Category: Uncategorized

Sunday 21st April

Cold & Rainy, yet I hear it’s unusually hot in the UK for an Easter weekend. 

Fixed the shower sump pump, dismantled it, put it back together and it worked, no idea what was wrong.

Monday, 

More great radio, after a week of programmes on mental health issues, many quite harrowing stories, we have moved onto climate change debates. A great story tonight about Sudbury, now a lovely green city which was once a Chernobyl style hellhole in Ontario. Devastated by extensive Nickel mining with huge piles of sulphur waste that killed off everything in the area. A great example of industry working with residents to help each other. Other phone ins pitting youngsters against older people living in mining towns. One young teenager was saying “But we might all be doomed if we don’t act now quickly”, and a mining resident replying, “ I agree, but why should we do anything when the Chinese aren’t, and what about our jobs”. I can see this isn’t going to be easy.

Later Adam Cohen, son of Leonard was on, he sounds just like a younger version of his dad, a few thousand more Gitannes and you won’t be able to tell the difference. He was lovely and is releasing more of his fathers material that hasn’t been heard before. 

I took a long walk in the rain today, such great scenery here, even in the rain, I love the individuality of every building. I still haven’t taken the ferry over to the main Island yet, perhaps this week. 

I have noticed that one of the reasons for the wifi getting weak/strong is due to the big tides. The boat is so low, I lose site of the office aerial at low water.

Tuesday

Randy, who has the gill netter (a kind of fishing boat) over on the next pontoon shouted over that if I liked crabs he was going to be cooking a few later and I should pop over. He had cooked a load he had caught earlier that day and I confessed to my ignorance of crab eating etiquette, Ron from ‘Ron’s fishing trips’ who has a big motor launch next to Randy offered to teach me, He took a cooked crab and smashed its back on the edge of the pontoon, then ripped out the lungs, and the washed them under the tap. He told Randy that he had cooked them all wrong, but Randy shot back that Ron was from Alberta and how would he know anything about fish! A lively debate ensued, and Ron promised to get me some properly cooked Crabs. All the same they were very tasty.

Wednesday 

I have spent most of my time this week writing SQL queries and knitting it into web sites.  I had finished most of the work before I came out, but the customer asked for a load of changes at the last moment. It’s kind of OK because it’s been so cold and windy I haven’t been able to do any outside jobs anyway. And it pays for even more luxury down the road. 

I’m making notes about all the jobs I need to do on the boat, a big one I’m looking at is re-wiring to make the boat work well on 110v or 240v as we have a hacked system now but as I’m not likely to see 240v shore power power for a year or more, it seems best to get the 110v working so I can have the heater and the toaster and the kettle all on at once.

The barometer has been around 1035 for a few days now, I have never seen that before, crazy high by my standards. 

Thursday

Took the ferry to Port McNeil today, gave myself two hours to do the shopping and ended up running for the ferry back, only to find it delayed by 30 minutes. It was great to see such a choice of food in the big supermarket. There’s a small chandlers there as well, which was quite well stocked.

Fri/Sat, more programming, with a trip to the Finnish baker for a fresh sourdough loaf. He seemed to really appreciate my comments on how nice his fresh bread was, almost as if I was the first to complement him. He also makes great ciabatta rolls. On the way back I called into the Co-Op hardware store, a branch of the main co-op downtown, a really good range of boat spares, very impressive for such a small island.

More CBC Radio 1 and a great program called Ideas that featured a women called Gareth Peirce who is a 79 year old female  English solicitor and human rights activist. She spoke very powerfully about some terrible breaches of human rights and international laws/treaties being carried out by governments, including sadly, the current British government.

Sunday

More people are arriving every day and opening up their boats, getting ready for the new season. Today actually felt like spring, still chilly, but possible to sit in the cockpit and work.

This morning the radio had a program explaining the problem with relying on quantum physics, and how we have to face up to the reality that great as it is, we are probably missing the point. I’m sure we would all agree with that (could do with a puzzled looking emoji here). 

Either the radio is showing off, or they’re all dead clever here.

People are getting flooded out all over Eastern Canada right now, and they are talking about relocating whole communities away from flood plains and rivers.  Some people who were flooded last year, repaired and rebuilt as they were told it was a ‘one in a few hundred year event’, but because it’s now happened two years in a row there’s lots of talk of Climate change being responsible. I think this is bad science, but great publicity for the cause. 

I uploaded the pictures in higher resolution than normal, as I had some good internet in the week. But I think WordPress is throttling the size back and I can’t be bothered learning how this all works, but hopefully you will get a feel for how lovely the bay is here. I had a great walk around taking the snaps one evening this week.

Paul Collister

I find this new version of wordpress much harder to compose posts than I’m used to. hence a big block of pictures.

Monday 29th April.
I tried to post this yesterday, but no internet, so today I went downtown, the shop was shut, the cafe closed too, no internet available anywhere, but by the time I got back to the harbour, there was a decent wifi signal present, so I did a bit of work and posted this blog. It’s like summer today, so I have a few hours left, I’m going to rip the rest of the steering out now.

Paul Collister, Sointula.

Thursday 18th April.

I had planned to get the ferry to the big city today (well the slightly larger village over on the bigger island). I wanted to stock up for Easter, but it’s raining so hard I put this off until Saturday.

I have spent the last two days writing code, I decided that it was best to get all the leftover bits from the work I was doing back home finished so I could focus on the boat jobs. Also the weather isn’t conducive to working outside.

One job I did do was the leak in the galley. In very heavy rain or big seas water was dripping onto the worktop by the fridge. I had a similar leak on the last baba and it was a sod to fix. The water was coming in miles away and travelling along a secret route, known only to a select clan, of which I wasn’t a member. For this reason I have ignored the leak for over two years now. It was just after a very heavy downfall that I was feeling smug about how all my efforts back in Asia to reseal the chainplates and other fittings had paid off and the boat was so dry when I noticed a big puddle at the fridge and remembered that annoying leak. So I dismantled the headlining to inspect the area for clues as to the secret route this water might be taking, maybe there might be stains leading me to the problem. I couldn’t see anything so had a look directly above the drips on the outside of the boat for inspiration. Right in the spot above the leak was a 3mm hole drilled by Toshi, the previous owner. To say I was gobsmacked is understating things. How had I missed that. To be fair, it had been the route of a small power cable he had added to power a light in the spray hood, the sealant around the wire had failed. I yanked the wire out, cut it off, and then filled the hole with some epoxy. Job done, It’s been chucking it down ever since and not a drop has come in!!
The moral of that story is not to overthink some problems, often it’s a lot easier than you might realise. 

We plan to be in Mexico for Christmas, that’s roughly 2500NM south and back north a little into the Sea of Cortez. If we average 100NM/Day we can do it non stop in 25 days. Say all of November, so really there’s no great panic about anything now, we will likely leave at the start of August and have a leisurely trip down the coast. This is different for me, as since I bought the boat, there have been multiple deadlines to meet, most of them I created to force myself to get the jobs done in time for the passage across the Pacific to North America. Everything is more relaxed, and a lot more pleasant now. I’m enjoying the boat jobs more without the pressure. Having a day where I just read is now possible without any guilt.

It seems the antenna that sends the wifi out over the marina broke during the winter, so I offered my services to go on the office rooftop and fit a new one, however another boater living onboard here also offered the same, so shortly we plan to take the task on together and restore service. This I need to do as I just found out I can’t top up my pre-paid phone card unless I have a Canadian bank account or Canadian Credit Card. Great as I have used up 2.8gb of my 3gb monthly allowance in the first week. Data seems such a requirement these days, it’s worse for me because I need it for work, but I’m hoping I can reduce my dependancy on it, especially once we hit the South Pacific, where I expect it to be very sparse.

I’m picking up a bit of wifi that leaks out of the office, but it’s very slow. We did have AT&T USA SIM cards that worked great in Canada, however I forgot to top it up in January from the UK and it expired. I bought a new one online in the UK, from an eBay seller, but it was too old to be activated so proved useless. I have just order a new one online, via amazon, with a next day free delivery option, but once my postcode went into the system, the delivery time went up to 14 days!, that’s confusing as FedEx got my 25kg Anchor from Portsmouth to the boat in about 5 days! And this SIM card can be sent in an envelope from Toronto.  Well I’m not that bothered as I have a stack of books I really want to read and the internet is such a distraction.

CBC Radio1 continues to produce fantastic programmes. Last night Kieran Conway read from his book about life as an IRA freedom fighter/terrorist. Fascinating to hear his motives and a side of the story that never got a lot of press back in the UK. Alberta has a new party in control, and populism seems strong there, great debates about the climate v oil pipelines, Alberta has oil & gas reserves, but has Quebec and BC on either side, both anti fossil fuel growth, and of course First Nation issues make most news programmes. I’m slowly starting to understand the provincial/federal politics here, a central government based on a model very similar to Westminster, but a provincial model closer to that of the USA, somehow working well together.

