Back in Ladysmith onboard le Bateau du Vent

We left Calgary Thanksgiving Monday, October 10th, the same date as last year. Was an easy drive as we did not bring Scamp this time, just a truck filled with stuff and presents for Bateau.

We took this photo on our way out of town. Our final job of the season was to install a pond heater at the Stewart’s residence in Springbank. This pic was taken leaving the Stewart’s heading west down the long hill to Springbank Road with the

Snow-capped Alberta Rockies to the west

Stayed overnight in Salmon Arm, then in the morning stopped in Kamloops for a brief visit with Peg & John at a Tim's along the number one. From there our plan was to catch a late afternoon ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay in Nanaimo. However we called Lowell on our way through Vancouver and told him we were anxious to get to the boat and that we would hook-up some other time.

Lowell & Sheila have a boat, the Headstrong, moored in Misquito Creek, next to the Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. Sheila, the dear gal is looking after the B&B for us while we're away. There was a definite sound of disappointment in Lowell's voice and after hanging up and discussing the matter we decided to stay the night in Vancouver and catch a morning ferry over to the island. We toured the Headstrong, sipped some red wine and Lowell treated us to one of his culinary favs, chilli, no, no, just kidding, it was chilli on spaghetti noodles… right Lowell. Anyway it really hit the spot.

Lowell & Headstrong 

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View looking east from our hotel window

 

To the left you can see the bow of one of the multi-million dollar super ferries that never made it into service.

We met Lowell again the next morning for breakfast before boarding the ferry for Departure Bay. The day was overcast but still beautiful in the lush greenery of the west coast. Conditions changed quickly however once onboard and out in the Georgia Strait. This was the roughest crossing we've experienced in years. Good thing we were onboard the Queen of Cowichan.

It poured rain on the short trek from Nanaimo to Ladysmith and gave no sign of letting up. But if we were going to stay onboard le Bateau tonight we would have to be prepared to get good and wet, and we did. Bateau had been moved out to an area in the marina locally named the fish-farm. As you can imagine the fish-farm is out in the back forty of the docks. It must have been about four city blocks from the truck to Bateau and the rain and winds intensified. We each made about three roundtrips from the truck to the boat and called it quits for the night.

Flowers are still in full bloom

Our first night back turned out to be a wild one. Winds blow relentlessly through the night with forecast winds close to fifty knots. But being out in the fish-farm we had lots of protection from the worst of the gale and storm force winds.

This is one of many Medusa Jellyfish around the Ladysmith Marina

We hired a diver to come and clean Bateau’s bottom. The warm summer water in Ladysmith had mussels and other stuff happily growing on her hull but Vern the diver got most of the crud off.

Her decks and sail covers still needed a good power wash

There's an area outside the marina locally named "the dog patch". It's kinda like the Forest Lawn or Bowness of Calgary. There used to be a sea world display on floating buildings in Victoria Harbour. During the sixties they were in wonderful condition but forty-some years at sea have left them in less than appealing condition, listing heavily on one side or the other, it's a sad sight to see.

Dog-Patch

Word around town though is the feds have given ninety day notices to the whole lot of them so we'll see what happens to the dog patch in the new year.

Speaking of listing, our Bateau had a slight starboard list largely due to all the stuff we added to her starboard locker last year, the batteries among other things. We sourced some three hundred plus pounds of lead from a metal shop in Calgary and hauled it out on the truck with us. We attached it to rigging brackets on her extreme port-beam and wow, this really did the trick. No more lop sided eggs for breakfast.

We picked some apples and berries along the roadside to the marina and

Johnnie made home-made apple-berry pie

 

October 25^th, after having had just about enough of all this crappy weather we decided it would be a good time to take a drive north to visit Betty & Graham. It stormed with rain and strong winds almost the entire two hundred km from Ladysmith to Campbell River. We arrived at B&G’s house just in time for cocktail hour. Betty cooked us up some awesome gruel, steak and prawns, and a home-made apple-berry pie. This was a very good thing. They bought a new condo right on the ocean overlooking Cape Mudge on Quadra Island, were the Georgia and Johnston Strait meet. What a view! You can actually see over to Mitlenatch Island (the natives say that this is the island that moves) and Desolation Sound, on a clear day that is. It was to stormy for a walk on the beach so for tonight we would take in the magnificent vista though the window with binoculars.

The next day was a bit calmer but still very blustery. We managed to go for a walk and explore some of the shoreline, Betty joined us part way.  

