Passage to Oregon

Early on Tuesday morning, September 2nd, we left foggy Bamfield and rounded the lighthouse at Cape Beale in a rough, uncomfortable sea. From there, we set a course due south for the overnight passage to Astoria, Oregon. We've made this trip along the Washington coast six times now, and this passage was the easiest, maybe because it started out rough, and got more and more settled. For a few stretches, we had enough wind to use the sail to steady the boat in the ocean swell, but never enough to sail. So we were a motor boat, encountering clear skies by mid afternoon, and enjoying the light of the nearly-full moon until just before dawn. And, before nightfall on Tuesday, we reaped the reward for traveling twenty miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean - a great sunset.
Now we are in Astoria, about to head up the Columbia River to Oregon. Even the Captain, who, with a willing crew, would sail around the world, seems to enjoy the sense of homecoming we get when landing in Astoria.

Forty

We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a long paddle among the islands of Barkley Sounds Broken Group, and a picnic on the beach. We can't imagine how forty years can have passed. We wonder what we have learned. A few things:

You can't play a good game of scrabble without a big honking dictionary. Negotiation and compromise don't cut it.

Cooking and eating good food is a great glue in a marriage. As Greg Brown puts it: "When the kitchen is happy, love has a chance". Ditto for the galley.

Good luck and hard work are a great combination. So are downwind sailing and time to go slow.

Summer Symphony

July: Andante.
Languid, hot days in the Gulf and San Juan Islands. Lazy hikes on headlands covered with grasses toasted golden. Lingering outdoors late into the evening. Downwind sailing even slowly entire days when sailing is a state of being, and destination is wherever.


Early August: Allegretto
Quick, foggy trip across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles. Brisk road trip to Portland. Frenetic hunt for a winter apartment. Lavish visiting, happy celebrations. Rapid return to the boat. Intense radar and radio, fogbound passage to Barkley Sound. A few rainy days and transition to cruising speed.


Mid August: Andante cantabile.
Sunshine sparkles on rocks and water, warms and dries us in Barkley Sound. Spinnaker sailing. Beach hiking. Herring and salmon jumping; whales splashing. Moon dark sky with endless stars and galaxies and clusters.
(New photos loaded on Flickr are available here)

Backing Down

Gray dawn early last Tuesday we rousted ourselves to sail around the north end of Vancouver Island. First, though, we listened to the latest weather report, which had been revised and predicted strong southerlies for days in the future, very unfavorable for rounding Cape Scott and the Brooks Peninsula. As he is prone to do, the Captain mumbled something about the wind always blowing in our faces. Something in the mate snapped - I said, OK, let's just sail downwind. We could ride the northwest wind, still strong on the east side of the island, back down the way we came, with the added bonus of a return to the warm waters at the north end of the Georgia Strait.
So we backed down, a move with a spectacular payoff. We had two long Spinnaker runs coming down the Johnstone Strait, a wonderfully quiet and comfortable way to sail, and perfect sunny weather to boost. Since then we have had five more warm and sunny days, with fine sailing each day, and afternoons back to the shorts and barefeet we enjoyed in Mexico.

Fog

We have reached the north end of Vancouver Island, where we have encountered fog, rain, and cool temperatures. After an astonishingly sunny and warm May and June, this is not cause for complaint. But it does make things feel quieter, make one more contemplative. After traveling in a fog whiteout for an hour or two, the appearance of a shoreline seems miraculous. Sensory deprivation whets the appetite, and the fading in and out of elements of scenery have a hypnotic effect. I think about how I might paint the trees in fog, and imagine layers and layers of thin, transparent oil paint.

But when the fog lifts, it's back to excitement and high spirits. Chores and repairs are almost done. Time to round Cape Scott and head down the west coast!

Malaspina Galleries

We have been staying at the docks in Nanaimo for several days, hoping that a very strong and persistent northwest wind will die down, allowing us to make headway in a northerly direction. Yesterday Linnea, a friend we made in Mexico who is a Nanaimo resident, entertained us by taking us across to Gabriola Island, the furthest north of the Gulf Islands. The last stop on our explorations were the rock formations called the Malaspina Galleries. The photo above shows the Captain just at the entrance to the Galleries.

The Galleries proper are sculpted limestone, so eroded by wave action that they overhang, looking like waves themselves. They were observed by the very first Spanish explorers to visit these islands. Their expedition in 1792 was led by Galiano and Valdez. The Galleries were named after Malaspina, the commander who had ordered their journey. Jose Cardero, who was the ship's artist, sketched the rock formation. Later, back in Spain, his sketches were reworked and much exaggerated for a report on the expedition, hence the black and white image above.

In the 1920's E.J. Hughes, a young local artist, won a commission to paint murals for a new resort in Nanaimo called the Malaspina Hotel. The scene of the Spanish viewing and sketching the Galleries was one of the subjects chosen. That mural has recently been heroically restored and installed at the Nanaimo convention center. Last evening at sunset it was easy to understand how these rock galleries, in their wild and beautiful location, continue to capture the imagination.

Up Close

Several weeks now of mostly warm, sunny weather. Much of our time spent on the deck or in the kayaks, in the protected waters of the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands.

Mid-June brought super low tides, exposing sea critters like these starfish. Indigo managed to find an uncharted rock in Blind Bay on Shaw Island, and held tight for an hour or so until the tide came back in. The first time she has run aground.

The season of the wild roses is almost past, but now is the very fleeting flowering of Ocean Spray. These clusters of tiny flowers are white for only two days or so, then they turn brownish. Maybe that's the reason for the name - what could be more fleeting than the white spray blowing off a wave on a windy day?