Saturday:

Flooding is expected in Quebec, the man from the rescue services was telling people to get out now, he said “unless you have a row boat tied to your porch, you won’t have a way out when the time comes” 

Downtown was gorgeous today, warm, bright sunshine, cherry blossom just starting to appear. Interestingly the Vancouver newspaper I have been reading had a map showing every cherry blossom tree in Metro Vancouver, and the trees in my last blog happened to have been given to the city by the Japanese in 1958, I presume it wasn’t related to my arrival on the planet that year 😉 

It was so hot, I felt I should do some work today, so I have stripped down the steering pedestal, and cleaned it all up. The next step is to disconnect the cables from below and remove the ‘Adjustable Idler’ as I now know it is called. 

More great radio (there is only one station here), however I have found one aspect a bit annoying, and that’s if you miss a program then you only need to wait a day to hear it repeated, and should you miss that, it’s probably repeated the following day. Given that a lot of the programs have quite intense stuff, I’m often reaching for the mute on the remote. Saturday night brings a show by Randy Bachman, yes he of Bachman Turner overdrive fame (sorry kids, he was back in the day). His show has ok music but interesting stories relating to a lot of the artists he plays. But what is it about Canadian rock stars from that period, I’m thinking here of Neil Young as the other guy, who just can’t seem to accept the world has moved on since their heyday. What with Neil young wanting to replace MP3’s with something of higher quality, and Mr Bachman wanting Rolling Stone magazine to go back to a print edition and abandon their online publication! 

Just had a shower, tip number 1, always test the shower sump pump before you fill the shower with water. This is the third pump that has failed in the last 6 months, they are all quite old, but at £200+ each, I’m going to be broke soon at this rate. 

Happy Easter

Paul Collister

There’s not going to be a lot happening for at least 2 months as I’m not going anywhere until late May/June, just slowly working on the boat ready for the next trip to Mexico. I’m going to keep a blog going as a diary for myself and Kathy, something to read when I hit the nursing home 😉

Friday 12th April 2019

I spent most of the day cleaning the shower cubicle and head(toilet), exciting stuff eh. It took a bit longer than I hoped for because the toilet pump had been leaking so I took it apart to try and fix it, however the drip of sea water from it, that we had been putting up with for the last year or so became a steady flow after my repair. Plumbing isn’t really my thing, especially seals. Anyway rather than order new parts, I checked the spares bag and found a brand new seal, perfect, no more leaks. I was very pleased with myself for having a spare, but did wonder why I had put up with the leak for a year or more. I was even more disappointed when I remembered one of my jobs is to replace the head with an electric one this year.

I also dug out the electric heater we have had on board since I bought the boat. It’s 110V USA style, so hadn’t been of much use elsewhere, so as the shore power is supplied on a ‘as much as you can eat’ basis, I thought it was worth a try, the boats heater uses a fair bit of diesel. Sadly the heater fan didn’t work, so I thought I would see if it could be repaired. Even sadder, I enjoyed dismantling the heater, then the fan, then the motor driving the fan, then the bearing at the end of the motor. Amazingly after re-assembly, it worked well. So for just 2 hours of my time, I had saved a heater from the skip. Probably not a good deal, but fun.

I’m listening to Canada radio and they just had an appropriate joke.

Three men in a liferaft adrift in the middle of the ocean.
A bottle drifts alongside them and they grab it, once opened a genie pops out
“I will grant you each a wish” says the Genie.
The first man says, “please get me home to my family”, and in an instant he is whisked away to his family.
The second man asks for the same and also disappears to his family.
The last man says, “I don’t have any family, and I’m really lonely now, can you bring my two mates back please”!

The boat is quite tidy now, I cleaned up the quarter berth on Friday and took the opportunity to inspect the rear of the boat behind the engine, from the inspection hatch in the quarter berth. I spotted some damage to the steering system, basically a fastening that holds part of the pulley that guides the steering cable had rusted and started to rip apart. This is a real pain, I’m going to have to take the steering apart, and then remove the steering pedestal to release the plate with the rusty part. To dismantle it will take a few hours, and the same to put back together, plus I won’t know if it can be repaired until I get it all out, If I’m smart, and mark the plate correctly, I can probably get the whole thing welded up locally. It has to be done, as if it falls completely, I may well lose the ability to steer, and this kind of failure only happens when navigating past an expensive yacht in a marina.

I managed to get the bikes up and running, but I soon found out how unfit I had become sitting at a desk for the last 6 months.

Saturday 13th

The co-op which is the main store here closes at 5:30 until Tuesday, so I headed on down at lunchtime in order to get some proper supplies for the weekend. I had just put a loaf into the trolley when the lights went out. Power was out, possibly to the whole Island. The lady on the till shut the shop, put the closed sign up and explained the main till was down, but the other till was ok for cash only and would run for a short while until it’s battery ran out. I quickly filled my trolley with a few more items, made it to the till just as it shut down. That was it, we were all kicked out of the shop. I asked a lady outside how long I could expect to wait for the power to come back, she told me it used to take one to two weeks, but these days it could be fixed a lot sooner. She pointed to a huge dead seagull in the middle of the road under the power lines and explained to me that was the culprit, and the cause of the loud bang a few minutes earlier. 

A trip over the road to the petrol station showed they had no power, and wouldn’t sell me anything, odd really as I had cash, but without the till running they couldn’t serve me. Next I tried the baker, next to the co-op, he had power, he claimed he had a secret supply, he’s Finnish and I’m not quite sure he was telling the truth, but he sold me some bread, and a few cans of soda. Apparently the first chance of power returning is when an engineer might arrive on the next ferry so I will have to wait and hope for the best. Fortunately, we have a ton of tinned Japanese tuna and pot-noodles to keep me going.

Arriving back to the boat I found myself catching the middle of a program on Canada Radio CBC R1, “It’s important that the clitoris is stimulated by the penis” announced the presenter, I listened for a while to x rated detailed explanations before it became clear he was talking about Dolphins mating! It turns out they have a lot more fun than was previously thought, thinking about it, they do always seem to have a smiley face when they swim alongside us. Later on they did get onto sport proper, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear a program about the mathematical basis of Wimbledon’s ‘long play’ game, and how it worked well for a while, but was later shown to be mathematically flawed. All this in just a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. I spent the whole afternoon listening to CBC radio whilst continuing to clean the main cabin and bookshelves, I’m very impressed, they had a great show about the importance of vaccinations, focussing on a women who caught measles on a trip to London, followed by another slot urging people to get sign up as organ donors with some great stories reinforcing the importance. 

A trip back to the co-op at 17:00 found the seagull removed and the power restored. The man at the co-op asked me if I had a number, I believe it’s normal for all islanders here to be members of the co-op and you give them your number at the till, I’m not sure why, I was told you don’t get a discount. My mum worked for the Co-Op in Moreton for many years, as I recall members got stamps which you gave to the nerdy child in your family (me) who meticulously stuck them into saving books. Presumably when you had enough full books you could claim a free onion or suchlike.

Sunday 14th

Double fried eggs on toasted sourdough bread, made by the Finnish baker with fresh coffee made for a delicious breakfast. Again the radio didn’t disappoint with a long in depth program about abuses by the Catholic Churche’s priests here in Canada. 

The next task was to make a list of jobs to do. I have been putting this off for a while, as experience tells me that a list of boat job tasks can never be completed. This list will in effect outlive me, and I hate starting something I won’t complete. Anyway, as it turns out, I surprised myself by just how many jobs I had already completed en route here. The list seems completely manageable, of course it won’t be. The main tasks I have are 

1) Engine Jobs: Fix water pump seals, weld up or replace oil cooler, Tidy up wiring and weld up steering pulleys.

2) Inside jobs: Fix deck wash pump & fresh water pump, Service water maker, Rewire mains side for 120/240V, Fit new radar, clean check chain plates.

3) Deck Jobs: Lots of varnishing, new Bow Platform, repair cockpit seat hinges, repair monitor steering, replace gas hose and fittings, repair gelcoat on cabin top where dinghy wrecked it.

4) Hull: Clean and polish

5) Haulout: Antifoul and replace anodes, hull, prop and bow thruster. Buy liferaft (should have done this last item before we left Japan, don’t tell Kathy)

Looking more closely at the problem with the steering made me realise it’s a massive job to get the broken bracket (for want of a better description) out of the boat, as a load of cables pass through a hole in it, steering, throttle,gear change, gps, bow thruster controls, power, and another fat cable I’m looking forward to finding out where it goes as I don’t think we have been acquainted yet.

The weather seems similar to back home from what Kathy tells me, cold most of the time, and not that spring like. When the clouds lift here it’s lovely, with snow capped mountains in the distance.

I spotted a lot more trees that have been washed up and tied to the shore at high tide to stop them escaping. This is the kind of thing we need to keep an eye out for when on the water.

The boat is finally cleaned up and very cosy now. I have a snippet of free wifi, and have spent today doing programming work, the boat jobs can wait a bit. I fired up the SSB yesterday and that seems to be working fine, but there’s lots of static out there.

Paul Collister

Well here we go again, I’m back on the boat and blogging. However the harbour I’m in doesn’t have wifi at the moment, which is a pain. I’m using my phone, and trying to limit my use, I have about 100Mb / day, but have used 300 in my first 2 days here. We shall just have to take it easy. I actually like the idea of limiting my internet time, and perhaps I can do some proper reading now.

