e fact that because of the call, we cannot raise sail. The First Mate tells him to “dream on”. It is a team effort to raise sail on this J-160, and in this cold British Columbia rain, The Captain’s team is on strike which means that autopilot is competently doing its job and The First Mate is cozily sitting in the shelter of the dodger out of the elements. There is where she intends to stay. She can think of nothing that would move her to stand at the helm, gamely holding the bow into the wind (and the rain), while the sail is being raised. Absolutely nothing. Life is too short! The Captain talks on, and The First Mate remains either curled in a ball under the dodger or standing in the companion way on look out.
Campbell River is one of the best harbors along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island for a quick turn-around. Everything needed is within walking distance. The stores are well stocked, and the laundry and showers are modern and clean. There’s even a Starbucks. The only problem is that there is always a strong tidal current in the harbor making docking a challenge. Today there is also a stiff wind coming from the south. We have been given the end slot on the north side of a north/south running dock. With the tide running out or north as it does in this harbor that means that both tide and wind are going to be doing their utmost to push Avante off the dock and wreck havoc with any docking procedure attempted. I slowly motor down towards the dock and turn the boat around to back on down to the dock. I have come to trust backing in like this, for Avante does back down beautifully. With Bill’s help, I have adjusted angle and speed for wind and current. Avante approaches the dock and for a scant two seconds, she is alongside the dock. Time enough for Bill to jump off with the mid-ship line, secure that and then run aft to secure the stern line that he carried off with him at the same time. As soon as I see that Avante is on the dock with at least one rope tied, I run forward to get ready to throw Bill the bow line.
This is the part I positively dread. I am to throw this thick, black dock rope to him as quickly as I can. It’s heavy, usually wet and just plain yucky. I don’t even like touching the thing. My antipathy toward it has given it life, and it’s as much against me as I am against it. With all that dislike in the air between us and my stomach in knots, I now have to pick it up and throw it to the poor sucker (usually Bill) standing there on the dock waiting for what he thinks is a lifeless twist of benign rope to come looping over to fall just to his side so he can effortlessly catch it. Try as I do, that just doesn’t happen. What can I say? I throw like a girl. It truly is pathetic. I get the rope all set or so I think. I make sure which end is the throwing end and which is attached to the boat. I hurl the rope thru the air in one powerful thrust. It all goes sailing out, seems to hit some kind of invisible wall and then plummets straight down giving poor Bill a mad scramble to retrieve before it goes into the water – which, unfortunately, it does have a spiteful, willful tendency to do. Upon such occasions, the look I receive from Bill has no one guessing that he’d like to send me in after it. Now I have to retrieve this thoroughly wet and slimy thing, recoil it somehow so it will loop out without tangling and catching up short to only go back in the water and then valiantly heave it out to Bill again. I swear I have seen that rope lie there panting at me just daring me to touch it again. At other times, I’m so full of angst that I turn sideways and kind of slingshot the rope over to that same poor sucker. On those occasions, Bill had better madly duck or be knocked for a loop by this incoming missile. Again, the look and exclamation The First Mate receives from her Captain is far from uplifting. All this throwing and heaving, of course, have to be done in double time because Avante is only being held to the dock by one or two lines. It is all a truly pathetic show and quite embarrassing for both Captain and First Mate. I absolutely don’t know what to do to augment my throwing arm.
Must I here also mention another part of the equation that goes arm in arm with throwing? I must. It is “AIM”. Aim as in one’s intended target. Aim as in “Susan, where the H--- were you aiming?” Suffice it to say, that where I aim has nothing to do with where the rope goes. The farther away I am from that poor sucker on the dock the more likely he is to have no worry about the rope hitting him or even getting close to him. His worry is a simple one: can he get to it fast enough before it slithers off the dock and into the water. I think it’s all a physics thing again. Further study is going to have to be made on the throwing characteristics of dock rope as well as the throwing handicaps of one female First Mate. Stay tuned. I will let you know when I get this all worked out, for I must. There are no two ways about it. I refuse to continue to look like a three year-old trying to throw a medicine ball. This pathetic show has got to stop.
