Thanks, Seattle!

We're back in Port Angeles after visiting Seattle one last time. Great seeing everyone! The next leg is to San Francisco, and we expect this will take 2-3 weeks, so check back in mid September. We'll be in Berkeley from mid-September through at least October, and anyone is welcome to visit. We'll be spending some time with K's parents, so the boat may be available for guests in town.

BTW, our new phone number is 206-359-5404. The old one has been disconnected.

- K&M

Hot Springs!

Where did we leave off again? Ah, yes, we were at Ucluelet, were we not? And we didn't say much about the town. Right, then. Ucluelet. Um, small town, lots of sport-fishing, whale-watching, and surfing, industry based on German tourists (yup, and don't ask me why... Whale-watching tours, in German), drunk fishermen handing out Kokanees at the dock. M saw a sea lion romping around next to our boat (see picture below). Frankly, the better Ucluelet stories are those when we stopped on the way back south, and we'll hit those later.



We left Ucluelet early on Thursday, August 16th. Dare I say that a better day of sailing has not been had, anywhere, ever. It started out by trying to scare us off; as we pulled out of the Ucluelet inlet, we hit a squall. At first, we had maybe 15 or 20 knots of wind on the beam, and we were flying along under main and staysail, but then we started hitting gusts of 25 or so, and then a sustained 25. The boat heeled way over, and we pulled up into it, sails flogging, to reef our mainsail. Of course, as soon as the sail was reefed (and it takes a while, when the sail is slapping violently back and forth) the wind slackened. But it turned into 15-20 knots on the aft quarter, and we enjoyed a downhill sled ride all the way to Hot Springs Cove. Not only that, but of several squalls that passed through, they all missed us (or we them), in front, to the side, behind. We didn't get rained on again the whole day.

Nature, who I think was feeling a bit remorseful for trying to blow us over earlier, decided to treat us to some fabulous displays of the sort of raw beauty that an engineer like me can only estimate would inspire a poet or philosopher to write something interesting. A gray sky may frequently be gloomy, but when the sky is gray, and the sea gray and frothy; yet a hole opens in the clouds, and lights a tract of green forest, or a far-off rocky isle, the contrast is... well, is... um... heck, I said I'm not a poet, look at the darned photos and see for yourself. And for good measure, Nature also threw in some whales, several of whom were eating, or playing, or doing various whale-like things as we approached Hot Springs Cove. Whales are (loosely) like lightning, in that they never appear twice in the same spot. "OK, I just flopped my tail really hard on the water, and what that means is I'm going to flop it again really hard on the water in the same spot, so get your cameras ready." Nope. You get your one tail-flop, you get the camera ready, and then nothing, until five minutes later he spouts on the other side of the boat. So, no pictures of whales doing "Free Willy"-s over the boat, however we did get a couple of dorsal fins to prove we saw them.

Now, on to Hot Springs Cove. What a place! We could easily have spent another week, and it was a sad day when we had to pull up anchor and leave. It's really a quite simple place, offering, yes, a cove, and, right again, hot springs. But these have been done so well!

The cove is pretty, surrounded by dense forest. There's a small Indian village (not like the movies, just a normal-looking small town of houses, but happens to be an Indian reservation) on one side. On the other is a short dock and a campground. There's no road, all access is by kayak, boat, or seaplane (more on seaplanes in a minute). The no-road part is key, otherwise this place would be just another overexposed tourist attraction where the big crowd and accompanying vendors would prevent anyone from having a thoughrougly enjoying and relaxing experience. Even though several tour boats and planes provide a steady stream of people between about 10am and 6pm, we were able to have the place mostly to ourselves when we went outside of those hours. The only conveniences available associated with the hot-springs is a boardwalk all the way from the dock to the hot springs about a mile through the rainforest preventing your feet from getting muddy. The hot springs themselves, were pretty unique, water welling up from the ground cascades over a rock wall (a perfect shower for those of us who like it HOT!) to feed a number of small rock pools (50 degrees C or 122 degrees F) before it runs into the ocean. Depending one the tide, the bottom pools are partly fed by the hot spring and partly by the waves rushing in from the ocean creating a pretty interesting effect. For a really refreshing experience, you can jump into one of the ocean pools to cool off to a mere 15(?) degrees C before jumping back into one of the hot pools. All with a magnificent view of course.