So I left the UK on Tuesday morning, my brother Simon kindly drove me to the airport at Manchester where I flew direct to Toronto. I flew Air Transat, which is a bit of an Easyjet operation, basic, but just fine for an 8 hour trip. I managed to sleep a little. Once at Toronto I had to kill 4 hours before we headed off to Vancouver. Because Toronto was my port of entry, I had to haul my bags through customs/immigration, but I was very pleased how organised the whole thing was, I was interrogated by a customs computer terminal, and when it took my picture to compare with the passport, the camera snaked around to get itself at just the right height to inspect me, a little unnerving, this is how the robots are going to get us I expect, we think we are in control, but they already now where we are and soon they will control all the locks!

I was later stopped by a human who asked me why I had told the computer I had booze to declare, being a non drinker I was surprised, and said I must have pressed the wrong button, she happily waved me on and I found a nice desk with power/usb and free wifi from where I could do a little work.

I worked flat out for most of the time I was in the UK, and I managed to save enough to allow me to cruise for a few more years without worrying too much about the cost. I still have a few more bits of work to finish, but I can do that from the boat at a more leisurely pace.  I’m expecting to spend the next few years heading south then across the pacific to New Zealand, so I will almost certainly be selling my flat back home, or maybe renting it out. The income from that should cover my costs while I’m sailing.

Soon enough we were boarding the flight to Vancouver. It left at 19:30 and arrived just before 10pm, with the 8 hour time difference it meant we landed at 6AM UK time, I slept for most of the 5 hour flight, but the jet lag was now getting to me. A quick trip to the hotel, and I was in bed asleep.

Wednesday morning I slept in as late as I could, then headed off to explore this part of town, I was out by the airport in-between Oakfield and Richmond, quite a leafy suburb, and the cherry blossom was full on, I only thought to take a picture after I had passed the best displays.

I visited the Oakfield , or was it Oakridge? Shopping mall, had a good play on the new MacBook Air, but can’t justify buying one yet, this five year old model I’m using now is still working great, despite being dropped a few times. I’d love to have an excuse to upgrade, mainly for the Retina display, but I just can’t justify it. While in the mall, I bought some basic supplies for dinner ( bread/butter/parma ham/cheese) from Safeway. I also bought a pre-paid virgin mobile SIM card, 3gb/month for $45 CAD/Month, which is about £25/month. 

At 4pm I called for a cab from the hotel to get to Vancouver South airport terminal, this is the smaller terminal on the edge of the river that caters for small planes and float planes, the cab took forever to turn up, with me starting to worry I might be late for checkin, but as usual I was early and ended up waiting for an hour before we boarded the small plane. As I boarded the pilot was at the outside at the stairs, and saw me looking at my boarding pass, he assumed correctly I was looking for a seat number, and explained I could sit anywhere, but then pointed to his seat at the front and said, except there 😉

As we flew out it was striking to see the colour change in the water, you can see in the image it looks like land, but it’s just a change of colour in the water caused by the underlying terrain/seabed. I have sailed through such changes, once just before reaching Singapore , and it’s quite worrying.

Later we flew over many of the places we sailed around last year, I love trying to spot the places from their shape.

I saw Nanaimo and Dodd narrows which I remembered well, I could also see false narrows, which from above looks like a safer route, but is deceptively shallow. Hence the name I expect.

We flew past Hornby Island which was rammed with boats in tribune bay when we visited it last year, you can just make out the long straight beach. 

Finally we flew past Malcolm Island, I could just make out the harbour but we were too far away to make out any boats.

This picture was meant to show the runway dead ahead, I had a ‘pilots eye’ view as we came into land, I must say it reminded me of the early versions of Microsoft’s flight simulator, but scarier. You get to see a lot more forest harvesting from a plane, but it seems to be managed very well here, and most of this is second growth anyway, and will be very responsibly re-planted I understand.

A taxi was waiting for me at the airport and 30 minutes later a very interesting  Berber Algerian driver dropped me off at Port McNeill where I had to kill 90 minutes before the ferry arrived. I saw a very very sad Tayana 40 in the marina, there was another large yacht (42ft+) there with a goosewing boom setup, very interesting, the mast had no shrouds at the side at all, but what might have been a running backstay. I must find out more.

30 minutes on a very pleasant ferry ride saw me stepping ashore in Sointula, I was hoping I might get a lift to the boat from a passing car, but no luck, it was now late, very dark, and all the cars were tucked away for the night, so I dragged my bags the 2kms to the harbour. As I turned the corner I could make out the mast of Sister Midnight, always a good sign!

Once I was down at the boat I could see Jim had done a good job looking after her, she looked just as I left her last October. 

I was soon onboard and pleased to see she was dry and quite clean. There was a  general film of light mildew over a lot of the surfaces, but I soon had my bags on board, the fridge up and running and the eberspacher heater running. Sea cocks were opened and I could now use the sink and the head. I unpacked the bedding, made a bed and went to sleep happy.

I had sent an new windlas out to the boat from the UK and Jim had taken delivery and left it on the boat for me.

Thursday morning, it was raining all day, but I wasn’t bothered, a trip to the office to let them know I was here, enlightened me to the fact that their wifi system for the harbour was down and might be so for several weeks, I’m glad I bought the virgin contract, but will need to find more wifi for the bigger downloads. I spent the day getting the boat habitable, I washed down all the surfaces in the V berth and along the starboard side of the main cabin. I removed the covers off the boat to let some light in and reflated the rather sad looking dinghy. I cleaned the galley surfaces and later in the day walked down to the co-op to get more food in. Finally I dragged the bikes out of the quarter berth, put the sails out on deck to make space and retired to cook a lovely dinner before typing this blog. 

Paul Collister

Finally the time came to leave the laid back island of Sointula for home. It’s a shame as the weather had just picked up and sunshine was planned for the next few weeks. As you can see below the autumnal  colours were just coming into play and I would have loved to spend another month there.

We stowed everything away on the boat, the bikes where the last items to go below, wrapped up in bags I made from the old staysail and we made our way to the airport in Port Hardy.

Jim, who is looking after our boat for the next 6 months kindly drove us and our bags to the ferry port where we caught a boat over to Port McNeill on Vancouver island. From there we took a small 16 seater plane down to Vancouver Airport (south).

It wasn’t easy to catch a plane home the same day due to ferry/plane schedules so we opted to have a night/morning in Vancouver City and check it out. Below is the Gas man, apparently called this because of his long epilogues, I wonder if this has a connection with the Irish term ‘A gas man’ This is the steam powered clock in the city’s Gas district on the waterfront. And these guys must make most Canadians groan in the way I do whenever an American film on the UK has the obligatory red bus/ telephone box and beat bobby. There’s no shortages of tourist gift stores in this area, much like every city we have ever visited. However a lot of the gifts were high quality and if I was richer, everyone might have got Vancouver branded clothing for christmas.So we had a pleasant dinner in a grand railway station building at the Waterfront station then headed off to the airport where we got a budget flight home on Air Transat. The 9 hour flight went quite quickly and we were soon back in dreary Manchester on the train home to Liverpool.

It was nice to be home, but I returned from my one year absence to no telephone/internet, no hot water or heating and a too high percentage of rugs and clothes destroyed by moths.
Communications systems should be back online on Monday when I get fibre installed, the heating engineer should have sourced a new water pump by Tuesday, and I start the Great Moth Recovery program tomorrow.

I still have a view of the water (River Dee/Irish Sea) from my living room, but already miss the scenes from British Columbia.

Kathy may post a final blog, but I don’t think much will happen boatwise/blog now for 6 months.
When I return to work on the boat in April, I will be preparing it for a summer, which I think will mostly be in north BC, maybe even as far north a Juneau in Alaska, then before it gets too cold we will whiz south towards Mexico as previously planned.

Thanks for following our travels and all the positive comments and support we have had.

Paul Collister

 

I’d been intrigued by descriptions of Princess Louisa Inlet. Who could resist these words from Erle Stanley Gardner (best known for writing the Perry Mason detective novels) in his book ‘Log of a Landlubber’:

‘There is no use describing that inlet. Perhaps an atheist could view it and remain an atheist, but I doubt it’

‘There is a calm tranquillity which stretches from the smooth surface of the reflecting water straight up into infinity. The deep calm of eternal silence is only disturbed by the muffled roar of throbbing waterfalls as they plunge down the sheer cliffs’

‘There is no scenery in the world that can beat it. Not that I’ve seen the rest of the world. I don’t need to, I’ve seen Princess Louisa Inlet’.

High praise indeed, so when Paul suggested I look up some places to visit as we continued along the route to Sointula, it was the first place I mentioned. The beauty of Back Eddy would be hard to beat so our expectations were high as we motored past forested, snow-peaked mountains on the foggy morning that Paul turned 60.

By the time we reached Jervis Inlet, the views had grown steadily more breath-taking, aided by the afternoon sun’s rays and a clear blue sky.

The waterfall that features in so many of the descriptions lies at the head of the inlet. Called Chatterbox Falls, it’s the result of the Loquilts River tumbling its contents 120 feet over the top of the granite-walled gorge. The noise of it grew louder as we approached the jetty; it was a truly spectacular sight – not enough to convert us to religion but certainly awe-inspiring. A bride and groom were posing for pictures as we tied our lines – the seaplane they’d arrived on, which is the only other way to access this paradise, was just in front of us. There were only three other boats apart from us but the place gets very crowded during the summer months.