This time at the Campbell River dock I do manage to throw ropes fairly well. Avante is tied to the dock, but not exactly nestled in. The current and wind have pushed Avante off the dock during the time that it took us to secure the lines. I point out to The Captain that he may be able to jump 4’ from boat to dock or dock to boat, but The First Mate certainly cannot. So, together we pull Avante closer. Bill rigs up spring lines, and we are set. We barely have time to admire our work before another sailboat motors up to the dock just down from ours. Instead of backing down, they motor into the fairway and then make a quick turn to come into the dock head on. They have two on deck to handle lines instead of one as we do on Avante, but neither is moving fast enough. The boat ends up tied at the stern but jutting straight out into the fairway. No one appears to now know what to do. A fishing boat comes along and offers assistance. A line is thrown to the fishing boat, and the askew sailboat is pulled back to the dock. Needless to say, I am feeling pretty good about our docking in this adverse wind and current. Even with my abysmal childlike throwing exhibition, we looked quite professional getting Avante on dock and secure. Later I meet The First Mate (wife) of that boat in the laundry. She tells me how envious she and her husband were watching our boat back down to dock because their boat is a “pig” to back up. “Pig” being her word, not mine. Then she tells me how amazed she was to see me, a woman, at the helm. That really made my day -- but – hold on - there is so much that can go wrong so quickly on a sailboat, that you cannot let any compliment go to your head. One small mistake can quickly spell disaster. Still it does make this First Mate feel like she’s getting somewhere on this long learning curve of boat handling.
After that miserable, windy, rainy slog across the Strait of Georgia, the skies clear, and it becomes a bright, sunny, albeit windy, day in harbor. I now have the boat and crew turn-around logistics down to a science. With no hold-ups like waiting in line for a clothes dryer or having to walk 2 miles to the grocery and then take a taxi back to the boat, the tasks of shower, laundry and shopping take 6 hours. That’s keeping on the move the whole time – hauling laundry, hauling groceries, etc. This is not my favorite time. If the boat also needs a good cleaning below deck, add another 2 hours at least, and then The Captain had better take The First Mate out to dinner. I have neglected to add the time I would like at my disposal to converse over the internet with the outside world and to update the blog. The blog alone can run between 2 – 4 or more hours depending upon how temperamental it is acting on that day. Add the hours together, and The First Mate would like a full day or at least an aftern
oon and the following morning in harbor. She has not always been understood and received this meager amount of time. The Captain, however, is belatedly and log-headedly getting the idea that this thing called Marital Bliss, at which he has scoffed, is a definite reality aboard the sailing vessel Avante, and appropriate harbor time has begun to appear on the schedule.Setting off with four loads of laundry. The Captain is following with the other two, for The First Mate could not truck it all on her own.
All tasks are done. The First Mate decides Avante is clean enough, and the internet can wait until the next marina. A nice dinner on shore has been procured. We are prepared to head off to Seymour Narrows tomorrow around 10:30 so we can catch the slack tide at 11:15. We wake up to pelting rain and winds in the harbor clocking in at 20 to 25 kno
ts.Note the flag and streamers, both flapping madly, on this boat in harbor.
The First Mate is about to voice her objection to floating movement of any kind when The Captain wisely sidetracks her with his opinion that it is too miserable to motor out anywhere. We sit out the storm in harbor each contentedly involved in his/her own interests. For The First Mate, internet and blog are on the agenda.
Ahead for us await Seymour Narrows and Johnstone Strait. Even cruise ship operators respect these two stretches of water where current and wind have brought disaster to the unwary. If you have not read the entry in the blog of June 15, 2007 entitled “The Rapids”, you might want to do so to obtain a fuller picture of this stretch of nasty water. As we had already navigated these rapids successfully last year and I now fully understand the significance of slack tide, I thankfully will not be spending a sleepless night worried about what lies ahead.
There certainly is an advantage in doing something a second time. Last year, having read the books about the extreme currents in The Narrows, we planned our departure from Campbell River to reach the entrance just before slack tide. We went thru with no problem and continued up Discovery Passage to Johnstone Strait. The slack we chose, because it allowed a convenient departure time, was the tide change from ebb to flood. As we were heading toward the sea into the flooding tide, our speed forward kept getting slower and slower as the incoming current increased. When one’s boat speed is only 8 knots, 3 knots of adverse current is a big deal. Our Speed Over Ground (SOG) was often a dismally slow 4 – 5 knots.
