Fabricfan’s Blog

I don’t have any pictures yet, the camera is still on the boat. The weather was variable wind, rain, sun, cold, hot. We stayed an extra night in Naniamo because of the wind and rain, walked around the town with 2 jackets on each.  When we went through Dodd’s narrows, the current is up around 9 knots, so everyone waits for slack water and it was really busy with about 25 vessels plus a tug with a barge, every one was calling up on the radio  with security messages.

We went to the Beneteau rendevous,  over 60 boats. One man had just circumnavigated the globe, in a 30 foot boat. There was lots of fun and games and also some fund raising. Around $500 for children’s hospital and $600 for the Disabled sailors association.  I attended a cooking demonstration with raised money for the disabled sailors, about 18 receipes to taste and I learned lots about good utensils and products to take on a boat. I didn’t go to the cooking lesson on the last rendevous but will certainly like to attend another one someday.

We visited a couple of places  Chemainus, Otter Bay and Sidney Spit.

We spent 2 days in Ganges, on Salt Spring Island and I splurged at the Stitches Quilt store.The new location is wonderful. The last night was Canada day, so we had a great spot on the dock to watch the fireworks, listen to the anthem and the song which was made popular during Expo ’86,  Our Home Our Canada. It was a great evening with everyone cheering and the boats with all the horns honking.

After all the years of sailing, I saw my first orca in the wild. It’s so joyous to seem them.

Here we are tied up to a mooring bouy.

The last day coming home, was long, bumpy with good sized troughs and I could only cope with that with my eyes shut. My head was just throbbing and needed ice on return home.  Hubby went out the next day for another rendevous.   I was glad for some downtime and stayed home.

Nothing like taking a sailing vacation and having the weather do the unexpected. We were gone 8 days and had the sails up for 45 minutes. Most of the time no wind and the time the sails were up, it was blowing pretty good with whitecaps on the water pushing us from behind. I, of course, am not much of a sailor, so I enjoyed the motoring.
The first five days the weather was hot, and we stayed in Clam Bay, Ganges and Sidney. I had lots of knitting time and the only hobby things I took this trip was my knitting.
We spent one night in Genoa Bay, neat spot and we hadn’t been there before and it was good shelter from the wind.
The last 2 night were spent at Telegraph Harbour. We stayed an extra night because of small craft warning and the barometer was really dropping. That afternoon, 4 hours of rain. We were content in our boat, knitting, reading and surfing, we had good internet access. Got to love wireless internet. So I spent my time looking at ravelry and reading my favorite blogs.
The next day, the pass had slack water at 2pm, we left the moorage at noon, the sea was as smooth as glass all the way to Vancouver and we were home by 7:30.
Pictures next time.