Tina’s Sailing Blog 2019
Friday, May 18, 2019
I am sitting close behind the dodger (a canvas cover that cuts out some of the wind in the stern or back of the boat, and keeps large waves from splashing into the cockpit). We are anchored in Gorge Harbor on Cortes Island ( the Canadians must of Angla-sized Cortez, changing the z to s in Cortez). The wind is blowing making the flags on the boat flap and the wind generator spin very fast, (good for keeping the batteries charged). We are at the very northern end of the Strait of Georgia. The sun is partially shining, there are also many gauzy white clouds in the sky as well. I have to be grateful to the wind, it’s because of the wind that we have this sunshine I suppose.
This morning was spent looking over charts and consulting guide books about the next leg of our journey north to Seymour Narrows and beyond.
I need to back track all the way to May 2, the day we left Port Townsend and crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca. That day has colored much of our trip so far. We were making nice time sailing with gentle winds. We had just finished lunch and were feeling sleepy when I heard a voice over the water. That caught my attention. In the same moment Mike saw someone floating in the water with a yellow life jacket on and draped over another arm a bright orange traditional life jacket. As we turned the boat in that direction we could hear a man’s voice call for help. We were about a mile to a mile and a half off shore. There were no boats, paddle boards, nothing to tell us how that man came to be there in the water. In hindsight we realized we should have called the Coast Guard first, lowered the sails, turned the engine on, and motored over to the man.
However we didn’t think things through but responded on pure instinct, which in the long run was not the best strategy. We arrived close to him very quickly. We allowed the sails to luff in the wind but the breeze filled the sails just enough that the boat would move away. We threw a life sling to him, The sling floats and is attached to a line that is attached to the boat. The man was unable to move towards the floating life sling so we could pull him onto the boat. Mike turned on the engine. We were close to him right away, almost too close. Even with the engine running the sails kept catching wind and making the boat drift away. So Mike furled the jib and I lowered the mainsail. Finally I thought we were going to get him on board when we were able to give him the jib sheet to hang on to. We needed our boat hook to grab him quickly before he let go. The boat hook was buried in the lazarette (a compartment in the cockpit of the boat), Mike couldn’t find it and a few seconds later the man let go of the line! At that very moment a large power boat came along and asked if we needed help. We answered yes as the man drifted over towards their their boat. They did call the Coast Guard immediately. By doing this the Coast Guard was able to put out an alert to the area. All boats have radios that are always tuned in to channel 16, the emergency channel. I doubt that the people in the power boat would have been able to get the man on board either since their deck was even further off the water than our boat. But a small fishing skiff was nearby and heard the man overboard alert. They saw our two boats and came speeding up to help out. There were three large burly guys on the boat. One grabbed the man with their boat hook and the three men managed to pull him onto their skiff. After a minute they began taking off their extra clothing to try to keep the man warm and sped off for shore where an ambulance met them, took the guy to the hospital where a helicopter met the ambulance, in order to airlift him to a special hypothermia hospital unit in Seattle. After the skiff left, Mike was talking to someone on the radio from 911 or the Coast Guard. Everyone was trying to figure out how he had ended up in the water all by himself. Did he fall off a tug or a barge, did he fall out of his fishing skiff, did his boat sink for some reason? We will never know those details. We were able to learn some time later in the week that he had survived his ordeal.
I was pretty shook up by this experience. We were both relieved that other people had arrived to help out because we were having a difficult time doing anything effective. At the time I felt like a total failure. Mike pointed out to me that sometimes one just can’t help another person the way one wants to. I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept going over everything that had happened and what we should have done differently, what we could do differently if it ever happened again. We were anchored in Friday Harbor for the night and were going to leave in the morning. I was still upset and so instead we spent half the day going over emergency procedures. This is stuff we usually review the first week out on the water. I think we will do this review before we go out from now on.
In the afternoon we rowed to town to do a few errands, take advantage of the public showers, and drink a beer and watch baseball in a local sports bar. Rowing is a very soothing past time for me. By evening I felt better. We had talked to Marisol the night before because it was her birthday. Of course we told her what had happened. She in turn had told Fiona, who called us that night as well. Then the following evening we talked to Kieran about it too. They were good listeners and wanted to make sure we were okay.
Saturday morning we headed out again, leaving Friday Harbor and sailing in gentle winds up to the end of San Juan Channel and into New Channel by Spieden Island. Then the wind diminished to nothing and we motored into Reid Harbor on Stewart Island, which is the last island in U.S. waters on our route to Canada. We spent a peaceful evening there. Since then we have gradually been making our way north. Our destination is Port Hardy near the very northern tip of Vancouver Island. If Kieran can join us we will go ahead rounding Cape Scott and sailing south on the western side of Vancouver Island. If Kieran can’t get time off from work we will probably just turn around and head south on the inside. There are so many places to explore up here no matter which way we go.
Since entering Canada we had one very tiring day of sailing into a headwind from Montague Bay to Telegraph Harbor on Thetis Island. Winds only gusted up to 20 knots but the current was against us so we made poor time at 3 to 3 half knots on average. I also had moved a block (pulley) for the jib sheet and failed to make sure the block was locked into place. In the middle of a tack the block came flying off and caught on the winch. Made quite a racket. At that point we just had to turn out of the wind and put the block back. We decided to put one reef in the mainsail (shorten the sail). Just as I finished that chore, for the first time of the season, (making silly mistakes, because it was the first time in the season), the wind died completely. So we decided to have lunch, it was past one pm. We each were biting into our crackers when the wind came back. Put away peanut butter and jelly as quickly as possible and continued our upwind slog. At one point we had to decide which anchorage would be less windy for the night. We had to make a couple of turns downwind and what a blessed pause that was from the headwind. We were moving 6 knots instead of 3 and the wind was at our back. The harbor we chose was not less windy at 4:30 in the afternoon. We tied up at an easily accessible dock for the night and had a beer in the marina pub. By 7:30 pm the wind had fizzled out, thank goodness!
We spent three days anchored in Nanaimo. Nanaimo is Vancouver Island’s other major city (although it’s not that large). We would row to town every day to check emails at a local cafe, do grocery shopping, laundry, showers, mail a letter, visit the local chandlery, buy some sunglasses for Mike, etc. One evening we rowed over to a pub on floats just off of one of the local residential islands.
On the morning we were leaving Nanaimo, as I was raising the anchor, I saw a chain draped over our anchor just below the surface of the water. It had been hard to raise our anchor. I had had to do some of the raising mechanically without the use of the motor in the windlass. Now I understood why it’d been so difficult, we were hooked on someone else’s anchor chain! The boat nearest to us, whose chain our anchor had caught, luckily had someone awake on board. Mike was able to get their attention to let them know they would probably need to reset their anchor. As we left the bay I reflected on how there really are very few dull moments when boating. It can be physically very tiring and wondering how the wind is going to behave can work on one’s psyche, but bored is not part of my experience when on the water in a boat. If one doesn’t have to be alert to the sailing of the boat, if we are just motoring, there are always things to see. The different sea birds, seals, dolphins, sea lions, whales, new breathtaking scenery, other boats coming and going, looking at the chart and figuring out where we are, all these things keep me awake and far from being bored.
Now as I’m writing the wind continues to blow harder in this anchorage. There is no wave action but the noise the wind makes in the rigging, the flags flapping wildly, and the wind generator spinning making a constant whirring noise, are all rather irritating. The sun is in and out of the clouds, which have turned partially grey. I hope the wind quits for the night. If it doesn’t stop blowing I will probably not sleep very well.
