SV Cariba

Well as many of you know, we are back in home port at Spruce Harbour. The last few weeks of our journey took a few unexpected turns – albeit fabulous ones! But the end result is we are home a bit sooner than originally planned. We had planned to be home around Sept 1 but we docked on August 26^th

Our next grandchild was due on Sept 11^th and the Admiral aka labour coach needed to be close by and on call for the big event. Little did we know that the “call” would come at 11:30 am August 19^th while playing with grandchild number 1 on a beach in Comox!

Labor snuck up on my daughter 3 ½ weeks early. Thanks to a very helpful agent at Harbour Air, this resulted in a mad dash from Comox to Nanaimo to catch a float plane to Vancouver.. yes yet another float plane for the Admiral and no frequent flyer points either!! Brian treated the island highway like an Indy speedway and got me there with 5 mins to spare! The flight was followed by a quick cab ride to the marina to get the car to drive to White Rock. I jumped in and turned the key only to be greeted by the sound of silence.. and people I am not talking Paul Simon!! DEAD BATTERY! The air was a bit blue at that point but thanks to a kind fellow boater in the marina I soon had enough charge to get going. I managed to make it to the labour room by 4:30 pm with sand in my shoes still from the beach! Austen Kent Scott was born at 9:20pm that night and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Of course during all this blissful baby cuddling, my Captain, Dezi and Cariba were cooling their heels in Comox. It was very smoky with crappy visibility and I wanted to be there to help bring the boat home. Another flight on a float plane and the next morning we set out for home.

The smoke had finally cleared and we were so looking forward to a nice sail home with predicted NW winds 15-20 knots according to Environment Canada… well they lied again! It started out with no wind and then SE 15+ knots! We had talked about if the NW had held and with a clear night and a full moon, we might have gone for an overnight passage home. Instead we anchored overnight in Water Bay on Thormanby Island and completed the journey home again the next day with the forecasted winds still MIA.

Since home we have been busy transitioning the boat to liveaboard dock style. We have made a list of chores we want to get done before the fall rains begins. We had an awesome summer and can’t wait to see what happens next summer. Until then.. it is boat projects, baby showers, catching up with family and friends.. and yes we did get to babysit Austen already!!

SV Cariba chillin dockside!

Well it has been an action packed 10 days. We made our way back to Refuge Cove with another one night stop in Von Donop Marine Park. This anchorage will be on our list to revisit as I think we have only scratched the surface here. There are some hikes to check out and I would like to try crabbing. We put the crab trap down for the night and while unfortunately they were a bit too small, we pulled up 4 lovely Dungeness crab. We put them back with instructions to grow more and we’ll be back!

Next stop was a few more nights in Refuge Cove. I left Brian, Dezi and Cariba there with tons of laundry to do (Thanks Brian!) and flew via float plane to Vancouver. The pilot was a really nice gal and the views outstanding. The flights originate in Campbell River and apparently they will pick you up anywhere in Desolation Sound. We had thought you needed to be in a marina or dock.. but not so. The next stop after picking me up was Pendrell Sound. She flew the plane up the sound and landed in the middle of the anchorage. A couple minutes later a dinghy showed up to drop off a couple who had come up for the weekend to see friends on their boat!

It was surreal to be in Pendrell Sound and surrounded by wilderness and awesome views one minute.. only to be an hour later in a cab being driven fast down Granville Street!. It was a busy 2 and half days in Vancouver with quality time with my girls, my friends on Orca 3 .. oh and yes the first board meeting of the Nurses & Nurse Practitioners of BC.

Fast forward and in reverse.. the plane lands back in Refuge Cove and we leave the next morning to continue exploring Desolation Sound. We thanked Moira, Matt and the great crew that run the store and restaurant there.. we will be back.

From Refuge we had a great sail to Gorge Harbour where we met up with another Spruce Harbour Marina alumni.. Kyle and his girlfriend Jeanine. We had a great evening laughing and sharing some great appies and stories in Cariba’s cockpit. Small world as Kyle went to school with our son-in-law and his mum was one of our neighbours in our townhouse complex!

We woke after our second night in Gorge to a hazy smoky sunrise. By the time we had breakfast and a couple cups of coffee, the smoke was getting much thicker. We decided that perhaps it was time to head south sooner than planned. We remember watching the exodus of boats last year from Desolation Sound due to the smoke.. is this the new seasonal reality? But first world problems for us.. we are not leaving close to the wildfires in fear of losing our home!

As I write this we sit in Comox Harbour Authority Marina again. We had a long smoky trip yesterday of over 30 nautical miles. But the payoff was being able to babysit Vincent today so his mum could study. He has got over his aversion to wearing a life jacket. I think the promise of a dinghy ride and the fact his stylish jacket is covered with “Paw’s Patrol” characters made the difference. He loved the ride in the “little yellow boat” and insisted on helping Grandpa row!