Walking the shoreline with Betty

We stayed with Betty and Graham two nights, then headed back to le Bateau.

It was turning out to be a fabulous Saturday morning with mainly sunny skies and just a strong southeast wind warning, nothing Bateau couldn’t handle. We started preparing for a quick escape from Ladysmith, provisioning at the 49^th Parallel for food, some fuel and stuff from the local hardware store. We hauled Bullfrog off the dinghy dock and into the water, mounted our new used 8hp Mariner outboard and motored around the docks to Bateau’s slip. But when we tied up next to Bateau we noticed some water in her bilge… dam, salt water. We hopelessly drained her bilge but knew deep down we were not going to be able to leave today.

After our second attempt we hauled Bullfrog back onto the dinghy dock, hopped in the truck and headed for the closest chandlery which was in Nanaimo about thirty minutes away. We were in search of the magic solution that would heal Bullfrog’s bottom. We found a couple of things the folks at Harbour Chandlery suggested and headed back to Bullfrog to apply them. It was dark by the time we finished and was beginning to rain. It stormed and rained heavily for the next two days.

Bateau’s moorage was up on the 31^st and our slip had been leased out to someone else. We had nowhere to go so would have to make a run for it somewhere on the 31^st at the latest. More bad weather plagued the forecast with winds in the gale to storm force category.

Early afternoon on the 31^st the sky’s broke a bit so we made our break. We still didn’t know if our fix to Bullfrog had worked or not, either way we had to get out today. We hauled her back into the water and almost went cross-eyed from focusing on the spot we had repaired. It seemed ok, no leaks, at least for now so we got our act together and left dock,

Gale force southeast winds were forecast to pickup later in the afternoon so we left Ladysmith and sailed south to Burgoyne Bay hoping to be anchoured before nightfall and before the next storm hit.

There’s a rainbow but the skies are brewing up something big

About a year ago a logging company donated twenty-six hundred acres of land around Mount Taum to British Columbia for a provincial park so lots of trails to explore.

Our third morning in the bay was back to the same old story. We had chosen to stay in Burgoyne for protection from the predicted gale and storm force southeast winds. Burgoyne is a reasonably safe harbour from southeasterlies and allows almost zero fetch from southeast winds. But if the southeasterly is strong enough you get the effect of williwaws blowing over the low swale from Fulford Harbour. We woke around 0430 hours to the sound of howling rigging. Bateau was being tossed around like a cork. The winds got stronger and continued till early afternoon when all of a sudden it just magically changed to sunny skies and calm seas.

Bateau front and centre in Burgoyne Bay

We grasped at the opportunity, boarded Bullfrog and headed for shore. We tied her to a big tree (Bullfrog I mean) on the shoreline and set out on a hike to Fulford Harbour about six km away.

These old buildings are protected as heritage dwellings

There were lots of trees and tree limbs on the trails and roads from the storm the night before. One fellow stopped us and strongly suggested we not venture into the forests due to the extreme hazard of more falling trees. BC Hydro was out cutting up fallen trees and fixing power lines. So it appeared we faired better than most.

It was a sunny and brisk walk to Fulford and guess what we found there... a Pub, our first of the season. Not being able to resist this rare opportunity we stepped inside, had a seat at the bar, ordered a jug and some appys, and chatted with some locals.

The Fulford Harbour Pub

The sign had suffered some damage from last night’s high winds. Everyone was talking about last night’s storm and the havoc it raised in Ganges, just a few miles away. Being directly open to southeasterlies, Ganges isn’t the place to be during a storm force one, as we know to well from last winter. The miles of fetch make it that much worse. We heard that several boats broke from their moorings, a sunken dinghy and some boats were blown up on the rocks. Tonight’s winds were supposed to churn up another strong southeasterly so we’d be in Burgoyne Bay for at least another night.

We had picked up a pumpkin back in Ladysmith so Johnnie whipped up a tasty pumpkin pie. The flowering plant is a sedum Nora gave us back in Calgary as a gift for Bateau.

Johnnie’s Pumpkin Pie

By 1230 hours the following day winds had died down considerably, the rain stopped and the sun was breaking through the clouds. We wanted a change of scenery and our next port of choice was Genoa Bay just a few miles south and west of Burgoyne.