We took an early evening walk along the short woodland path through thick trees covered with moss to have a closer look at the falls, and naturally took the opportunity to take plenty of photos. The fine mist created by the torrent coated us in a layer of water as we stood by the rocks at the bottom. A sign nearby warned against climbing the rocks and provided stark statistics about the number of deaths that resulted in those who had failed to heed the warning. It was made all the more chilling by the fact that the number could be easily changed if others died.  A memorial pavilion in honour of James Macdonald provides a small circular area for visitors to light a fire with facilities for barbecues and picnics.

All this was made possible by the legacy of the man who bought the land surrounding the falls in 1927. Viewing himself only as a mere ‘custodian’ of the ‘beautiful, peaceful haven’ James F Macdonald loved the place so much that in 1953 he declared his wish that it should never be commercialised. He stated that the property should be turned over to yachtsmen of the Northwest so they could carry on enjoying the beauty ‘unspoiled by the hand of man’. It’s thought that the name Louisa was in honour of Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter Louise who had spent three months in Victoria, British Columbia in 1876, but the actual source is uncertain.

We met a Canadian father and son on our way back to the boat in the dusky twilight. It was their first visit too and they told us they planned to sit on the pontoon with their portable camp fire and consume a few drinks far into the night. All in all not a bad place for Paul to spend his milestone birthday.

The following day, we were invited onto a super-yacht called ToyBox 2 by two British ladies who had clearly spent the afternoon enjoying more than a few drinks. Melanie, an ex-pat from Nottingham had won the trip, complete with captain, in an auction and as her friend Sue from Preston was on a visit with her husband, they had joined her. All the other visitors on the jetty had been invited. It was a good chance to have a peek at the luxurious interior of such a huge yacht and to chat to the other people. The drink carried on flowing and after a couple of hours it was suggested we walk to the memorial pavilion where the captain had lit a fire and we could sit and drink in the warmth of the flames. A lovely experience, especially walking through the dark wood using our phones’ flashlight to see our way. I think Paul and I remained the most sober of the whole group. On the jetty we all stopped to look at the wonderful sight of the phosphorescence in the water. It was just like fairy lights moving underwater – an amazing sight.

We went back through the picturesque Malibu Rapids to return to Egmont on the 20th September. Paul was keen to do the forest walk to the delightfully named Skookumchuk Rapids that Jim (who would be looking after Sister Midnight in the winter) had told us about when we’d met him in Egmont the previous week.

We ended up rafting up to the same boat Jim had rafted to on a drizzly, chilly afternoon that had a definite autumnal, or fall, feel to it. The rain carried on through the night and as we didn’t have to leave until 3 to see the rapids at their best, I hoped it would have stopped by then. It didn’t. We set off anyway and once under cover of the trees they provided adequate shelter. The walk was fabulous. We found ourselves in an atmospheric, fairy-tale forest that was just wonderful. The trees were tall, thick and lush, their branches covered in hanging green moss that made them look for all the world as if they’d been dressed in felt ribbons. The path was littered with fallen trunks and the intricate patterns formed by the roots were fascinating. Ferns and moss with their varying shades of green on the forest floor added to the spectacle.

A frog startled me when it leapt across our path but the only other wildlife we saw were small birds – oh and a Garter snake held by one of a group of students we met on the trail who was trying to scare one of the girls with it.

Paul had asked the guy in the shop about the risk of bears but he said that although they are in there no sightings had ever been reported in the forest. Nevertheless it was easy to imagine one in that setting. It would have been nice to walk in late afternoon sunshine but the drizzly, misty overcast weather did create a great forest atmosphere.  We emerged an hour later from the shelter of the trees onto a rock-covered shore where the rapids were in full flow. A few other people were there taking pictures and clambering over the rocks for a closer look. A lady we’d met on the way had told us that there was a sea lion leaping around in the waves and that was what I set off to look for. I spotted it almost straight away jumping around in the foamy water, searching for fish I expect. A couple of motor boats crossed the swirling mass; it was clear they needed a fair bit of power to avoid being tossed around by the force of the water.  The rain began to fall heavily as we stood and watched and people slowly drifted off until we were the only two left. The rain was starting to seep through my clothes so I waited under the trees until Paul had finished filming. By the time we reached the boat, it was beginning to get dark and we were soaked through and feeling cold. Luckily the heating had been left on so it was wonderfully warm and welcoming inside.

The rain fell all night and after a brief respite, began again late morning as we made our way to the small town of Lund. Lund reminded me of highland villages in Scotland I’d visited in the 90s, and strangely enough there was a poster advertising a ceilidh in the hotel, due to take place that night. It wasn’t long before we heard the musicians practising for it as the sound of bagpipes tuning up reached our ears. The band were all female and dressed in full Scottish regalia. It made for quite a surreal sight and sound in the tiny Canadian resort. Lund’s claim to fame is that it’s the northern terminus of the world’s longest highway. The Pacific Coastal Route (101) stretches an impressive 25,000-kilometre route along the western coasts of the Americas to its southern end in Puerto Montt, Chile. Some pics below of quaint Lund.

On we journeyed, to Prideaux Haven and Pendrell Sound via Desolation Sound, a place that definitely belies its name, which was taken from Captain Vancouver’s description in 1792: ‘Our residence here was truly forlorn; an awful silence pervaded the gloomy forest, whilst animated nature seemed to have deserted the neighbouring country.’ This had more to do with his discouragement at the number of dead-end inlets he had recently explored than the surroundings, however. We found it pleasing and pretty, with no sense of desolation in the view from our anchorage. In fact, all the anchorages we spent the night in were beautiful, as the pictures show. We explored the shore in Pendrell Sound and came across a house that had suffered from the weather at some point as half of it had collapsed. A drawer and other household items were floating in the water so it was clearly recent but there was no sign of anyone in the house. On the shore itself, there was evidence of fires from the blackened tree trunks and piles of ashes we saw.

At Teakerne Arm on the 25th September we took a stern line ashore as the water is far too deep to anchor. Two magnificent waterfalls dominate the view in this bay and we were the only visitors on a warm, sunny and clear afternoon. There was a trail leading to the top of the cliff so we were able to sit and watch the water tumbling down perched on the edge of an alarmingly sheer drop.

Our next stop was at a place called Blind Channel Resort and it soon became high on my list of the most beautiful places I have seen on my travels so far. To get there we had to cross no less than four sets of rapids and timing was crucial for each one. There was also the added hazard of huge stray logs in the water which we were keen to avoid, so I took position on deck to watch out for them. The fourth crossing was Greene Point which felt decidedly more turbulent than any of the other rapids; I felt the boat pulling away from the direction Paul was steering in quite a few times. Paul told me later that he’d forgotten to factor in that one so we’d actually crossed them at full flood!

Blind Channel,  presumably named because of the blind spots on either side of its bay, came into view about 3pm on 26th September and grew more attractive the closer we got.

We spent three great days here, making the most of the natural surroundings by strolling on the beach and following the woodland trails to look at the 800 year old Big Cedar, supposedly the largest tree in Canada with a staggering 16 foot diameter. The path winds its way through a magnificent 90 year-old second growth forest of various tall tree species, lush forest plants and babbling brooks.

Jonathan Raban had stopped here in the 90s and remarked that it looked like classic bear territory. He had walked along a forest path to look for a phone ringing his boat bell to scare them away. We had in fact acquired a couple of ‘bear bells’ by now but we still haven’t used them. Anyway the only wildlife we saw during our walks was a squirrel, a woodpecker (amazing to watch it pecking at the tree trunk), and a tiny field mouse. Later, from our pontoon we spotted a sea otter basking on the wood of the opposite pontoon and crept slowly towards it to get a better look. Paul took some great video shots of it for his blog post. I loved the peace and natural surroundings of Blind Channel and I liked the resort owners, too. It would have been easy to spend more time there, but we were aware there would be more to see further along the Inside Passage.

We anchored at Forward Bay on the 29th September on water so still it was like a mirror. A huge bird sat on a branch on the nearby shore and seemed to be watching us from the time we anchored at 3o’clock until just before sunset. I had been watching to see it fly away but typically it flew while I was otherwise occupied and I missed it. Bears have definitely been spotted in this area according to Paul’s anchorage guide; alas, we didn’t see any.

As we prepared to leave for Port Neville, the engine, which had given a few warnings of its possible failure, refused to start and Paul had to take it apart to see if he could fix the fault. My role was to pass things to him in the manner of attendant to surgeon. This was tricky when he called for things like ‘mole grips’ and ‘long-nosed pliers’ and I had no idea what they looked like. I listened to his various cries of triumph, despondency, frustration and enlightenment and wondered if we would be staying another night. Finally, three hours later than intended, we motored off in drizzly, grey, cold weather for the three hour trip to Port Neville arriving at 3pm. There is a visitor jetty there and only one boat was tied to it so with Paul instructing me, I took us slowly in and Paul jumped off to tie the lines. It’s only the second time I’ve done that bit and I was pleased it went so well. The rain was heavy by the time we were settled and the deserted shop on Port Neville looked eerie in the rainy twilight. I couldn’t help imagining what it must be like in the empty rooms. There are quite a few other dwellings on the island but all empty now the summer season is over so totally uninhabited. I think if the weather hadn’t been so awful I would have been sorely tempted to have a wander around.

