Morning. Coffee. A walk on the docks. Anxious Arcturus. And so on…

We were all lined astern on the docks and pretty tight. Arcturus was concerned about getting out and wanted us to peel away in order: R Shack, us, Arcturus, Ocean Grace, etc. I was tempted to leave early just to show off, but then Dave asked me for a hand with his lines. Arrogance foiled!

On top of that, Larry wasn’t waiting, and he took Ocean Grace neatly out of the stack before the rest of us. Somehow it’s not so arrogant when he does it, though. I guess I have to work on my sangfroid…

Just before we all started casting off, a young grizzly was spotted walking down the exposed beaches (it was low low tide). We all peered through binoculars and then, after casting off, looped around the docks for a photo op. Mine will likely turn out looking like a cinnamon-coloured rock, but there you go. At least I don’t have to pack a big heavy camera around…

So out we went into the dangerously unpredictable Johnstone Strait. Which was once again meek as a lamb. Then it was rev her up to 2200 and point her about 85° and sit back and watch the logs float by. Lots of logs. Lots and lots of logs.

Dave had his main up and I fought the urge. Then Corus behind us put up the full set and started beating up the Strait in 11-knot winds and I fought the urge. If we go straight on, it will be at least 6 hours today so we don’t really have time to… Well, maybe after Race Passage. We will have the current and be on the last leg of the Strait. Ya, maybe then…

Up ahead R Shack called a dolphin alert so we altered course to come in on his wake. 10 minutes later we motored through a big pod of dolphins obviously intent on the hunt. Two peeled off to play in our wake for about 3 minutes, but then we could see them zoom off through the clear water to rejoin their fellows. Still, a wonderful sight. Makes you rethink all those clichéd names like Laughing Dolphin and Dolphin Cove, and makes them seem much brighter and happier. I am officially a dolphin fanboy.

Speaking of wildlife, apparently R Shack had a midnight otter problem. The nocturnal visitor was banging around in his cockpit until Dave woke up and chased it off. Apparently to most people, they are only cute from a distance; Tim had said much the same thing about his opinion on how they treated his docks.

A little later I spotted some small backs with low dorsal fins. Not humpbacks but definitely not dolphins. I declare them minkes and radioed back to Arcturus to keep an eye out. At that point Ocean Grace, who was ahead of us, radioed back they had a humpback off their starboard bow. Our eyes swiveled 180 degrees but we couldn’t spot anything.

About 5 minutes later we heard a loud woosh behind us, and as eyes swiveled back, there was the humpback heading away from us. Sneaky bugger had dived beneath us. We watched him fade into the distance until he showed us his flukes and dived deep. Seriously. Whales. Twice. We are so stunned.

The wind started to die. All my plans for post-Race Passage sailing slowly melted, and L consoled me with trail mix. Corus meanwhile were have a gay old time. Lucky bastards.

We passed Ocean Grace just on the entrance to Race Passage but couldn’t gain on R Shack Island. I figure having their main up and the 4-knot current was giving them a slight advantage. I considered going to battle speed of 2600rpm, but cooler heads prevailed.

Out the other side of Race Passage, the winds picked up and we raised our main hopefully. Dave called back that he was getting 8 knots and going for it, so we hurriedly pulled out the jib and killed the motor. At which point Ocean Grace passed us again since we were doing a stunning 1.2 knots perpendicular to the Strait. When Dave radioed back 2 minutes later that the winds had dropped it sealed our fates and we fired up the motor once again.

It was probably a nautical mile or two later when we spotted a line of ripples across the Strait that once again threatened to raise my hopes. I was carefully mulling the possibilities when Dave radioed back yet again. “There’s 11 knots and we’re going for it!” He managed to sound not quite like a Star Wars fanatic meeting the actor who played Boba Fett in the original movie for the first time, but it was a close thing.

Nevertheless, I calmly and reasonably decided to roll out the jib again and shut down the motor. Eleven knots became 15 and the Shearwater heeled over like a walrus trying to sun its belly. We heaved to, cranked in the first reef (very inelegantly, but in the end, effectively), swung around and started on our tack. Literally 30 seconds later the winds jumped to 21 knots and the walrus became more akin to a Galapagos tortoise teetering on the edge of his shell about to flop permanently onto its back. We swung the wheel again into a heave-to.

Second reef. A little more elegantly performed. We’d just practiced it, after all. The wind dropped to a sedate 19 knots and we were off flying across the Strait. We hit about 8.1 knots max, averaging out around 6.8 or 6.9. Behind us Arcturus declined to rise to the challenge, but Intrepid stepped up and it was three of us sailing.

R Shack had a bit of a head start and of course gained lots of time while we were screwing with the reefs. Intrepid was quite a way behind and had a lot of ground to make up. Tack and tack again. R Shack chose short tacks, while we and Intrepid used as much of the channel as possible. We gained on R Shack with each tack, and Jntrepid was reeling us both in.

Dave’s fatal mistake came on our last tack. He tried a short tack once too often, ended up in the lee of the island and off course to make it up Mayne Channel. We cheated as much as possible on our second-to-last tack and had a straight shot. 15 knots of winds and 6.5 knots of speed sent us racing past him.

Intrepid had slowly been clawing away at the gap and came in on our stern, but they ran out of time and Shearwater led the way up the channel.

The winds were stating to fade and shift so we furled the jib and fired up the motor. A couple of minutes later a 17-knot gust knocked us hard over and we decided we were done with sails for the day.

What a day. What an exhilarating, glorious day. For probably the first time since sailing small boats, I got to sail for myself. No instructors, no passengers, no one else to consider but my agenda and what the wind and I could work out together. Valiant crew L put up with my heeling and tacking, and we worked together to trim the sails and extract as much as possible out of the day.

I didn’t want it to stop. I want to do it again. I asked, but Laurence won’t offer written guarantees… Sigh.

A few minutes later we rounded a curve and there was Blind Channel Resort and Marina. Bow in, port side tie on Finger 3 Bravo, just across from Electra. We tied up with no problem and did a little happy dance. At least I did. And when R Shack came in about 10 minutes later, I’m pretty sure Dave was doing a happy dance too.

I’m still smiling.

[flexiblemap src=”http://macblaze.ca/kmz/Day20.kml”]
7h38m 41.7nm

A cold beer and then I had a skippers meeting at 4:30. This was a problem as I had a beer date with Carmen at 5:30 Alberta time. So L and I compromised and I took a beer to the meeting and she had a cider on board, and I do believe that C was sucking at the beer teat oh so many miles away with us. Life is good.

We have reservations at 6:45 for dinner with Dave and Margaret up at the resort restaurant and if Margaret and Leslie are lucky, Dave and I will have stopped grinning and be willing to talk about something other than sail trim and SOG (speed over ground).

Time for some writing and a shower before dinner while L has bit of a lie down.

A cool shower, some dockside gossip, and L and I joined Dave and Margaret dockside to head up for dinner. L had the seafood ragout and I had the rouladen, Dave went for halibut and Margaret had goulash. A multi-ethnic meal.

Great food and wine, and fine fine company, and we trundled back to our boats sated and happy. Tomorrow we aren’t leaving until noon so hopefully I can sleep in. We have two sets of rapids to do at precisely 5:40 pm. Until then we have the whole day to transit about 12 nautical miles.

Tired, windburned and happy… Goodnight.