We did the usual routine to prep Bateau before getting underway then got ready to pull up anchour for the first time since last spring. Nothing, the windlass was dead. The switch had gummed up over the summer and the terminals were not able to make contact. The wiring had to be temporarily bypassed so we could raise anchour. We finally pulled up anchour and started on our way.

Then we got about half out of Burgoyne and Bullfrog cut lose, her painter completely sheared in two. It was a sinking feeling to see her wandering off freely but we made a hard turn to starboard and came about, lassooing her to captivity once again. After a temporary repair to the painter we continued on our way south through Sansum Narrows.

It’s always so interesting going through Sansum Narrows, so much energy and wildlife. The tidal currents, if not at slack are churning up all kinds of eddies, overfalls and tide rips. But today we were going to be treated to a real surprise.

As we furthered into the narrows we noticed the seagulls were going bananas flying in some frantic patterns. We rounded Sansum Point and just as Burial Islet was at our port-beam fish began to jump out of the water making the seagulls go even crazier. At one point it seemed like we could almost lower the net over the boat and grab a nice Coho for dinner.

Then we got the big reward. Salmon started leaping out of the water right across the narrows and we found out why. All of a sudden there surface an Orca Whale with a mouth filled with Coho Salmon. We were stunned as more whales lazily poked through the surface with salmon of their own. We circled around to get a better view but I guess they’re quick eaters and the display didn’t last long. We caught a brief glimpse of dorsal fins but that was it for this time.

Didn’t get any whale pics, we were to busy trying to pick our bottom jaw up off the deck. We did catch an amazing shot of a

 Coho trying to swim to safety

The snout of an Orca with a nice big salmon in his jaws

Another salmon looking for shelter from a hungry Orca

With the whale show over we continued on our way rounding Separation Point and into Genoa Bay. This is the artiest marina we’ve seen yet. What a quaint and beautiful spot with good protection from tonight’s forecasted westerlies. Our house batteries also needed a good charge from shore power. It’s great to be at anchour but after the past few nights we were due for a more restful sleep at dock.

Statue of an Orca Whale on the docks

This little arty bit (a heron with an appetizing look at the salmon, artist unknown) created on a rock in front of the famed Genoa Bay Café

A Stately old wooden yacht anchoured on the east side of Genoa Bay

We spent the past two nights resting up at the docks in Genoa Bay. Like we said, what a sweet little spot nestled among steep green rock faces. We’ll certainly be back here again. They’ve sure done a great job here.

Johnnie enjoying morning coffee on the docks at Genoa

Sunday morning we headed south toward Mill Bay to fuel up and get a few things at the local Thrifty’s. Sea-life enroute was abundant with seals, sea lions, salmon but no Orcas this time. When we tied up at he Mill Bay fuel dock, Fred the Wharfinger there, told us about their experience during the storm a few nights ago. Their wind meter read sustained winds exceeding sixty knots with gusts to seventy-five knots. That’s a hundred and ten to a hundred and forty km winds. That’s well into hurricane force status. Although the docks at Mill Bay are in less than perfect condition they did hold up well blowing out only a few floats on perimeters dock at the marina. Glad we weren’t there during the storm though.

Another storm’s a brewing in the Saanich Inlet

We sailed under sunny skies right from the dock at Mill Bay to the mouth of Tod Inlet averaging around four and a half knots. We anchoured that night with only one other boat with us but the next morning it was gone so the inlet was our. Wanting to make use of our annual passes at Butchart Gardens we spent most of the morning and early afternoon taking in the flora fauna.

Some very cool blossoms at Butchart Gardens

Got back to Bateau around two, loaded the crab trap in Bullfrog and dropped it just off Whittaker Point. Wonder how many starfish we’ll get.

On our way back we decided to have a snoop around Anglers Anchourage in Brentwood Bay and see if Ocean Romancer was at her slip. Sure enough as we motored in we saw Connie and Tom working away on more upgrades to their baby. Had a great chat with them and we’ll likely meet up again soon.

Just go back from checking the crab trap. I’m beginning to wonder why they call it a crab trap when all you catch sometimes are jellyfish. This one had wrapped all it’s appendages around the crab bait and was having a tasty lunch. Oh well, that’s crabbing.

Johnnie did find a single apple still on the tree and another pastry treat was in store

November 8^th, the early morning fog was giving way to somewhat sunny skies. We took Bullfrog to shore and went on a long hike through Tod-Gowland Provincial Park

From here we’ll have to wait and see what the weather has in store for us. We’ll keep you posted!