Alert Bay was our final stop before Sointula and we spent a couple of nights there. I will always think of it as Raven Island although it’s actually on Cormorant Island and claims to be ‘Home of the Killer Whale’. Ravens were everywhere, and very vocal, too. Their piercing cries compete with those of seagulls and crows to create quite a cacophony of sound. Alert Bay is home to the Namgis and Kwakwaka’wakw (try pronouncing that word!) First Nation tribes and they form the largest population on the island. There are over 40 totem poles on the island and a leaflet we picked up in the visitor centre lists them all with detailed explanations. We saw a fair few of them during our walk and made a point of seeing the world’s tallest one at 173 feet high. A visit to the U’mista Cultural Centre provided an invaluable array of information about the culture, history and future of First Nation Tribes and an interesting display of traditional and contemporary masks and other artefacts. It had a great gift shop too.

The other highlight on the island was the ecological park. This is a natural swamp fed by an underground spring. Trees were killed when a dam built to store water for the cannery caused the springs to flood the area. The tall, naked trees now provide perches for bald eagles and ravens and is a paradise for birdwatchers and botanists. There is a boardwalk enabling people to walk across the swamp which made for an enjoyable excursion and a closer look at the ecosystem of the swamp.

We were in Sointula on Malcolm Island by October the 4^th where the boat will now stay until Spring next year. As I type, it’s almost time for us to leave Canada and fly back to the UK. We have grown very fond of Sointula in the week that we’ve been here. It’s been made all the more special by the warm and friendly welcome we’ve received from Jim, who will be looking after the boat during the winter, and his wife Ivana. They kindly invited us to their thanksgiving dinner last Sunday where we enjoyed a delicious feast and met two of their friends in their lovely home on the waterfront. I can honestly say I love it here and will miss it when we leave. That said, I’m looking forward to catching up with family and friends in the UK next week. It’s good to know we’ll be returning here in 2019.  I just hope I get to see a bear next time! Final pictures for this year from me below, of gorgeous Sointula.

 

We made the most of having a car for a couple of days before we left the marina in Seattle’s Elliott Bay. Our gas canisters got refilled in a place about 20 miles away which meant we got to see a bit of rural Seattle on the way. Anything else heavy and bulky was bought, loaded up or dropped off for repair, while weighty provisions were bought and stowed on the first day we had it, so that we were free to drive to Snoqualmie Falls the following day. Snoqualmie was recommended as an excursion in the ‘Mountain Getaways’ section on my Kindle travel guide. Described as a location the Native Americans regarded as sacred, the falls are 268 feet high and mark the place where the Snoqualmie River begins its descent to the sea. With breathtaking views from an observation deck and short hikes in the surrounding woodlands, it sounded very appealing.

We arrived there around noon on a hot, sunny day after driving about 30 miles east from Seattle. Again, it was a delight to drive through Washington State’s countryside, especially as we drew nearer to Snoqualmie where the forest was thick, colourful and lush and the Cascade Mountains loomed in the distance. The Falls were a tremendous sight, it was almost hypnotic to stand and watch them – a timeless and totally natural spectacle. We took a lot of pictures and read all the information boards before setting off to attempt the recommended hike to the lower observation deck. Here, we met with disappointment, however. Although Paul was lots better, he didn’t feel up to the effort the sign (pictured below) warned of, and since it was very hot by then, neither did I!

We compromised and walked down a small part of the trail until we could see just how steep the descent was – the path wound a long way down in a spiral pattern. Two ladies on their way back were getting their breath back on a bench and one look at their faces showed the trial they’d experienced. The thought of climbing that hill in the heat was off-putting and I was relieved to turn back towards the obligatory gift shop. Inside, the products on sale reminded me of the other claim to fame in the area. Nearby, the sumptuous Salish Lodge and Spa, served as the ‘Great Northern Hotel’ in David Lynch’s popular television drama ‘Twin Peaks’. I hadn’t watched it but Paul was a huge fan, so when we learned that the location for the show’s enigmatic introduction (a sign bearing the words ‘Welcome to Twin Peaks’) was a few miles away we thought it was definitely worth the trip to see it. The route took us through a quaint little town with signs advertising The Northwest Railway Museum and as it was well past lunchtime we stopped to have a bite to eat and check out the museum. The ‘museum’ was spread out along the street with some fascinating, iconic locomotives, freight cars and railroad artefacts to look at. It was possible to board a few of the trains and I loved climbing into the engine compartment of a ‘Casey Jones’ (for anyone who remembers that show) one, and several others that were familiar from vintage American TV programmes and films.

We found the exact spot where the Twin Peaks sign should have been but a bit of internet searching revealed that the sign had been removed. Like the ‘Penny Lane’ sign in Liverpool, fans kept stealing it! Still, the bend in the road was easily recognisable and we took some pictures to compare online later. Further along the road, it grew more scenic with steep, forested hills leading down to shallow streams where people were paddling and picnicking. We stopped for a while to dip our feet in the cool water and admire the pretty setting.

I had a rather ungainly entry to Port Townsend a couple of days later, when I went to jump off at the fuel dock pontoon to tie the midship line. I caught my hip on the wooden fender board on the port side and fell onto the pontoon at the feet of the guy who had come to assist us! The only injury sustained was to my pride I’m pleased to say. Port Townsend hosts a Wooden Boat Festival each year and we would be staying at Boat Haven Marina for three days to see as much of it as we could.

It was early evening and drizzling with rain on our first night there. The festival would be closing for the day but we thought it would be good to walk there and have a look around. Halfway along the long, straight road we were asked if we wanted a lift to town by an elderly lady driving a golf cart type of vehicle. We gratefully accepted, thinking it was a free shuttle laid on for the festival. She was very chatty and full of local information and questions about our plans and travels. She gave us her card and told us to call her if we needed a lift back…and then asked for the $6 dollar fee! She will do well with the festival-goers I think. The festival’s first full day was winding down when we got there so we didn’t have to pay to walk in. There was still plenty to see, and the live music tent had a band playing with a bar selling beer, wine and soft drinks. Some stalls were still open and several food shacks were serving so we had a slow amble around getting a feel for the place.

Some of the boats were open and available to look around but we thought we’d save that for daylight. We bought festival food and ate it listening to the band and watching the dancing. The atmosphere was great, despite the inclement weather and I looked forward to a full day there the next day. We walked back in the dark following the main street through the centre of town. It was lively with bars and restaurants, well-lit shops and some historic-looking buildings…and some large bookshops.

We caught the much cheaper festival shuttle bus the following morning. The rain had stopped and it looked set to be a fine day. Once we’d paid the $20 admission fee we agreed to wander separately around the site and meet up later. There were a few talks on that interested Paul that wouldn’t do much for me, and I could spend as long as I wanted looking at ‘stuff’ on sale. There was plenty to look at, watch and listen to – and that was before we walked the pontoons to look at the wooden boats. It was great to see the replica of Joshua Slocum’s boat ‘Spray’, which turned out to be a lot larger than I’d imagined when reading his account of his solo round the world voyage in 1895. The rain held off until early evening which was lucky for stallholders and festival goers alike as it would have been damp, chilly and muddy underfoot as the site had few places to shelter.

On Sunday 9th, the festival’s final day, we decided we’d seen pretty much all we needed to see on the site and since it would be winding down at 3pm it seemed wasteful to pay another $20. It was cold and drizzly too, so an ideal museum-visiting day. The town’s museum was offering a discount for festival goers and even though we didn’t have proof of our attendance the previous day, the friendly staff member let us in at the reduced price. The museum was a delight, despite its small size. Housed on the main street in an old building that used to include the town jail, it was built in 1891 and had a wealth of fascinating photographs and information about the town.  I was thrilled by the fact that a favourite writer of mine, Jack London, had once cavorted drunkenly down the streets and ended up spending a night in one of the cells.

 

Several other establishments and sites had a colourful history associated with their locations. The Palace Hotel used to be a ‘rooming house’ (brothel) and The Rose Theatre, built in 1907 as a vaudeville house still hosts plays, ballets and operas and also operates as a cinema, or movie house as they are called here. Point Hudson, on the southeast corner of the town was a Native American seasonal camp and also the site of Captain Vancouver’s 1792 landing; it is now Port Hudson Marina and R V Park.

The Rose Theatre was a lovely looking old building that just cried out to be explored further. We looked at the films being shown on the display boards outside and on impulse, decided to see one later that evening called ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. Making a real night out of it, we had a drink in a bar overlooking the harbour, went for a walk along the hilly path above the town and then had dinner in a Thai restaurant before the film. The interior of the theatre was stunning. It was a real treat to sit on comfortable sofas with a glass of wine –  served in a glass, not disposable plastic – instead of the impersonal and often confusing layout of multiplex cinemas. It was even possible to stretch your legs out on the chairs and sofas. The film was good, too in an ‘Asian romcom’ way.

