Typical summer weather patterns, especially during periods
of sunny weather, call for relatively calm mornings with a building breeze
throughout the day. Today we’re crossing the Strait of Georgia, the first of
our big(ger) water crossings, and we wanted decent weather.
Environment Canada called for 20-25 knot NW winds decreasing
to 15-20 knots near noon. Not typical, and not ideal.
Area Whiskey Golf, a torpedo test range, was scheduled to
start operations at 7:00 a.m. We’d have to be clear of the area (12 nm from
Nanaimo on the most direct course) by that time. So a 5:15 departure made
sense.
When we awoke the wind was still rather strong. Three of the
boats, a 58’ Ocean Alexander, 48’ Elling, and 28’ Cutwater opted to leave
early. Their reports were ominous, particularly from the bigger boats. Water
over the flybridge, they said.
The rest of us departed about 90 minutes later. We skirted
along the Winchelsea Islands, avoiding now-active Whiskey Golf. Conditions were
actually quite moderate, maybe 15 knots of wind and a two-foot chop. Safe Harbour shouldered the seas aside
comfortably.
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| Decent weather in the Strait of Georgia |
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| The smallest boat in our group is a C-Dory 22 named Gypsy River. It did just fine on the crossing. |
Once we turned north the seas were on the beam, and we did a
bit of rolling. Not too bad, though…I hopped in the shower and shaved and later
Kevin took a nap. Yeah, the bigger boat has advantages…
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| Kevin got some work done underway |
We got into Pender Harbour uneventfully and tied up at the
Garden Bay Pub. I shuttled several people over to Madeira Park in the dinghy,
first for groceries and then for dinghy repair. One of the boats had an
outboard problem. They’d had mechanics in Friday Harbor and Nanaimo look at the
engine, charge them money, but not fix it. The engine ran fine at high speed
but not low speed. I suspected the low speed carbeurator jets were clogged. The
mechanics at Madeira Marina agreed and planned to rebuild the carbeurator by
9:00 a.m. tomorrow.
Tomorrow looks windy again, and we’ve got 40 nm to run
straight into the weather. We’ll wake up and see…
34.51 nm today
112.45 nm total
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