So we will stay here for a week and not sure what’s next. It really depends on the smoke. It is clearer here today but sounds like the lower mainland is terrible. Taking a pause and reflecting this evening on our trip prompted me to look at some statistics. At the risk of boring some of you I will share:

• Days since we left home                                                      95
• Ports of call/anchorages                                                     29
• Nautical miles traveled                                                       415
• Nights at anchor                                                                    66
• Nights in marina                                                                     28
• Nights on mooring buoy                                                      1
• Sailing vs Motoring                                                               45% vs 55%

The last stat doesn’t really represent the amazing sails we had. I was surprised that the motoring miles were as much because I remember so many awesome sailing days. But as many know the summer high pressure systems often don’t allow for much sailing, so I think we sailed more than what we expected.

So the next post will likely be the last as we should be home by the end of the month. And our plans will be dictated by the smoke.. so stay tuned!

Cheers

SV Cariba

Again apologies to the reader for the delay in posts. We have been having so much fun that I keep forgetting to write!.

We left Elworthy Island on July 21 after hanging out there for 5 nights. From there it was a quick motor (no wind but OMG hot) to a new to us anchorage; Tenedos Bay. We stern tied but Brian had to “MacGyver” the attachment. There were no rings or trees to attach the stern anchor to, so he crawled up the cliff and jammed the dinghy anchor into some rocks and used it like a piton. The stern line was then securely attached for the next 4 nights. The bay filled up fairly quickly over the weekend. The anchorage is quite popular because of the short hike to Unwin Lake. It is a beautiful clean warm lake for swimming and we loved going there.

The larder was getting bare and the garbage was piling up so it was time to head back to Refuge Cove to restock. The store there has an amazing stock for its remote location and yes it is expensive but I can imagine it is not cheap for them to ship it all up there. The key is to ask when the next shipment arrives and shop the next day. The produce diminishes quickly as does the beer I noted!

While in Refuge we met up with another old friend from Point Roberts. Martin had been our neighbour on O dock and so we invited him over for dinner. He is the best dinner guest because he brought the dinner!!! A very delicious Moroccan Stew; spicy and full of great flavors. We had a great evening catching up with him.

Laundry, garbage and groceries are key components to the infrastructure for long term cruising. The laundry room at Refuge was a great source of entertainment and an interesting study in human behaviour. It can get really crazy busy in there and the competition for the 3 washers and 3 dryers is fierce! The quietest time in there are very early in the am or into the evening. I had meant to do it the evening before but somehow after a glass of wine it didn’t happen. I headed up early around 8 am as we wanted to depart later that day. All 3 washers were open and I coincidentally had 3 loads.. it was meant to be. Someone else was ahead of me with loads in the dryer and there were bags on the floor that I assumed belonged to that person. Well not so! An obnoxious guy came in about 15 mins later and demanded to know who had “jumped the line”! I asked, “what line”.. well apparently the bags on the floor were his dirty laundry and he felt leaving them there held a place! I belong to the “snooze you lose” school of laundry etiquette and so shrugged my shoulders and said oh well.. suggest you stay here and monitor the situation!. It was so ironic because he stomped off leaving his laundry and when my loads in the washer were done he was no where to be seen/found. Another lady came in and put her stuff in! I just quickly put my stuff in the dryer, set the timer on my phone and exited stage left before he came back!!

After stocking up and with clean laundry we left Refuge Cove and went back to our favorite spot at Teakerne Arm. It was soooo hot it was nice to swim around the boat. We didn’t hike up to the lake to swim because it was a bit of a gong show with crowds of day trippers hiking up in droves. We sat on the bow and watched them all jockey for position around the dinghy dock… and can I say DINGHY not large run abouts! The dock had at one point 3 large fishing runabouts rafted to one side and counting dinghies, kayaks and SUPs there were over 20 watercraft secured to a dock that was about 20 ft x 10ft only in size. What a zoo!

We had heard several reports that boaters were seeing humpback whale at the top end of Cortez so after 4 nights in Teakerne we pulled up anchor and set out up Lewis Channel to round Cortez counter clockwise. The winds were very light in Lewis but once we rounded the top of Cortez we had a great upwind sail. And we did see the whales! Pictures unfortunately were not great but we drifted along and watched several “tail” shots as they sounded.

We anchored for one night in Von Donlop inlet and then headed over to Rebecca Spit, Quadra Island. We really like this spot because there is a great beach for Dezi to explore and the prawning turned out to be excellent. And one can sneak the garbage & recycling off the boat and deposit it into the very large bins in the day use park area!…Shhhh don’t tell anyone!. Beats paying a buck a pound to get rid of it elsewhere!

And talk about small world! We look over after anchoring and who do we see but Chaim and Karen on MV Tri Star. They live right next door to us at Spruce. Had a lovely visit with them!

We had planned to go to Gorge Harbour for a couple of nights but then we met up with more Point Roberts “O” dock alumni! Mike and Val from SV MarJune invited us over for happy hour so we decided to stay. We had a great visit with them. Staying also gave us the opportunity to go to the grocery store in Herriot Bay which is awesome and half the price of Refuge Cove.

Today we are staying put again, make water and do some more prawning. We will make our way back to Refuge Cove again tomorrow and no we are not Refuge Cove Yacht club members.. lol but the admiral has to fly out to Vancouver for a meeting and back again. Refuge Cove was the closest place to do that from. After that we will slowly start to wind our way back south with a stop in Comox to see the family there..

SV Cariba out… (only 4 more weeks til home!   ☹