We both loved Port Townsend. Paul said he could happily have spent weeks there. It’s a haven for boat owners, with its specialist marine workshops and chandleries. The shops were charmingly unique and the day before we had to leave, I spent a whole afternoon browsing them and the bookshops as well as picking out the old buildings described in the museum and imagining them as they used to be.

We were back in Canada by the middle of September. Previously, we had stayed at Sidney Spit in the Haro Strait, but this time we spent a couple of days in the town of Sidney itself. Both of us found it a bit lacking in something. I think ‘manufactured’ is the best word to apply to it. We had probably been spoiled by the elegance and history of Port Townsend. It did have some very impressive bookshops though, so I can forgive its characterless gift shops and uninspiring hotels and restaurants. The Haunted Bookshop was an especially wonderful place. On the showery morning I visited, the shopkeeper and I were the only people inside, but unfortunately I didn’t see a ghost.

For my birthday on the 14th, we moved to Tsehum Harbour for a stay in Van Isle Marina. It’s a pleasant, family-owned operation with a restaurant, an office, a few workshops and little else since Sidney Town is less than a mile away. Luckily the restaurant had a good menu and we booked a table for the evening. Paul enjoyed a seafood meal and they kindly adapted the vegetarian option into a vegan curried squash and lentil meal which was delicious. We ate with a view overlooking the marina just as the sun set.

Our next port of call was the intriguingly named Pirate’s Cove – straight out of an Enid Blyton story! No pirates spotted, just more rain and a warning in our ‘Best Anchorages of The Inside Passage’ guide that it would be a tricky and challenging task to anchor, involving tying a stern line to the shore. Other deficiencies mentioned were: an entrance guarded by a long narrow reef with a rock that juts out which has grazed the hull of many boats, strong NW winds that could make for an uncomfortable night and oozy mud that causes many boats’ anchors to drag. Thankfully, the ‘charismatic occult leader’, Brother XII who set up a commune on DeCourcy Island in the 1930s, and who used to shoot anyone who dared venture near his island uninvited is no longer in residence. He apparently deserted his followers, after having liberated them from their money and gold (in true pirate fashion) and took off for a life Switzerland. Anchoring was unproblematic and there was no NW wind to trouble us. We did tie a stern line to the shore, but gratefully accepted the help of a neighbouring yacht owner, who saved us the task of getting the dinghy out. The rain continued all evening, so with the heating on and the temperature dropping we had an autumnal meal of burgers, mash and beans and a cosy evening in.

From Pirate’s Cove we motored to an anchorage at Boho Bay via Dodd Narrows and from there to Back Eddy Resort, watching the surroundings grow evermore picturesque as we drew closer to the mountains. Initially intending to stop just to get fuel, Back Eddy turned out to be such an attractive place we decided to stay the night. The tiny village of Egmont was a short walk away and the lady who checked us in told us it has the smallest Post Office in Canada so naturally, that had to be checked out. It was a clear and sunny afternoon after the recent rain, and the light was beautiful as we walked around the harbour. As always, the photos don’t quite capture the beauty of the place but they give a good idea.

Paul’s birthday was the next day, but as we planned to be at anchor, we had his birthday meal in the pub/restaurant opposite the pontoon.

Our journey along the Inside Passage would continue with stops at more destinations with storybook names. We were bound for one which has several claims to be the most beautiful setting of them all: Princess Louisa Inlet.

 

Sunset last night

Starter Motor Problems

If you’re not likely to get excited by Starter motors or Rust, you can skip this post altogether as it’s really dull

A couple of times in the last week the starter motor failed to start the engine. The Starter motor whirred away very fast, but wasn’t connecting to the engine, so the engine couldn’t start.

The bible on such matters, Nigel Calder’s maintenance book suggested tapping it with a hammer, I had already tried this without any luck, but he wisely suggested to do it while the starter was turning. This worked on two occasions, but today it had no effect.

Being anchored in a very quiet deserted calm bay, with no phone signal, no harbours within 20 miles we were basically stuffed, the only option being to put out a pan pan on the VHF and hope one of the passing boats 15 miles away in the Johnstone Strait would hear. I could just make out the weather forecast on the VHF and they were predicting a gale for later in the day so I had hoped to be at our next port before then.

So it was that I started the task of extracting the starter motor from the engine. Mr Calder had explained the principle of the spiral grove that the cog runs along so that centrifugal force causes it to engage, and that I probably just needed to clean that up and all would be ok.

I took a photo of the wiring, so I could put it all back together, removed the connections, and unbolted the three bolts holding it in. Of course it wouldn’t come out, I tapped it with the hammer, tried to rotate it, but all to no avail. Back to Mr Calders book, and sure enough he says if it won’t come out, give it a ‘smart tap with a hammer to free it’. Obviously I must have been doing ‘dumb taps’. So I returned with the hammer and gave it the smartest tap I could muster and sure enough it moved a little and I could easily yank it out. At this point I could see a trail of dried saltwater/rust all the way from the salt water cooling pump down to area around the starter. I had not been able to see this from other angles, but assumed it was related to the small leak I had spotted on the front of the pump the other day. Minor, but I planned to fix this when I do the engine service next week.

Next my favourite part, stripping it down. I love taking mechanical things apart, but usually this is only when they are disposable, as I can rarely put them back together properly. This time I was careful to mark what went where and to take pictures where there might be doubt / memory loss later.

Looking at the motor it was clear what the book said about rust being the problem. The engaging mechanism, I think this might be called the Bendix, was quite rusty, as was the whole area that sat under the engines big cog (Flywheel?). Mr Calder explains that sea water in the bilge under the engine can splash up and the flywheel can squirt it all around and in particular into the starter motor. More on this later.

I was able to take it all apart quite easily, clean it up, and with a combination of WD40, oil then grease, have the cogs that had initially seemed almost seized, to be whizzing around now with no problem.

It only took 3 attempts to reassemble, just because bolts can all look the same doesn’t actually mean they are!

I was feeling quite confident the job was done, next I had to fit the starter back into the engine, lots of jiggling and it eventually was back bolted to the engine, now the big problem was what to do with the wires. Looking at the photo didn’t help, it didn’t cover the area I needed. There where two studs coming out of the back of the starter that didn’t seem to have wires connected to them, yet I had removed the nuts off them so they must have connections, oh dear. Lots of staring at them, reading manuals and checking in the bible didn’t enlighten me, so I connected the wires I was sure about, i.e. the big red ones that go to the solenoid, and tried the starter.

Voila, the engine spun into life, I shut it down, and then I realised there was a sound of trickling water, as if the tap had been left on, Kathy could hear it as well from the other end of the cabin. Looking into the engine, water was trickling from under the water pump and down the side of the engine. So now I knew the cause of the starter motor rust problem, and felt happier, but what was wrong with the pump?

The Water Pump.
This guy pumps sea water around the heat exchanger which cools the fresh water pumped around the engine, and he was leaking a lot.

I decided to leave it until we reached another port where I could get to help if needed, I figured it had been leaking for a few days, the engine was staying cool, so we could continue.
Once we arrived in Alert Bay, with wifi and shops/ferry to a big town, I had a go at repairing the pump. As always there’s always one fastener that won’t budge, and it was a big bolt that had previously had its head rounded off. It took me an hour to get this out, then I found I didn’t have a spare so had to fabricate one from some studding.

The pump cleaned up ok, but it took a while to find the correct pump in the workshop manual as there are two different types used depending on age.Further inspection revealed that I didn’t have any spares, even though I couldn’t see any wear on the rubber o-ring that was in there, and the diagram didn’t show any other seals. I filled the chamber with water and nothing dripped out. I wondered if perhaps the pipes feeding/taking water to the pump were leaking at the join and the water being squirted to the back of the pump. Unlikely, but it was my only hope for a quick repair.
Before refitting the pump I tried to clear up the areas the salty sea had been spraying. Cleaning the hose that feeds water into the transmission oil cooler saw water squirting out, closer inspection revealed a hole in the cooler, caused I expect by the leak above.

For now I have put some tape over the hole, I’m going to have to replace the cooler at some point soon.
Once it was cleaned and re-assembled I started her up. Usually it takes a while to prime, but this time the water was flowing rapidly out to the exhaust, however it was still running out of the back of the pump as well.

I’m going to have to take the next trip to Sointula, our final destination this year, carefully. When I return in April next year I shall bring a new pump and cooler.
I may need to start thinking about a new engine, but that’s a pricey game I don’t want just yet.

Alert Bay is a fascinating place with a great First Nation Cultural centre, More on that in another post. The town is old and the harbours have some very interesting boats, and a lot of very sad neglected ones too.

Paul Collister

After our trip to Princess Louisa Inlet we returned to Egmont, this time to the public wharf where I messed up the mooring, I had assumed that as the tide was flooding I would be pushed away from the boat we were rafting to, so got really close, as it turned out the tide was running the other way, so my bow was pushed onto the boats quarter, and my stern was soon pushed onto the boat behind him. How embarrassing, I thought I was getting better at this. However the tide wasn’t strong and we pushed off, the fenders prevented any damage, but as always some part of my boat wanted to leave me for the other boat, and in this case it was the barbeque that was trying to merge with some steelwork on the other boat. A good push and we were all sorted. The reason the current was the opposite to what I expected was due to it reversing direction near the shore, I should have considered this especially given the name of the marina next door ‘BackEddy Marina’.
The other thing I have learnt here is that often the top of the water, sometimes a foot or more deep can be freshwater that doesnt mix with the saltwater below, and this can cause confusion in currents. Logs can also float on the saltwater and be a foot or more under the surface, but this boat has such a large and deep underwater surface, that it really can grip the currents there that you often don’t see on the surface.