Yow, there's pretty ladies at the hot springs!

Forsooth, it burneth thy nether regions!

Although, some can take it better than others...

Look. What is that? There on the rock? Is that... a Merman?

We went back in the morning. It was still hot.

Here are some pools where the ocean water and hot springs water mix alternately.

And here's a rocky channel where the waves roll in. At the level of the tide, you could sit on the rock as the cold waves washed over you.

Looks like our Commodore just can't be satisfied.

The boardwalk itself is particularly cool, as yachties who have stopped by the cove have carved their boats' names into the planks. And yes, naturally, Almost-Master-Woodcarver M and Definitely-Amateur-Sketch-Artist K combined efforts to immortalize Ho-Beaux. Step aside, Michaelangelo!

If you want to stay at Hot Springs Cove, but don't have a boat, like we said there's a campground. But there's also the InnChanter (www.innchanter.com), an old wooden freighter that Shaun, the proprietor, converted into a bed-and-breakfast(-and-dinner) inn. Shaun was a super nice, interesting, easy-to-like fellow. He invited us to tour the inn, and we had tea and cookies with the guests. 'Course, we forgot our camera, but we have an exterior picture (check the InnChanter website for interior pictures):

He had the best plank, too:

Amazingly (because the interior was so nice), Shaun had bought the boat about 15 years ago, when it was decommissioned as a freighter, and converted it himself to an inn, constructing the above-deck level that extends forward from the pilothouse. I highly recommend grabbing your nearest romantic sweetie and making your way up there. Sure, camp for a few nights if you like, but stay at the inn for at least a couple, 'cause it was pretty swank. Also, you get to borrow the inn's kayaks and such, to go explore other coves, rivers, and such nearby. Shaun pointed out his favorite places, but in the end we didn't have time to take our dinghy out there.

As mentioned before, you can get there from Tofino, or if you are extremely brave, by seaplane. In Canada, if you are too aggressive to be trusted with a sport-fishing boat, they send you to seaplane school. Picture an entire cove, with only a few boats anchored near the dock, and a rather vast open area of calm water. Where do you think, as a seaplane pilot, you'd choose for a runway? If you said "right between the InnChanter and that sailboat, and a foot to the left of that old mooring buoy," you're already halfway to your pilot's license!

Here's a photo of takeoff. Fly with this guy, he wasn't one of the crazies.

Well, we've been at Hot Springs Cove for three days, and it's time to leave. Sigh. Actually, we hadn't been planning to stay the third day, but did because we liked the place a lot, and also because the winds were against us. The wind usually blows from the Northwest, but since our great sail up there, they'd kept blowing from the Southeast. Well, after the third day they were still against us, so we had to motor all the way back to Ucluelet. (Sure, you can tack a sailboat slowly upwind, but we are now unfortunately on a schedule, in order to get ready for the long leg to California. To make Ucluelet in a day, we had to motor.)

Back at Ucluelet, we wanted to check our email. This time, we didn't stay at the marina, we anchored in the harbour. So, we rowed our dinghy into the marina. Aw, chickenlips, we forgot a rope to tie off to the dock! No problem, let's row into this shallow corner of the bay and haul our dinghy up on the grass there, by the campground.

OK, dinghy's ashore. We went into town to find Internet. We'd heard of this place, the Driftwood, a restaurant that also had Internet access. This they did, although unlike real civilization where they have wireless, here they have a coin-feed Internet station. You drop in a Loonie ($1 Canadian coin) and it starts counting down from 10 minutes. The computer was all sealed off in this metal box, so we couldn't upload photos, which is why we couldn't post this blog earlier. (For contrast, here we are at the marina in Port Angeles, and there is free wireless at the dock.)

