All set for a great week away from home, sailing around the Gulf Islands... should be a great time! This time, we are taking Dave Bowman as our Nav tech., helmsman, cook, etc.
Our actual route is shown below...
Blue line represents our route going out, and the red line shows our route coming home, the yellow marks shows the places we stayed overnight.
Our first stop was Gibson Marina, a 10 mile sail. As always, a nice place to start from... if you forgot anything, you can always pick it up here.
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| Coming up to Gibson - near sunset. |
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| Arrived safe and sound |
Our first night... getting things organized in their own areas
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| Sunrise... at Gibson |
The next day, no winds to speak of, and no rain... nice motor across the straits... heading to our Club's outstation, Kendrick Island... distance 25 miles.
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| Heading out to cross the Straits of Georgia |
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| Sunrise over the seas |
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| Dave now at my helm... doing a great job !! |
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| The winds picked up on the other side of the Straits :)) |
Just as we were coming to Kendrick Island, this strange looking sailboat came our way.
We arrived at Kendrick to find the place completely empty, not a sole around.
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| Sandstone carvings - thousands of years in design and in the making! |
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| Captain Hank |
The smells from the variety of flowers and plant life is beautiful, so relaxing... in addition to all the types of birds that live there.
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| Dave hard at work making breakfast! |
We could of stayed there for days, but we had only 5 days for this trip, so if we wanted to see the other places, we had to move on to our next designation... Telegraph Cove...
We waited for slack tide to go through the narrows.. then off we go...
Now resting at Telegraph Cove..
As you can see... again, not too many boaters.
Having dinner across the Bay
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| Looking down the channel to Telegraph Cove |
After another relaxing day / night, we were off to Nanaimo Harbour.
Needless to say the winds were none... flat water... motoring all the way.
We did have an exciting hour or so, going through Dodds Narrow.
Just we were entering Dodds Narrows, Hank noticed that my engine temperature was rising and I was NOT spitting water out of my exhaust. This could only mean two things... either my raw water intake was plugged or my water empellor was broken. Hank immediately looked at my glass raw water strainer and noticed that no water was going through, then he turned off my engine to avoid any further engine damage. Now here we are being pulled into Dodds Narrows, with no engine. We did have a bit of wind, so Dave turned us away from the Narrows, raised the jib to avoid being pulled in.
Meanwhile, Hank was down in the engine compartment, figuring out what to do next. First thing... close the thru-hull valve and pull off the hose to the valve to see if the obstruction was in the intake... You take the hose off, then open the valve... if no water was coming in... something is blocking the intake. Simple conclusion... next step is to unblock the intake. Due to the fact that we have two 90 degree elbows with a ball valve in between chances of pushing a wire through would be impossible. Next idea was to take out cleaning brush and try to scrub if off from the outside... and impossible to bend the pole to reach the thru-hull.
We now were concerned about the timing and getting through the Narrows... the solution Hank took was to take a 5 gallon bucket, stick the intake tube into the pail and let the motor draw water from the bucket. This would mean that Hank would have to keep filling the bucket with another bucket with sea water. It WORKED, but Hank had to refill the bucket around 100 times, needless to say that was a lot of work and a lot of seawater in the cabin as well.
Once through the Narrows... time to relax and rethink what to do. Dave flagged down another sailor on the hopes that he can take the brush and scrub off the obstruction... Nope, that did not work either.
Then Hank thought if he could blow back the water through the valve, it might clear the obstruction.
Using his fending pole that draws water, then place it over the line, duck-tape the connection, and blow back the water... IT WORKED!!!! After two attempts, we were on our way again.. :)
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| Temporary raw water cooling system. |
Naniamo Harbour
on our way back home
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| City of Vancouver |
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| Glassy seas for the way home |
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| Bowen Island - Snug Cove |
For the last day, Hank and Dave decided to relax at Snug Cove... nice shower, meal and rest before coming home the next day.
Well that was another vacation...not resting and waiting for Hank to revise the intake valve and clean me up for the next adventure...
Tarka OUT!!
