Sooke Vancover Island

July 19, 2011

OK, where did I leave off last? We have left our last refuge on the West Coast and are headed around the south corner of the island and down the Straits of Juan De Fuca. We have a 70 plus mile day today with building winds forecast for gale strength by this afternoon in the east entrance to the straits where we should be late this afternoon. OK!

So we stayed in Bamfield last night which is a very quirky (is that a word) little town. West Bamfield has no road to it so you tour the town on a boardwalk that fronts all of the little cottages, abandoned cabins and immaculately groomed yards and trimmed shrubs. The homes are very small, old and unique. About half look occupied or occupied sometimes. According to the dock master it is a very slow year as it has been all up and down the coast and no one is quite sure the full reason other than the weather and the economy.

We had salmon again for dinner last night, that’s three nights in a row.

The previous night we spent in Tofino. Tricky little place to get into especially when you’re worried about running out of fuel again. We made it with our emergency fill up so all turned out well and it was a good learning experience. Jeff does not have 44 gallons of usable fuel in his 44 gallon tank. When the meter reads full he still has room for about 4 gallons and he has about 4 gallons that he can never use because it is below the pickup tube so he actually has at best 36 usable gallons so he calculated correctly his fuel consumption but missed by about 4 gallons, either the top 4 or the bottom 4 it doesn’t matter cause it simply was not enough to get from there to here without some sailing to augment the distance and that we did not get.
Today we tried sailing for a while but we may never get to our destination if we don’t motor so after an hour of sailing at 4.4 knots we turned on the motor and picked up to a blazing 7.2.
Fran fixed chocolate chip cookies while under way so the crew is happy.
Should be in Sooke this evening and then depending on weather we will either make a short hop to Victoria or run all the way to Friday Harbor where I depart the voyage.

Once I get into better connectivity I will post a bunch of photos of the trip, our download time and expense was too great to try to send too many photos but we have plenty of good ones to share.

Holly crap its cold. The wind is off our port rear quarter out of the SW and it is cold. I finally succumbed and put on long pants. Fran is bundled up in a blanket and Jeff just put on gloves. No sun, poor visibility, gray, no rain but it is a cold dreary day right now. Oh well, it could be worse, just wait.

Were in Sooke! It was a 12 hour day. The winds and weather held and we made it in without too much difficulty. IT is a narrow and tricky entrance to the harbor, two range markers to get inside the narrow entry way and then a very narrow but well marked channel to the docks through several very shallow areas.

Tomorrow Victoria.