I can't be too negative on the Driftwood, though. To make up for the limited Internet access, they had THE BEST FISH-AND-CHIPS OF ALL TIME. Since they transcended words (and I'm not a poet, remember?) I won't insult them by trying to describe them.

Well, OK, at least we checked email and let folks know we'd be in Seattle this weekend, and had a yummy dinner and a cold beer. Yay. Back to the dinghy. Well, of course the tide had gone out, and the shallow corner of the bay was now a muckfest 300 feet from the water. We tried carrying the dinghy around to the docks, but it was too far. Squish! Squilsch! Mish! Ewww... (For those of your in Norway reading this, the tides here in the Northwest USA are on the order of 3 meters twice a day, so we really should have known better than to pull up on the shallows.)

From Ucluelet, we went to Port San Juan again. Motoring again, because now there was hardly any wind at all. Pretty uneventful, at first:

Who said that "pride goeth before a fall"? That was Apu on The Simpsons, right?

Clunk! Screeeeeeeeeech! Smoke! From under the sink! Aaaaaaaaa! Stop the engine! Is something on fire!?

Well, it smelled like rubber, so I knew it was a belt burning. Not oil or gas, at least, which was a good thing. After the engine stopped, the smoke cleared out, and I went to investigate. Well, well, well... Guess who decided he wanted to be in our blog again. Yup, Mr. Alternator Bracket snapped, this time while the engine was running, at the hole drilled by the Hot Machinist; and the alternator fell down onto one of the belts, the friction burning the belt and creating the smoke. At this point, I could launch into a lengthy discussion about moment arms, belt tension, engine vibration, and metal fatigue, but then I'd have to phone to wake you up afterwards, so let's just say that I fixed the problem temporarily. I bolted a padeye to the wall by the engine, ran a shackle through the bolt hole in the alternator that used to bolt to Mr. Bracket, and ran a bunch of twine loops between the alternator and wall. The twine flexes a bit to give with the engine vibration, but is stiff enough that it keeps sufficient tension on the belt. How do you like that, Mr. Alternator Bracket? Replaced with a bunch of STRING! Ha!

So far, the fix has got us to Port San Juan, and then to Port Angeles (again motoring for lack of wind). On the way, we saw some Orcas. And this one crazy little bird landed on the boom right above our heads, looked at us, then started pecking his way up the sail cover. Mmm, canvas.

Now we are in Port Angeles. (USA! USA! USA!) I was a bit worried that clearing customs would be a pain in the rear, but it was actually not hard, although they did charge us $27.50 for a yearly boat ID sticker. They drop by your boat at the dock, and the customs guy was very courteous.

We'll be spending Wednesday and Thursday here working on the boat. Friday we're going to rent a car and go to Seattle for the weekend. Then back here on Sunday, and hopefully to Neah Bay on Tuesday or Wednesday. We'll probably do another blog update before we leave Port Angeles. Looks like there might be a few things in town worthy of a closer look. Primarily, there's a mega-yacht manufacturer (Westport) around here somewhere, that I hope gives tours. We are parked right accross from some of their latest products, incuding a huge 50-meter tripledecker. Also our neighbour is an artist who gave us a walking map of all the sculpture art in town (including several of his own pieces), so we may check that out as well.

News Break!

This just in...

Well, we are on our way back to Seattle from Hot Springs Cove. We're in Ucluelet again, but this late on a Sunday we couldn't find wireless, just this community computer, and so we can't load photos and write a real blog.

Here's the big breaking news. We will be back in Seattle for a couple of days, including Friday and Saturday next weekend. So... The big dilemma was who all we should call and say hi to, without creating yet another "going-away" type of event. I mean, either we call a couple folks and shaft a bunch of others, or else we call everybody and have a huge event on our hands. Neither struck us as a good option, so, instead we are posting this blog. (Also, our phone got wet and has been beeping at random, thinking it's charging when not plugged in, and refusing to turn off, so we may or may not be reachable by phone.)

