Where is that water coming from?

Words that strike fear deep in the heart of any boat owner, not unlike hearing a 2 year old saying "uh oh" from the next room, a preteen out side yelling "mom" in a panicked voice. Or your adult son calling and opening the conversation with "hi mom I need to talk to dad!"

Experience can be a great teacher but doesn't always perform as well as a preventer. Roof tops and boat bottoms hold the same mysterious ability to let water into the tiniest crack and send it on a circuitous route before it shows itself inside.

So far during this particular quest water has slipped in via the daggerboard cases, both rain water and sea water. Through the depth sounder that one was just plain scarey.  Through the prop shaft ( don't even ask) through several windows left open and one fixed window thought to be sealed.  Shower water has been caught sneaking into the bilge.... And at least one mystery place believed to be above the waterline, where water shows up intermittently, that is still under investigation.

We have coined phrases like nuisance rainwater, bilge condensation, window condensation ok almost any thing we are more than happy to attribute to condensation. I am happy to report we are learning to take this in stride, well sort of.

What day is it anyway?

It is cloudy and cold today, :( not too hard to take tho after the 2 glorious days we just had. The trip back from Princess Louisa only took 5 hours instead of the predicted 8 yay.  Back Eddy Marina is a nice " local" place, full of good people. Food at the local pub was very yummy.

The hope today was to walk up to Skookum Natrows where high tide brings rapids and there is a place up on the hills to watch the kayakers play in the water; but the current weather predictions of 30-40 knot winds for tomorrow mean we need to get out of here and head to Buccaneer Bay for the night and maybe all day Friday. Not leaving until Sat to get to Nanaimo. Not sure there will be wifi or phone service.
Hmmm I think today might be Friday, I'm really confused!

David has a yacht club friend ( Bay Peterson) coming into Nanaimo Sunday to spend 4 days with us heading to the San Juan's. 

People ask how many people the boat sleeps, the real question is how many "heads" do you have, reality check, folks can sleep just about anywhere. :)

David is now the headmaster, we are all chief poopas, rules say if you didn't eat or drink it it. Can't go in the head. Makes that window really handy....sorry but that's the way it is. Needless

 to say any chance we have to get off and use facilities we do.

This is Freddie Bonilla, a Seminarian from Columbia, he just finished his time in service to the parish St Mary's Star of the Sea.  What a privilege to have been present the day he was introduced to the parish and to again see him on the day he is saying goodbye. He played a tune on a flute, the tune and the flute are both from his area of Columbia. Freddie is now in Idaho serving in a hospital.

Fr. Ken Samson will be leaving too, the end of June, probably around the same time we leave Astoria. I first heard him speak on the feast of Immaculate Conception when we came up here to see the boat build as it was just starting.  I don't know why but to me it seemed at the time, like this was one of the first homilies to this parish.  He spoke of Mary as the Queen Mother, we as the bride of Christ owed it to our "mother in Law" to get to know her.

Every step of the way, in building the boat has been in Gods hands, I never really could wrap my head around the outcome, but now it is really very close.  Last Summer we were sure we would be out of here by September or maybe October that was 2012 it didn't happen.  Now it is May 2013... David took over full responsibility for the project finish when Johns business fell apart over the Christmas holiday.  David and Brad,  Mark, Russel and Dennis, have been the support and sustainer's for the boat paart of the project, the spiritual part of the journey has been supported by Father Ken and The Holy Spirit.

Too big to describe

Thursday,

A fellow pulled in yesterday and parked right in front of us, his boat was named "Some Luck"
He kept going on and on about the beautiful day, indeed it was, apparently this area is heading into a rainey season and people are milking the weather for all it's worth.

He joked it was hard to see that beautiful sky with all that 10,000 year old granite in the way, that cracked everyone up.
What indeed could hide the sky so magnificently but 10,000 year old canyon walls.


Another lady made the comment "I just didn't know that I needed to see this." Really true.





Chatterbox Falls. The noise from the water was huge, the spray went out about 100 yards past the bottom. Warning signs said do not try to climb the falls, 12 people have lost their lives trying to do just that. Hmmm I must be getting old because it never occurred to me to even try.




The boat is great, a few little issues but nothing is ever perfect. It is cold ......    David is doing a fabulous job as captain.  Larry is wonderful crew, he is often much more patient showing me how to do things. :).

Sunday we pick up another of David's yacht club friends Bay Peterson and his girl friend, Donna,  and sail for another week in the Gulf Islands and maybe down in the San Juan Islands (USA)

Yes you are welcome to come visit us on the boat next summer, we are probably heading home to Austin the end of October. We will be back to finish sailing the Canadian islands and maybe try to make it to Alaska.

Princess Louisa

It's Wednesday morning and only 52' but the humidity is hi 86% so it is
really cold feeling.  I think I am wearing 3 layers just to sit and sip tea
inside the boat, there isn't a defroster so I put the fans on to the clear
the windows and that makes it feel cooler....sheesh I might need my gloves.


We are anchored in Princess Louisa Inlet. Mainland Canada,  basically all
these inlets are glacier cut canyons with water over 1000 feet deep.  The
walls are several hundreds feet high and I can see by the brightness in the
cloudy sky that the sun is up but hasn't reached down into the canyon yet.
We'll stay here for two days, thank heavens because David really needs some
down time;  So I won't be able to send this until we get back in the world
of wifi signals.


There are waterfalls everywhere, it's a constant white noise festival....

It's funny, there are four boats here total,  we all have radios but the
only other radios we can reach are each others , ie the ones right here, the
4 of us right now are it.  

One boat is a big power boat named ToyBox II and there are lots of toys on
that boat. He helped us anchor last evening so we figure him to be a good
guy. There is another very small sailboat, and a trawler that looks like a
home to its occupants. Their name is " evening star" they seem to be doing
the same thing we are.


Last night we tried to call Evan and report in to him on the sat phone but
it cut off right after we said hello. It must have scared Evan, I am proud
to say that rather than worry, he followed the protocol in the float plan
and called the coast guard they were able to get in touch with us and verify
that we were ok, then through a circuitous route we managed to call Evan
back and let Jim know we were ok. The coast guard guy was great, he said I
am so glad you have a float plan and that everything worked out as it should
have. It made me wonder if maybe not all cruisers have them.   David
informed me the float plan was only for the designated two, Neal and Evan,
the rest of the world can just get a list of places we are going....sorry
folks themselves da rules. We do have a voyage plan it's really boring just
ticks off the things we'll pass as we get to where we are going, we need to
mark the time on that.

The ships log is kind of fun, once an hour someone writes where we are and
what we are doing weather etc, not as good as a diary but close.

I miss you guys but I am totally dying to see my grand kids. William is 7.
He was just born when the mcCormick mt house first went on the mkt. sheesh
where does time go.


beauty and awe join worship with people i may never see again but who became
my friends just by standing with me in prayer and praise.

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue through the month of October
then we will tuck this baby in ( probably in Port Angeles Wa ) for the
winter and head back to Austin out of Seattle.