We decided to spend an extra day and visit the Sechelt/Skookumchuck rapids, which were going to be running at 14 knots, if I couldn’t motor through one, at least I could watch it.
It was a great one hour walk through a forest to get there.

The rapids were impressive, and a few fast motor boats were racing back and forth through them, I guess it can get boring around here.

From Egmont we headed northwest to Lund, the only place with a decent grocery store and fuel supply before we headed into Desolation sound.

Like most places we visited, being in the shoulder season it was quiet and we had a whole pontoon to ourselves. For some reason I don’t understand, there was a Scottish Ceilidh planned for that night in the pub, you can see the musicians with their bagpipes below. We opted for a lovely restaurant the other side of the cove and sadly missed the bagpipes 😉

We stayed an extra night here as well as it was so peaceful and relaxing, but soon enough we were on our way to Prideaux Haven in the area known as Desolation Sound. This is considered to be one of the most beautiful areas in the whole of the inside passage, certainly it looked lovely, but I think we had already been spoiled by princess Louisa inlet. 

We anchored in a deserted spot at the end of the bay, whith a couple of yachts off in the distance.

The next day we headed over to Pendrell Sound, this is supposed to be one of the warmest waters around. Partly as it isn’t flooded by the pacific waters every day, also as it’s a dead end, but has a shore, the water heats up more. I needed warm water as I planned to dive on the boat and clean the prop and bow thruster, the prop is not working 100% and the bow thruster hardly works at all. I did dive, and I don’t know who said the waters were warm, presumably an eskimo, as it was freezing. I couldn’t find my wetsuit which didn’t help. The prop didn’t look too bad, but was too deep for me to work on in the cold, so I focussed on cleaning the bow thruster prop with a bent teaspoon which allowed me to get around the back of the prop blades where all the growth was. That worked out well and I have a lot more thrust from it now.
The hotter and very clear water is great for oysters and besides the oyster farms lining the coast here, there were zillions of shells covering the shoreline rocks.

I was worried about slicing the dinghy on them when we went ashore, but it wasn’t a problem 

We dinghied around the head of the inlet amazed at how deep and clear the water was. The cliffs are very fiord like and go down to the water quite steeply and continue down just as steep.

The next day we headed off to Teakerne Arm, Captain Vancouver spent two weeks anchored here recuperating from the horrendous time he was having in Desolation Sound, he gave it that name more because of his mental state at the time, we thought it was a fantastic place, but it was sunny for us, he was there in storms, and couldn’t find anywhere to anchor, eventually getting into Teakerne Arm. My main reason for for visiting this Arm was simply because if he spent so long here, it can’t have been that bad. As it turned out it was a great spot with wonderful waterfalls at the head.Anchoring was fun, three boat lengths from the shore it is 60m deep, two boat lengths off it’s 20m. so we dropped the hook in 30m and reversed until the anchor gripped the side of the near vertical wall below us. We ran a stern tie ashore, tightened up on the chain and the anchor seemed happy. 

We had towed the dinghy for the first time since Malaysia, and headed off to explore a trail that leads to a large lake up above  that feeds the waterfalls, it was a good climb and at the top of the waterfalls we spotted this winch, used, I presume, for pulling logs from the lake over the top of the waterfall and down to below to be rafted up in log booms.

In a small cove beside the waterfall we spotted a house that seemed to be in trouble.The following morning we pushed on to Blind Channel, this was slightly challenging as we had to pass through three sets of rapids, Yaculta, Gillard & Dent, each about 2 miles apart. We were going against a flood tide, so to make the first rapid at slack water meant we would be 30 minutes late for the last rapid. So we aimed to get to the first on the end of the ebb, and race through arriving at the middle rapids just before slack and the final and most dangerous rapids at Dent at slack water. I spent an hour working out tides and passage planning, we ended up having to leave at 07:30 and we arrived just 15 minutes early at 11:38, we dawdled for 10 minutes then went for it. Everything went well right up until the last set of rapids, Dent, featuring the scarily named ‘Devils Hole whirlpool’, which the pilot says “Those who have looked into the Devils hole won’t ever want to revisit it”. Just as we approached I saw a tug emerging but couldn’t yet see its tow. The tugs rarely are pointing, or even travelling in the same direction as their tow, and require a very wide berth. I had to steer to starboard a lot to miss him and that put our course directly over ‘Devils Hole’, looking through the binoculars I couldn’t see any holes in the water so we pushed on, I was soon able to scoot around the back of the tow and hugged the coast, just missing the hole, which just looked like flat water to me. Yet again, my timing worked out well, except for the fact we had another 2 hours of sailing to go, and when I looked on the chart 2 hours later, I saw Greene Point rapids coming up in a few minutes. I hadn’t even realised they were there. Kathy took the helm, slowed us down, while I scanned the pilot books and found out they can be quite dangerous on spring tides, and we were bang on the highest tides and arriving at maximum flood, the worst time. I couldn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about as we approached and decided we should give it a whirl anyway, we turned into the turbulent waters and headed for the resort we could see in the distance. Everything worked out well, besides one bit of a shove and a splash of waves on the boat we were through. It was only later that I worked out the chart was wrong and the rapids were over to our starboard side as we turned to port, missing the worst of it.

Arriving at Blind Channel was easy enough, despite a strong current from the rapids running through the pontoons, the manager here helped us with our lines and we were soon tied up and basking in the lovely hot sunshine. The resort is family run and you can see they have put a lot of love and effort into making it a gorgeous relaxing place. The restaurant was shut as we are well and truly off season now. One other yacht was stranded here waiting for a water pump to be shipped, but besides them we had the place to ourselves.

A walk along the beach revealed this old winch, again used for logging. A trip through the forest led to a 600 year old cedar tree. I sent a postcard to an old friend from here, and the very next day the postman turned up in their plane to collect the mail and deliver new mail. We really are in the middle of nowhere here, It’s a big island, but has no electric, water or telephone. Electricity comes from a generator and a water powered turbine that makes use of the strong currents here. Water from a brook. Amazingly the internet is very good, but I think that is via satellite. I had wondered how you tie up a plane to a dock?It seems a round turn and one half hitch is all that’s needed!

We saw a few creatures on the way here and around the marina. I dropped them into a little video below.

Tomorrow we head of towards Siontula, taking in a few more towns and anchorages on the way.

Paul Collister

Fishermen’s Terminal was always going to be our first place to visit in Seattle. Locations mean so much more after you’ve read about them and had your interest ignited. We’d both read Jonathan Raban’s book about travelling to Juneau, Alaska along The Inside Passage, when his journey had begun at Fishermen’s Terminal in the late 1990s. We set off early on Tuesday morning August 21st on our bikes. Seattle is great for cyclists; it has designated cycle paths and there were only a few hills on the route to Elliott Bay. We called in to Elliott Bay Marina on the way, to book a berth there for two weeks. It’s another huge one with a great view of the Seattle skyline. We stopped for lunch in the restaurant there, trying not to grimace too much at the cost for a bowl of clam chowder, a portion of chips and a coke and glass of wine (we didn’t eat there again).

 

Fishermen’s Terminal looked like a great place to stay. Paul had enquired about a berth there but there was a huge demand this year and they were totally booked up; preference is naturally given to commercial vessels. We had a look at the memorial and read the information boards about its history. The bronze and stone memorial commemorates over 500 people who lost their lives while fishing in Alaska. Flowers and hand-written tributes are sadly constantly in place relating to most recent losses.

The port is home to the huge boats that have featured in documentaries such as ‘Deadliest Catch’. Jonathan Raban was here in the month of April and he watched boats being fitted out for their spring migration. He described the hive of activity involved in the work, with generations of families taking part and concludes that the place felt older than the city itself. I could understand that and also what he meant about the past being ‘alive and usable’, when looking at the old and well-used vessels around me; all their modern navigational aids were hidden from view below. Wooden tables and chairs outside the main building were in use by people eating food from the kiosks and drinks from the bar, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. Nearby were a couple of seafood restaurants and a shop selling organic produce and artisan gifts – all predictably expensive.

Cycling on, we arrived at the outskirts of Seattle, getting ever closer to the Space Needle. It was a hot afternoon and the hills were steep in the city centre. I was flagging badly on one extremely steep one as we pushed the bikes up so Paul did the gentlemanly thing and pushed both of them to the top. The Museum of Pop Culture is right next to the Space Needle (which, after looking up at it and then checking the admission fee of over £70 for the two of us, we unanimously decided to omit from our itinerary).