We will be at People's Pub, Friday at 6:30pm, for food and beers. Anyone who would like to join us, we would love to see you! And we'll leave Saturday evening open too.

Cheers, and please look forward to a full blog entry soon. Yup, Hot Springs Cove was everything you'd imagine, and then some. Stay tuned!

- K and M

The Broken Group (and it's not GnR)

A number of years back, we went to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. A vast stretch of unspoiled nature, to be sure, but from the perspective of a canoe-borne traveller, well summed up in a few words: Trees, Bugs, Mud, Rocks, and Water.

Enter Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island. Here again we find ourselves paddling around unspoiled nature; but here, the operating words are reduced to Trees, Rocks, and Water. Except for you Minnesotan mud and bug enthusiasts out there (Erdmann? Bergen?), I think most would agree that the Boundary Waters has nothing on Barkley Sound.

Specifically, in Barkley Sound there is a set of numerous small islands called the Broken Group, which is a part of the Pacific Rim National Park (that is, National to Canada). These are forested with the thickest old-growth rainforest you could imagine. Ben, you will be glad to hear that it is SO thick that bushwhacking is not even an option. (As proven by our achorage neighbours who set out to "wing" their way to a freshwater lake on Effingham Island After litteraly crawling around the underbrush for 4-5 hours they abandoned all hope of finding the lake or their way back and flagged down a fishing boat for a ride back to their boat). The outer islands are pounded by Pacific Ocean waves, creating cool things like Sea Caves, and also protecting the inner islands from the swell. Among the inner islands, the water is flat and tranquil, and the forest reaches its branches right down into the water. Beaches are stacked with driftwood accumulated over the centuries, which M likes to imagine belonged at one time to Indian Longhouses. (Indians did in fact inhabit these islands.)

The actual stories of us paddling our dinghy about are less interesting than the photos we took. Without further ado, here they are. See if you can spot Merz Cove, Merz Arch, (hey, I didn't see any names on the charts) and an eagle.

(This cave was straight out of a fantasy storybook, one of those stories with a Unicorn King; all glowing and purple, with strange but not unfriendly creatures about. "Unicorn King in the Land of the Starfishies.")

Today, we are in the town of Ucluelet, a small town at the northwest edge of Barkley Sound. We had our first real whale-sighting on our way here earlier today. We didn't have time for photos, but the whale(s?) performed a few stunts close enough to wake up Karl at the helm. The splash was big enough to make him think one of the small powerboats that buzz around here endlessly, had flipped around, and he was dissappointed to learn that it was a whale instead. But we hope for some photos later now that we know how to spot them. Basically seek out the closest congregation of at least 20 small powerboats and you should be able to find the whales in the middle.

Next we plan to go to Hot Springs Cove (Hot Springs! Woo-Ha!) for a couple days. That'll be the farthest North we get. Probably no Internet there, so we'll post again on our way back down.

The West Coast!

Authors' note: Some of this is written by M, some by K, and some by both. Skilled readers may be able to tell the difference.

Leaving Victoria:

Free wireless internet cafes haven't quite made it to this corner of the world yet, so our updates will be a little infrequent for the rest of the Vancouver Island trip. We're currently in Port Desire (next to Bamfield) in Barkley Sound. But we should start off where we left off, with us being tourists in Victoria. We were only enticed into seeing one major attraction which was Miniature World. Somewhere on the order of 50 historical and fictional scenes, ranging from famous battlefields to Gulliver being tied up by the Lilliputians, had been recreated by some extremely patient folks. The smallest people in the scenes were maybe 5 millimeters tall and they all appeared to be different. A teacup was maybe the size of a fruitfly, but most definitely looked like a teacup. Mindboggleing! Other than that we just strolled around and tried to soak up some of the atmosphere in town. They are seemingly very proud of their British roots, and the city definitely had the most European air about it than any other West Coast City we have been to so far.

