Day 37, Thur 26th July. 51-02N, 130-12W. Daily Run: 111 NM. Weather: 10-20 Knots NW, Foggy,Cold & Sunny, 106 NM to go

Day 37, Thur 26th July. 51-02N, 130-12W. Daily Run: 111 NM. Weather: 10-20 Knots NW, Foggy,Cold & Sunny, 106 NM to go
We finally escaped the clutches of the high pressure system late yesterday afternoon, however the high has pushed east after us and squashed up against a low pressure system, creating packed isobars off the coast of Vancouver Island, causing a gale warning to be issued for the southern part of the island. So we have had good strong winds and a rising sea for the last 20 hours or so. I have had to reduce sail down to just a double reefed main, and no headsail to keep our speed down to 5 knots. I also had to hand steer a few times during the night as on this course, the boat is swaying around a lot with the waves and every now and then the auto helm just gives up and lets the boat turn into the wind where it stalls and we are basically ‘heaved to’ . I expect if I had more sail up, and the headsail, we could make 8 knots or more and the steering would be more effective. However this would have us arriving in the night near the channel entrance/bar, which we don’t want.
Of course today is the day things decide to break, our last day in the ocean and the fresh water isn’t working. It doesn’t take me long to find that there is no power getting to the pressure pump. The radar also stopped working last night, so I was hoping for a common connection failure affecting both, this was not to be. The radar was fixed easily, there is an inline fuse fitted behind the main switchboard, a little twisting of this and power was restored. I remembered this has happened before, and I really must replace that fuse holder. The water pressure pump however will take some time to trace where the cable is broken, and I will probably just run a new cable from the switchboard to the pump. In the meantime I have borrowed the supply to the water maker pump, which handily sits next to it, and we have running water again, even if the tank is very low. Of course I can’t run the water maker now.
I have marked on the chart waypoints for 18:00 22:00 06:00 etc so that I can pace our arrival at the channel for 8AM tomorrow (Fri). Conditions won’t be great there, but if it’s at all feasible to enter the channel, we should have a brisk 3-4 hour run down to the marina, and be there by this time tomorrow.
We have dug out our Canadian courtesy flag which I will be hoisting later, I also need to get the red ensign out and the Quarantine flag.
I’m beginning to wonder about the coast to coast radio programme, as last night was all about witchcraft, with witches phoning in. The program is interspersed with Bloomberg financial reports and adverts for such dodgy things as shares in companies that own mortgages, enabling you ‘to have a stake in the property market’ I’m sure a similar thing was around in 2007? The fact that the program goes out after midnight might be a clue.
Everything else is great, I managed to bake a nice loaf yesterday, even if I did overdo the sugar a bit in order to help the yeast along. I can’t wait to get updated instructions from Tim about the chemistry I so obviously don’t understand. It’s too rolly today for Kathy to do any cooking, so at long last we are going to break open the reserve supply of pot noodles. I used to quite like the pot noodles we had back in the UK, but our stock here are all Asian, and the first ingredient they put in, I’m sure, is a sachet of ‘blow your head off’ spice. So it can be a bit hit and miss. We have tried to buy the blandest looking ones for me, Kathy is fine with the spices.
I’m very confident that this will be the last blog update I write from a rocking and rolling boat this year, and tomorrows entry will be from the peaceful dockside bliss of Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, BC. Assuming they have a space 🙁
Paul Collister