The museum, however, was a definite on my list of places to visit. Knowing it would be too late to enter and do it justice, we went in to have a quick look around. There was plenty of information about what was on, including a recently opened exhibition celebrating 80 years of Marvel comics and one on the music and gigs of Pearl Jam. These, and a lot more were all available to see for the princely sum of £22. The museum promptly went on Paul’s list of things he could do without seeing ;-). I resolved to return another day on my own. We had a drink in the venue’s café before cycling along the waterfront to find a store called Fred Meyer, one of the US’s ‘everything under one roof’ shops. It was here that Paul began to feel the pain of the infection that he described in an earlier blog post. It had been a long day of cycling around and we put it down to that at the time, little realising it was the beginning of another visit to a hospital in a foreign country. Pics from our cycle ride round Seattle below.

Despite the pain and discomfort, Paul felt up to moving on the next day. We left Shilshole Marina late in the morning for the hour’s journey to Elliott Bay. It was hazy when we left with what we thought was fog but later discovered to be smoke from all the fires on Vancouver Island.  Entering our new marina, I was thrilled to spot several seals basking on the rocks at the bottom of the breakwater (hard to spot in the pics but they are there).

Once settled in the berth, Paul gave in to the need to rest and as time went on, it became clear that moving around for any length of time was painful and uncomfortable for him. We decided to wait until after the weekend and seek advice if he was no better. In the meantime, I made any necessary trips to the marina office or the shops.

I liked Elliott Bay. The Seattle skyline was a delight to see at night when it was clear enough, and it was very peaceful there. Walking the pontoons I often saw seals popping their heads up, and several large pink and purple starfish could be seen in the clear water, clinging to the metal under the pontoons. On Saturday, Paul felt up to a trip to Pike Place Market on Seattle’s waterfront. An Uber taxi dropped us there and we had a slow amble around as Paul was finding walking painful by then. Pike Place Market was established in 1907 when citizens, outraged by the middlemen hiking up prices for fresh produce, demanded a solution, which came in the form of a public market. Over the years, it’s grown into a vibrant place with lots of homes above the storefronts – the majority of whom are low-income elderly people or people living with disability. As well as the usual market stall there are speciality shops, artists and craftspeople, buskers and an abundance of cafes and restaurants. It was predictably busy on a summer Saturday, especially as visiting cruise ships had disgorged passengers into downtown Seattle, and although the historic buildings and winding alleys were attractive and intriguing, we didn’t want to risk Paul feeling worse by walking too much.

We sought out a coffee bar to check whether Seattle’s reputation as a coffee capital is justified. The first ever Starbucks, which opened in 1971 is located at Pike Place but I’ve never been a fan of the chain so we found an independent one in a side street and shared pumpkin cake to go with it (both very nice).

From there it was a short walk to the city public library, a huge, shimmering glass and steel building which has 11 levels. It was a very impressive library and I was pleased to see it was well attended on all the floors. Level ten was a viewing floor with great views across the city, and was also the reading room where we spent a pleasant half hour reading books about Seattle’s music and history and looking at old photos of the city.

A short cycle ride was necessary the next day to buy a part for the electricity shore power connection, having been told off for not having the correct fitting earlier in the day. That short ride confirmed that Paul was getting no better and first thing on Monday morning we set off to seek medical advice. The hospital experience was very fast and efficient and it was such a relief when the experts diagnosed and prescribed treatment, as opposed to our guess work and online research. The cost of the medicine nearly gave me health problems of my own when the chemist told me the amount! The pills, along with days of rest would at least ensure his recovery, albeit not a quick (or cheap) one.

I took myself off to the centre of the city a couple of days later for the promised visit to the Museum of Pop Culture. As well as the Marvel and Science fiction exhibitions, there was one entitled ‘Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film’. I sat and watched clips of the 100 scariest films in a setting with blood on the floor and ‘bodies’ hanging in a serial killer’s lair. Among the exhibits, I was particularly thrilled to see what is claimed to be the actual axe Jack Nicholson used in one of my favourite films, ‘The Shining’. I browsed the grunge music section to my heart’s content and looked at the clothes, instruments and memorabilia of Seattle’s Jimi Hendrix, then finished off with an entertaining look at the ‘Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic’ room. Some pics of the visit below.

It wasn’t until a week later that Paul felt up to venturing into Seattle. We had a list of places we wanted to see and the first of these was The Klondike Gold Rush Historical Park. It was located in the historic district of the city; picturesque Pioneer Square which, as location of the heart of the gold rush era had some fantastic old buildings. The museum tells the story of the late 1890s stampede to find gold in the Yukon and after watching a short film outlining the timeline of the period we both enjoyed a slow walk through the exhibits, reading and listening to fascinating first-hand accounts about the event and looking at old photographs. All for free, too!

The Elliott Bay Book Company was next. It was our intention to walk there, but the map I’d used turned out to be completely out of scale and was way too far to walk to. We were in Chinatown by the time this was discovered but didn’t have time to linger long there. We did stop for a while to watch a guy playing an instrument similar to a violin while a couple had fun playing pavement chess.

An Uber taxi took us to the book store. He dropped us right by the Jimi Hendrix statue, which ticked off another attraction on the list.

Elliott Book Company’s claim to be ‘a must for bibliophiles’ was spot on. A huge store, on two levels with an obligatory coffee shop, it sold a mix of new titles along with a sizable section of ‘reduced in price’ stock. I had a long browse while Paul sat in the café. Next door I’d spotted a likely bar/restaurant for a late lunch and we walked through its door just after three. The hours between 3 and 5 was ‘Happy Hour’, the guy who greeted us explained. Unfortunately this didn’t translate to any discounts or two for one, as other establishments offer during these hours, it meant that they only served some of what was on the full menu so that they could concentrate on getting ready for dinner service. As he went on to explain the permutations in further detail I couldn’t help thinking they had overcomplicated things: I had to keep asking for clarification until he produced a little slip of paper listing what was on offer. A somewhat dubious interpretation of Happy Hour in my opinion. Still, the bowl of chips and glass of wine for me and meatball sandwich and coke for Paul were welcome refreshments.

We strolled through a small city centre park after that, en route to get the Seattle Center Monorail. This mode of transport provides a fast route between downtown and central locations, and along with several other Seattle landmarks, was built for the 1962 World’s Fair.

The Space Needle, where we got off was another one and we sat on the grass for a while watching it whisk people up to its top observation deck and down again at stomach-lurching speed. This was Labor Day weekend, the equivalent of Britain’s May Day Bank holiday weekend, and alongside the park a festival called Bumbershoot was taking place. This is a three day event when performers from all over the world converge for concerts, theatre productions, independent film screenings and literary events. Apparently it’s permitted to smoke pot in there and we watched a queue of people having their bags searched, presumably for weapons or drugs that weren’t cannabis, before entering the gates to join in the fun.  I mention weapons because signs on the doors of quite a few premises bear the words ‘no firearms or weapons permitted inside’ – words that are somehow simultaneously worrying and reassuring.

With Paul now well on the road to recovery we decided to brave another bike ride on Labor Day Sunday. Paul had found a park that he said didn’t look too far away or too strenuous. At least it wasn’t far away! It’s a shame that the steep hills hadn’t shown show up on the map, however. It had started off well; a cool breeze, long empty roads, interesting upmarket neighbourhoods with pretty and unique houses to look at as we cycled effortlessly along. Further on, we had to ascend in order to reach Discovery Park. It had got hotter by then and the hills were much too steep to cycle up. We ended up pushing them for most of the way – I thought the hills would never stop coming (I think I may even have whined about that a little bit ;-)).  The park was well worth the effort, though. It was fascinating. I knew little about it until afterwards but we came upon such beautiful, big, empty cream-coloured houses as we rode through. They looked like the sort of houses used for American movies, particularly in supernatural ones, such as The Amityville Horror. The pictures show what I mean. There were several of them but none seemed to be occupied. I would have dearly loved to look inside. Signs indicated they were military-owned but it wasn’t until I looked online that I found out they were part of the US Army’s Fort Lawton base. Apparently some of the territory had been sold to the city but part of the park is still used for training and officers’ accommodation. I spent an inordinate amount of time just staring at those enigmatic houses in the late afternoon light.

We took a slight detour on the way back, to visit Fishermen’s Terminal for refreshments at the pub there. I love sitting on the high stools in American bars where they place a coaster in front of you on the counter with a flourish before you’ve even ordered a drink. To our left were three guys who had clearly been there for quite some time. When we took our seats, one of them moved his belongings from the one next to us and we had a polite and humorous interaction about it being ok to sit there. At least, I hope it was polite and humorous because I couldn’t make out what he was saying to me due to the background noise and the less than sober words he spoke – but he chuckled a lot so I took that as a positive sign. Paul tried the pub’s clam chowder and we shared some fries with ranch and barbecue sauce (a new one to us, and very tasty). As we ate, the conversation between two of the three guys next to us gradually changed from a tone of amiable chat to one of goading confrontation.  I could hear it building up beside me, with phrases like ‘I’m just stating my opinion – didn’t intend to cause offence’, and ‘we’re having a discussion, it shouldn’t need to turn into an argument’. Thankfully the third guy, who I guessed was the captain of the fishing boat they had come from managed to calm the situation before it turned into a classic bar room brawl.

No doubt there was plenty more of Seattle that we would have loved to see if we’d had more time and, more crucially, money but we felt we had seen the parts we wanted to and had definitely soaked up the vibrant atmosphere of the city. The car we had booked for the next couple of days would allow us to explore locations further afield.