Our second thought after we pulled into our pimp slip as we arrived Victoria (after "Wow, this is AWESOME!), was "How on earth are we going to be able to pull out of here without trashing 3 other boats?" The nice lady who checked us in reassured us that they would only put boats behind us that were not staying as long as we did, ensuring a clear path for us to pull out. Well, wrong. We ended up with two boats rafted up behind us and had to arrange with them to move so we could get out. For some reason "4am" didn't seem like a good answer to the question of when we or were planning to leave, so instead we suggested bewteen 8 or 9. Since we got such a late start, we ruled out making it to Port San Juan, and instead planned for a relatively leisurely sail to Sooke Harbour 15 miles away.

Victoria to Sooke:

I had always pictured "adventurous" sailing as arriving after some ocean passage or another, into some exotic port, all sea-spray and wind as the boat surfs the waves under a reefed mainsail. I was only part right: the sea-spray and wind part. Adventurous sailing is motoring into 20+ knots wind with an opposing tide, creating steep choppy seas, while a Canadian warship conducts "towed sonar array" drills that require a kilometer's clearance. Aaa!!! He's heading right for us! Steer away, steer away! Wait, wait, he's turning through. Whew. Aaa!!! He's heading right for us! (and so on...)

And, well, need I even say it, in the afternoon we made only a couple knots, motoring full speed, as we fought the current into Sooke Harbour. We did actually get the sails up, but due to the current we spent a couple hours tacking back and forth across the Straits, not actually moving upwind.

Don't give up on us yet, though! I know we've been telling a lot of stories about not sailing well. Fortunately, I'm writing this a few days on, and I can say that things get better. Not just yet, though...

Sooke Harbour:

Lesson of Sooke Harbour: as a sailing vessel, beware any place that is known as a "mecca of sport-fishing". Some people think sport-fishing consists of catching fish. Actually, sport-fishing is the act of piloting a small powerboat at full speed through all sorts of narrow channels, coves, harbours, and such. Do they make sport-fishing boats with a throttle, or just a "go git 'em!" button?

Yes, for you Washington climbers out there, I guess I do sound a bit like Ira Spring. I'm griping a lot, and it wouldn't be quite fair to the Sooke-ese at this point, not to mention that we DID anchor more or less in the middle of the channel. There were only a couple places to anchor, as the harbour was shallow, but crab pots seemed to congregate in the most desireable anchorage. And for whatever reason we spent two nights at anchor here.

Sooke to Port San Juan:

The crew of Ho-Beaux had some difficulty selecting their departure time to Port San Juan. I's funny, on most vessels, the captain has ultimate say over the crew, but not so on this boat. We had a board meeting at midnight, then again at 3am and at 6am. Fog developing overnight was the main reason for the indecision rattling the captain and crew. After about 60 little powerboats had zipped by and the two other sailboats in the bay had lifted anchor, Ho-Beaux finally glided out of the harbour around 8:30am, still in the fog. Even so, we had a pretty good day on the water, making good speed motoring against no currents (!) until the wind picked up in the afternoon allowing us to complete the remaining 1/4 of the distance under sail. We found that we could make about 6 kts (4 kts vector upwind) in a 15 kts breeze. The boat was perfectly balanced in the smooth winds and more or less steered itself between tacks. The fog that was supposed to evaporate in the morning, turned out to stick around all day, which is why this boat carries 2 backup GPS units just in case. Port San Juan thankfully didn't live up to it's reputation of providing poor anchorage and captain and crew slept soundly the whole night for the first time while at anchor. We would have liked to stop by the supposedly large upscale pub supported by the tiny fishing community (and all the hikers on the West Coast Trail), but as in Sooke, we were not quite brave enough to leave Ho-Beaux alone at anchor.








Port San Juan to Bamfield (Port Desire):

Let's get the last bit of negativity out of the way, so we can start talking about the fun stuff. 8 hours motoring, zero wind. None. But big (2 meter) ocean swells nonetheless. Boat goes up, boat goes down. Boat goes up, boat goes down. Yup, fog too. Gray ocean, gray sky.

But wait, what is this? A tickle on my cheek. A ruffle in my hair. Is it... Is it not... Wind? Stop the boat. Yes, yes! Wind! Put the sails up!

