What a beautiful day. Under way from Clam Bay, Thetis Island by 9:30 and under sail by 10:00. We were able to sail almost continuously for the whole 23 nautical miles and nine wonderful hours. The breezes were perfect at about 10 knots and only failed us briefly near the end of Athol Peninsula on Saltspring Island.

We called ahead and arranged for mooring at Ganges Marina and rigged the boat to tie up alongside berth B4. Everyone was at their station: Bow line, spring line and stern line. We are getting close to the floats and I was handling the helm. To slow our forward speed I slipped the transmission into neutral. Only it shortly became obvious that the engine was still in gear. We were not slowing down!
In a marina things get tighter and tighter as you get further into the depths of the marina. We were almost at the point of no return. Fortunately the Skookum Chuck is an Beneteau Oceanis 400 sail boat. It has a fin keel and rudder on a skeg. It turns on a dime. I put the wheel full over and we turned around in a bit more than her own 40 foot length. We slowly steamed back into the anchorage area and wiggled and jiggled the engine telegraph to no avail. A quick call to Ian at the charter company gave us some new ideas to try, but nothing worked.
We are now anchored out in the bay in front of our intended destination, the marina at Ganges. Ian will drive and ferry over to our location and install a replacement engine telegraph sometime tomorrow.

I seems like every trip is remarkable for its own distinctive catastrophe. It may be a failing sail, broken steering gear or half a propeller; but each seems to be unique.
I will post this blog at our first opportunity. We will need to find a wi-fi hot spot to accomplish this so there could be a delay. Meanwhile we will be working on more adventures.
The Crew of the Skookum Chuck