Bill, being the Type A personality that he is, did not want to view Johnstone Strait quite so slowly this year. He checked the tide table and found the slack current in Seymour Narrows occurred at 0629 and 1255. The First Mate thought the 1255 time was terrific as that meant an 11:15 departure from Campbell River. The Captain pointed out that the 0629 time was a shift from flood to ebb tide, and if we went with an ebbing tide by the time we got to Johnstone Strait, we’d have all that wonderful current moving with us. That meant leaving Campbell River at 5:15 or, more precisely, rising out of a warm bed at 4:30. “It’s still dark then”, opines The First Mate. “No, up here, if you were ever awake at that time, you would have noticed that it is light at 4:30”, sagely replies The Captain. Ignoring this retort, The First Mate plans for an 11:15 departure, and The Captain acquiesces to the rebuff. The storm, however, which gave us a relaxing day in harbor has now put us behind a day. The Captain is not going to be put off so easily anymore. On Friday, June 20th, the alarm clock, which The First Mate no longer believes belongs in her life, rang at 4:30. Bleary eyed and half-awake, she exits the harbor. There is nobody out there which she tells The Captain is at it should be at this unnatural hour. Ignored, she is told to set the engine on high speed. “Signal Buster”, says the former aircraft carrier pilot. “We are 15 minutes late!” As the tide is still flooding in, there are 2 knots against us giving us a mere 6 knots of over-the-ground speed. “Just wait”, enthuses The Captain.
Gradually a few other cruisers and even tugs with tows appear out of the mist. As we round the bend and can see the entrance to Seymour Narrows several miles ahead, two powerboats that had been waiting the slack begin to move toward and thru the entrance. We enter notorious Seymour Narrows 10 minutes after slack tide. Traversing The Narrows at slack is once again a non-event, but that is as it should be with proper foresight and planning.
As the tide slowly changes from flood to ebb, we watch our SOG inch upward. We are heading north with the current just as The Captain planned. The First Mate, still bleary eyed, is unimpressed, but is told that current does not reverse instantly. As it slowly changes direction, it slowly builds up speed. We reach Chatham Point where Discovery Passage joins Johnstone Strait in one hour and 25 minutes. Last year it had taken us 10 minutes longer. “No big deal”, mutters The First Mate. “For this I was forced out of bed at 4:30!”
After watching clouds and dark for a few more minutes and noting that autopilot is capably doing her job, she dispiritedly returns to bed to catch up on her interrupted sleep, leaving The Captain to watch his SOG by himself, alone, in the dark. Hardly noticing her absence, he is in his element comparing last year’s times to this year’s and with immense satisfaction, watching this year’s speed and time constantly increasing.
When I return to deck in the daylight under partially sunny skies, we are flying down Johnstone Strait averaging between 10.5 to 11 knots. The Captain is elated with himself and his strategy. Our record is 13.6 knots as we race thru Current Passage.
Even the winds are helping us. Johnstone Strait winds are well respected and are published on the marine forecasts often accompanied with ominous gale force warnings. Today, they are supposed to be light in the morning picking up from the south in the afternoon. They do as predicted, and pick up to 10 knots as we clear Current Passage.
When the wind speed builds to 15 knots, Bill sets the jib to flying. The wind was soon gusting between 20 – 25 knots enabling the jib to pull us along quite nicely.
Note the unsettled water due to the conflicting currents in Johnstone Strait. Now imagine what it would look like with gale force winds blowing in against the current. Definitely not a place to be – as the books so strongly advise.
At 1310 (Captain’s log), we round Cracroft Point and enter Blackney Passage headed for the Broughton Islands. We had covered the 74 miles from Campbell River in 7 hours and 40 minutes. The Captain is positively jubilant. He has triumphed. Last year this same trip had taken us two days slogging up hill against both wind and current. This year, it is over in a little less than eight hours. We averaged a thrilling and racing 10 knots per hours. Even The First Mate is impressed -- as she well should be!
Under calm conditions (wind and sea) we enter narrow White Beach Passage and head to anchor. We had screamed past the turn-off to Cordero Lodge at which we had planned to overnight in order to arrive in the Broughton Islands, on schedule, with a stretch of relaxed exploring days ahead of us.
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