We were having just another one of those perfect days of sailing in the Gulf Islands. You know, the winds are about 5 to 6 miles per hour coming from exactly were we were going. This simply means we get to tack a lot, (that is turn into the wind and sail close to the wind in a zig zag up wind direction.) Unfortunately familiarity breeds contempt. We have gotten so good at tacking that we decided we needed to spice it up a little.
Continue reading 20180728 The Grand Adventure – Part 3
Category Archives: Sailing
20180722 The Grand Adventure – Part 2
The Saanich Peninsula and the Saanich Inlet: Genoa Bay and Samsung Narrows,
We have arrived in Canada stayed at a very ritzy marina, The Van Isle Marina in Tsehum Harbor. There were many yachts over seventy five foot long. Hundreds more in the 35 to 50 foot range. We made good use of our time there with a birding walk around the edge of Roberts Bay. Lots of crows, Great Blue Herons and several Cormorants. We saw both Double Crested and Pelagic Cormorants.
Continue reading 20180722 The Grand Adventure – Part 2
20180713 The Grand Adventure – Part 1
It’s 17:35 on July 13th 2018 we are just underway for the tour of the San Juan and Gulf Islands.
This video highlights the exciting parts of the first day of the trip. As you watch the video watch for the highway bridge crossing over Agate pass.. we actually wound up motoring all the way and then it was nip and Tuck whether the sun would go down or we get to the marina first.
The sun won.
Now the second day heading for Oak Harbor and there is a nice breeze we went under sail at 11:30. Our speed is not looking good for a continued sail. 32 miles is a long ways to go.
We lasted about 30 minutes sailing then we had to get the motor going again.
Now we have arrived at Oak Harbor. The day almost ended in disaster. The spin-on fuel filter for the engine, spun off a little and started leaking diesel into the bilges. We spent the evening cleaning up.
Third day:
This is the big day; we got an early start (7 a.m.) so that we can reach Deception Pass at the exact time of change of Tide at 11:40. (To take advantage of slack water)
But first! We stopped near the entrance to our overnight moorage, and retrieved our Crab Pot. Waiting for us; 4 very large, very male, crabs. Success beyond our wildest dreams. Four hours later we are approaching Yokeko point about a mile from Decption Pass. we saw some speeds over 7 knots along this stretch. We had arrived a good hour early. That gave us time to get some Diesel at the marina. No luck there. But a group of sailboats of about our size started heading for Deception Pass. Taking this as a good sign we started out ourselves. Smooth as silk was the water. Then the point of no-return, we are looking at a turbulent rapids spreading out before us. Right in the center are three standing waves. The first one, wwhheeee… the bow plows the wave into two furrows and we are on to wave number two. Abby Normal is bucking like a bronco, this time the bow splits the wave and carries on through. Wave number three is looming just a boat length further on. The third time is the charmed one. Abby dives into the wave, some of the water goes up on the deck and Abby hesitates before going on. Diving into the wave had slowed us from 7 knots to about 3 knots. From there on it is just turbulent water all moving at five or six knots. I was running the camera in video mode. I have a special talent for this neat trick. The camera starts out shooting video. Here is the action scene coming, “click”, “click” there was the action scene, neatly snipped out because I get out of sync. Well maybe in the next life I will be more co-ordinated. The photo gallery has some photos of the crabs and other highlights of the trip.
See this on line at
https://www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/2018/07/20180713-the-gra…adventure-part-1/
Photos by Barbra
The sailing adventures of the crew of the Montana Sapphire.
“Just sit right back
And you’ll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this Northwest port,
Aboard this tiny ship.”
The short version of the story is: We picked up the Montana Sapphire, a 38 foot Hans Christian sailboat in Anacortes at Skyline Harbor. We cruised through the San Juan Islands and up into the Canadian Gulf Islands. We had a delightful time and returned to Anacortes on a much larger vessel, the Washington State Ferry.
Somewhere in there is… “the rest of the story.”
Continue reading The sailing adventures of the crew of the Montana Sapphire.
Classic Mariners Regatta:
Today we went to the Classic Mariners Regatta with Glen, Barb and Bryce. We all agreed that the boat I highlighted in yesterday’s blog was the most beautiful boat there. In fact it looked so fast that it looked like it was going 5 knots still tied to the dock. Here is a photo of the Pacifica on the leeward leg of the race as she passed Point Hudson. She is running a spinnaker on the main mast and a staysail on the mizzen.
After the race we toured the marina again and spoke with the owners and crew. We discovered they were originally from San Diego but now live here in Port Townsend. We gave them the address of our blog and I invite them to comment here.
The following link is to a Sailingjoy.com website that gives details of this or a similar boat built in the early 1970’s. This makes her a contemporary of our own Regal Jug, now owned by our son, Glen and his family.
http://www.sailingjoy.com/sailboat_specs/sailboat_specs/view/3103/swan-55-s-s-1970-yawl
Here is a similar detail sheet for the Aquarius 23
http://www.sailingjoy.com/sailboat_specs/sailboat_specs/view/75/aquarius-23
Notice there is very little difference between the boats. One is slightly longer, slightly wider and slightly heavier than the other, (45600lbs to 2280lbs). A mere order of magnitude or so.