And where there is wind, there is more wind. A breeze for an hour or so, becoming a blow. Wow! Remember what I was saying about ocean passages, exotic ports, all sea-spray and wind? Here it was! All the sails up, five knots, six, lulls in the troughs of the waves, gusts on the top, as the sails catch the wind and the boat surges. The fog is lifting, Cape Beale is in view, gnarly rocks and breaking waves at its foot. The Graveyard of the Pacific, they call this (no joke!). It blows even harder, now the boat seems to be overpowered, rushing down the waves and swerving. M takes the helm like a pro. "Steer 60 magnetic!" K clips his harness into the jacklines and goes up on the foredeck to douse the jib, as the boat passes the rocks at Cape Beale and heads up Trevor Channel. Another half-hour of beautiful sailing, 15-20 knots breeze up the channel, but the seas damped by the islets and headlands. Lush forest and sharp rocks, broken by small sand beaches. THAT was fun.

A bit of trivia about sailing in the Pacific Northwest... here's Commodore K's sailing outfit, in August: thermal underwear top and bottoms, rain pants, sailing boots, thermal vest, fleece sweater, life jacket, chest harness, foul-weather sailing jacket, warm beanie hat. And he's STILL a bit cold.

Bamfield:

Ever since Victoria, M had jokingly called Bamfield "Promised Land". Not only did our arrival to Barkley Sound represent the first real destination of the trip with its many secluded and undeveloped islands and coves (not to mention that the longest stretch of barren coastline with little protection was behind us), but Bamfield seemed like the place that would have a decent restaurant, a pub, laundry facilities, and a real SHOWER! The disappointment when we found that all the public floats in town were full and we ended up anchoring out another night (in Port Desire which is the next inlet over from Bamfield) was by no means little. Captain Karl took pity and rowed M the mile or so to town to find the nearest pub for a burger and a brew. And yes, the conditions in Port Desire were so benign that we actually dared to leave the boat. Disappoinment hit again when the first Bamfield-ian we talked to informed us that the pub in town is closed for renovation and that no, there's nothing else in town open at this hour (8pm). That's when it hits us how spoiled we are and even if seclusion is part of what we're here for, it is hard to give up your favorite comforts. The long row was not at all in vain. We ran into some old dock-neighbours from Elliott Bay Marina earlier that day at the fuel dock in Bamfield, Bob and Kris aboard Luna. We rowed by their boat and visited them for a while. They were just completing their Vancouver Island Circumnavigation, and had lots of good stories to share.

Bamfield is... idiosyncratic. The town straddles a small inlet, and one side isn't connected to the other. Folks get around by boat. There were a couple cars, but only a couple. The few roads were dirt. Many of the houses were accessed only by a boardwalk that ran along the harbour. It has a summer-resort cabin sort of feel, quaint little homes, but folks live here year-round, and there are only a few tourists. The pace of life is completely different, even in comparison to Port Townsend, which I thought was completely different from Seattle. (What's completely different times completely different?) To give an example, the one restaurant in town is open from 12-4pm, Thursday through Sunday. The Postmaster's desk has a little sticker saying "BRB", and he comes in five minutes later with a mug of coffee. But it's still first-world: the little general store sells Indian curry, Asian foods, Mexican peppers, fresh vegetables, fine liquors. There's a government marine research facility at the harbour entrance.

There's a really cool beach, Brady's Beach, a short walk from town. Supposedly it is the most-photographed beach on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The two things that made it stand out from your run-of-the-mill beach were, first, the forest-capped sea stacks; and second, the abundance of marine life in the tidal zones. Millions of clams, mussles, and barnacles, big clumps of orange and purple starfish piled on top of each other, and little shrimp-eating (?) anemones.

In the next day or so, we plan to leave for a more secluded anchorage in the Broken Group, a series of small islands in the middle of Barkley Sound. No blog posts from there. Check back in a few days, as we will be visiting Ucluelet, a town on the other side of the Sound.