Fin

Alas, it's aaalll over. Today we return to Bellingham, and re-start our lives. Cruising season is definitely over for us, for a variety of reasons. 

It was fun, though hard or uncomfortable at times, and we have seen some amazing scenery, met some wonderful people and had some great sailing (especially in the last two days).

Anyway, thanks for checking out our pics - I hope you enjoyed them.  

Dave

Winding down

Mount Baker points the way back home.

Ganges Harbor, BC, on our last day there. The water looks inviting, no?

Hmm . . . I think I'd rather drive a school boat than a school bus!

Rebecca at Rosario Resort, on Orcas Island, back in the States. Eight days from now the resort closes, having been sold and due to be totally reconfigured. In the meantime, we are enjoying the amenities, including the hot tub and indoor pool!

Dinghy dawn patrol, off of Wallace Island, BC. 

Wildlife

Turns out otters aren't so elusive, after all! Four of them snacked noisily amongst the docks of our latest anchorage, here at Rosario Resort, on Orcas Island (USA!).

Group grope . . . .

A big jellyfish, out of its element. We saw many of these on the beach, but I have observed that most of them are dead before they get left high and dry by the falling tide.

Otter butts! I took this pic by lowering my camera under the dock and clicking randomly. They didn't seem too perturbed to be eating - loudly - directly underneath us. We could see their vicious little teeth chomping away through the cracks in the dock, mere inches from our toes.

They aren't ALL yachts . . . .

So, I'm bored, and there clearly aren't enough boat pics on this blog, so here are some photos I've snapped of various interesting boats we've encountered on our travels lately. Feel free to skip over them if you aren't into this stuff! 

Enjoy!

This is one enormous monstrosity, that nonetheless looked pretty comfortable.

You gotta love those 4x4 outriggers on this liveaboard. 

Someone was living in this one, too.

Baby Ruth I, with Becks at the helm.

Baby Ruth II comes apart and nests.

err . . . .

A pair of funky homebuilt hardshell fiberglass kayaks in Genoa Bay, BC.

This is a wooden Sea Bird yawl (about 26' long),  the original of which sailed across the Atlantic a hundred years ago or so - just to prove it could be done.  This one is a bit worse for wear, located in Tsehum Harbor, Vancouver Island, BC.

A classic, located in Fisherman Bay, Lopez Island, WA.

This you'll likely never see again - a pacific Proa! Like half a trimaran. The outrigger stays upwind all the time, as it "shunts" rather than tacks. Pt. Townsend, WA, at the Wooden Boat Festival.

A strange but cool little sailboat I saw. I do believe it's steered with a whipstaff rather than a tiller! Vancouver Island.

There are an unbelievable number of derelict and semi-derelict cruising trimarans from the 1970's around here - often 3-4 in every harbor. They come in all shapes and sizes. This one is moored at the end of Long Harbor,  Salt Spring Island, BC.

Fancier . . . .

Note the shrink-wrapped helicopter . . . .

We thought having a Cal 20 keelboat as a dinghy (check out the back deck) was pretty impressive - until we saw the boat with the helicopter.

This is the most fab boat I've ever seen, though - a copy of Phillip C Bolger's Moccasin!!!

This one is nice too, as is the one below. Both are very nice traditional cutter rigged boats, of wood.

Stuck!

Not in the mud, but rather by some recalcitrant weather. Currently it's blowing about 30 knots, though there were gusts in the 50's last night. Windy! Luckily, we are tied up at a marina in Ganges Harbor, again, so no worries. Luckily, too, the off-season prices kicked in this week, so it isn't costing us too much to stay here for a few day.  

Anyway, I'm bored, so I thought I'd add some random pics:

Finally, an internet connection!

First: Happy Birthday, Dad! I hope you have a good one!

Second: Thanks again to Judy and Jerry - we had a fine time sailing with you!

Rebecca and I are currently exploring the Canadian Gulf Islands, located on the E coast of Vancouver Island, BC. We spent the last two or three weeks cruising in tandem with our friends Jerry and Judy Roloson, who sail in a fabulous Aleujela 39 cutter. They are very experienced cruisers and we followed them from harbor to harbor, learning all we could. They sailed back to Bellingham a few days ago. We had a great time with them, and we're especially glad they were around when our motor went kaput. At the time, we had just passed a prominent point of land and, luckily, had gotten out of the worst of the current. We quickly put the small motor on the dinghy and used it to push the big boat into a nearby inlet. I phoned Jerry to let him know we were going to miss out on dinner in Ganges Harbor that night, but they gallantly came to our rescue, and selflessly towed our little boat the few remaining miles into harbor! Thanks again - it sure was great to see you steaming in to save us!

Right now, we are back in the selfsame Ganges Harbor, on Salt Spring Island. We're anchored a bit offshore, and we'll probably stick around a few more days to wait out some bad weather. Then we'll head back N, up to Nanaimo, which we'll probably use as our jumping off point for the Sunshine Coast, over on the mainland.

Cruising season is about over for most people, and the anchorages and marinas are relatively empty. Nice for us, as long as the weather stays sunny!

Here's some random pics:

Generic sunrise(s), whilst otter hunting. No luck, though - I guess they don't get up that early!

Speaking of otters (sorry, no pics), I've encountered a dozen or so, so far. They are all river otters, which took over the vacancies left when the sea otters around here were hunted to extinction for their pelts. The river otters are cool and curious and I've snuck up on most of them in my kayak. One, spotting me watching him from 20 feet away, eventually dove under the water. Next thing I knew, he was kicking the bottom of my kayak! I recovered in time to see him do a summersault underneath me before swimming away. Yes, that was very, very cool. 

Rebecca finally got a pic of a seal. This is the ubiquitous Harbor Seal, which often look alarmingly like dogs swimming miles away from shore. Click on the picture and you can see a larger version (this works for most of these pics, btw.).

House boat row, in Birds Eye Cove. There's a few of these places around the Gulf Islands. Pretty cool, though damp, I suspect.

Becks will touch anything! This is the slimiest starfish I've ever seen (it's upside down), which Jerry caught in his crab trap. Only Rebecca would handle it. Ugh.

I like crabs - though they don't seem to reciprocate.

Here's Becks, modeling the latest in Fall Boatwear. Sydney, BC.

Apparently, Waifs and Urchins are not exactly the same thing . . . .

Oddly, people eat these. Who first thought of that??

Gipsy Rose II, headed for Canadian waters on a wonderful PNW morn.

Just a few of the 100,000 or so jellyfish inhabiting tiny Tod inlet, near Buchart Gardens, in Victoria, BC.

Gewgaws along the dock, Genoa Bay, BC.

Note the solar powered lawn lamp we use an anchor light. Ask me if I'm clever! That green thing is covering our barbecue grill - which Rebecca "loves," but we've use just once. Here we are sailing through the narrow entrance into Tod inlet.

If I didn't already have a boat . . . .

Yeesh, what happened to all my hair? BTW, that's a Greenland style kayak paddle (aka: a stick), that I use, which works as well as "Euro" style paddles, and which also has some advantages over them, too. Note the low freeboard on my boat, which is a very low-volume kayak, designed to be easily rolled. It is that - and it makes for a great day paddler, too, as long as I don't spend more than a couple of hours in it at a time (it fits tight, with little foot or wiggle room).