taken that night. When we got into port after the 46-day 6,000 mile voyage to Opua, New Zealand we got out the replacement metal forestay that we’d stored and we worked together to install the new part.

Larry has a lot of equipment aboard and has been really successful in keeping us going when we have a breakdown. Even with the rare times when we’re close to a Boat Repair service, we've come to rely on ourselves. This is becuase of our despair at the poor service of some 'specialists' we’ve hired over the last 20 years.  Notable in this regard is the mechanic/welder in Iceland who told us that our engine was now 'fine' and that all the engine supports were 'solid'. Imagine our horror crossing the Northwest Passage as each engine mount broke in successive jarring accidents all the way across to Tuktoyaktuk. As we entered the harbour in September with winter fast approaching, we had to keep our speed to a miserly but safe 1.5 knots. At any faster pace, the seawater came pouring in. We could have lost the boat and (for me) it seemed we might even lose our lives. I thought we'd have to 'winter over'and so I started searching for a place to rent ashore.

But this is where the Universe Delivers what it Takes Away. A brilliant Canadian engineer named Radovan Sumara was in Tuk working that summer as an engineer for the Horizon North Barge Company. He came aboard and helped Larry take out and re-install the engine mounts having first taken them to the company workshop to weld them.  

Our 'Hero' Radovan Sumara

Wayne Hodgins

  When possible, Larry buys the needed equipment himself so we can be more self-sufficient. We’ve also been able to help out fellow cruisers in the wilderness who just needed the correct size of bolt to get going again. At Pitcairn Island Wayne on a Canadian boat called ‘Learnativity’ endured a flooded refrigerator. We were able to give him our spare (he later replaced it).

the morning after 

My own talents are more limited. I’m only competent to hand over tools and to use my own ‘auxiliary’ pieces of equipment. I’m quite handy with the pressure cooker, stove and my sewing machine. The original Singer (bought in 1975) was replaced 15 years ago by a Bernina quilting machine. These machines have enabled me to mend sails halfway through a long trip when we needed them.  In the accompanying photo I'm fixing a sail in Caleta Suarez, Chilean Patagonia. I have photos of sail repair in the Beagle Channel and in the Lofoten Islands of Norway.  I have even managed to overhaul our upholstery several times when I got tired of the 'old' colours and style and wanted ‘new’ furniture.

We feel fortunate that to a great extent, we have been able to look after Traversay III's problems ourselves. Afteer all, she's a GREAT vessel and has been equal to any of the sailing challenges that we've given her. 

On the Routeburn Track