Captain's Log

A wonderful sail under main and Genoa. Wind from the South, 5-10 Kts. Flood tide. I had a brilliant sail from my mooring all the way til just North of Coal Island. I figure about a half hour of motor, until I arrived at Princess Bay, Portland Island.

I know this isn't enough words for search engine optimization but, really when you're on a 26' boat for 5 hours, what else can you say? I did notice a lot more jelly fish then I've seen over the past decade. Both small, white ones and the big, ugly red ones.

Princess Bay

It was blowing from the South at ten to fifteen knots, against a strong, ebb tide. I motored through Banes Channel and the resulting rip before unfurling Shuttlecock's Genoa. I spent the next couple of hours running slowly down Haro Strait in a 3 to 4 foot following sea. As the tide funnelled through Sidney Channel, I started the engine and motored the rest of the way to Sidney Spit. The sun was shining!

Excited about my first cruise on Shuttlecock, I arrived at Cadboro Bay with the boat loaded for my first trip to San Juan Island, USA! Kevin and Diane had been here with Comber (their Nordic Tug) for about a week at Royal Victoria Yacht Club, and this morning they were rafted to Shuttlecock while they were having lunch with some friends.

I threw off the lines and headed out of Cadboro Bay. There was zero wind so the 8 hp, 4 stroke Yamaha was to be put to its first test since Dave Tobacco helped me get it running back in June. The test would not be without its challenges.

Everything was running nominally until about 90 minutes into the voyage. That's when the engine started missing. The missing gradually got worse until I decided to head back to Cadboro Bay. I had made it as far as Zero rock. That's half way between Cadboro Bay and Sidney spit. Our first stop before heading to the United States tomorrow.

Another 90 minutes later, with the engine missing (but not sacrificing performance in terms of speed through the water), I arrived back in Cadboro Bay. Kevin and Di were still not back from lunch, so I rowed to shore, retrieved my car and drove to Canadian Tire for a set of spark plugs and a spark plug wrench. I didn't have one so couldn't remove the existing plug to take to the store for identification. I thought, surely CANADIAN TIRE could look up what spark plug I needed!

WRONG.

The guy told me he couldn't look up marine-use spark plugs. WTF?! Whatever. I bought a spark plug wrench, drove back to Cadboro Bay, rowed out to Shuttlecock and removed the plugs. Then, with plug in pocket, I rowed back to shore, drove to Canadian Tire, bought the plugs, drove back to the beach. Parked my car where it wouldn't be ticketed and rowed back out to the boat.

By this time, Kevin and Di had arrived on Comber. So I changed my plugs and we left together for the Spit. The engine started missing again by Zero Rock. Onward! Other than a constantly missing outboard, the trip to the Spit was uneventful.

We spent the evening catching up and planning our trip to San Juan Island the next day. I was concerned about fuel (I only had 1 extra gas can on board and wasn't sure about the engine economy.) So we decided to clear customs at Roche Harbour, rather than Friday Harbour as Roche is much closer to the Spit.

The Customs dock at Roche Harbour (which is a massive American Port) is a dinky little hut with two touchscreens. It didn't work for me, as it required a vessel registration number, which I don't have. Legally, Canada doesn't require that a vessel be registered if it is powered by an engine of less than 10 HP. At least I think that's what I remember someone once told me. Fortunately (or not) Kevin had a hell of time using the damn thing, even though he and Di go to the US every year! And so it was decided that we would continue on to Friday Harbour, where we thought there's be some reasonable humans working.

WRONG.

After walking to the gas dock twice at Roche, (forgot my wallet the first time) we split for Friday Harbour. Another couple of hours later, I arrived at the much larger customs dock at Friday Harbour. No humans, but they did have a big, yellow phone box along with a shit ton of surveillance cameras.  So I tied up and picked up the phone. A pleasant enough sounding woman on the other end asked me why I hadn't used the APP. "Because I wanted the pleasure of your company." I said. Well, you can't come in without a Vessel Registration Number. "Oh. So I have to leave?!"

Now, get this. I started walking down the wharf (away from Shuttlecock to tell Kevin and Di what had happened) when, all of a sudden there was this shrill, shrieking, Impossible to ignore siren coming from what turned out to be the big, yellow phone. Since there was no one else at the customs dock, I thought I better answer it. I was greeting on the other end by a very unfriendly, gruff sounding man who asked me why I was walking in the wrong direction from my boat? Holy shit. Talk about big brother. I tried to tell him I was telling my companions that I was unable to enter the Country and would be leaving for Canada. He told me, in no uncertain terms that I must return to my vessel IMMEDIATELY and leave the country. And when I was no longer in the United States of America, I must call the Canadian Customs and tell them I was back in Canada.

"Thanks very much for your help. Oh, by the way, I need gas. Is it OK if I go to the gas station to get some, so I can make it back?" "YOU ARE ALLOWED TO GET ENOUGH FUEL BUT THEN  YOU MUST LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!" OK.

I didn't call Canada Customs. That should fix him. As I headed out of Friday Harbour, I decided to continue my circumnavigation of San Juan Island, so I headed South and finally arrived back in Cadboro Bay after two days. Of special note is that I hadn't left Shuttlecock except to get gas twice. Once at Roche and once at Friday. I'm in no hurry to return to the US aboard Shuttlecock, or otherwise. I just happy to have escaped with my life.

Almost San Juan Island

chart view

Nice sail under main and jib. SW 10-15 Kts. Flood tide. Sunny.

Seems as though Shuttlecock is easily over-powered. Experimented with adjusting back-stay.

Fixed mainsheet block. I had the jaws upside down. I rigged the cunningham and boomvang, and raised the jib using the original jib halyard. It was better. I'll use the light halyard with the spinnaker. Still need to figure out how that's going to go. Plan to remove the raised block on starboard side. The angle for the halyards is wrong.

When I arrived there was no wind and between the time I started sailing, and got out of the bay, the wind had freshened to SW 15 Kts.

This was the first time I had both sails up. I was over-powered and ended up cracking off the wind and rolling up the jib. I didn't get a tight roll so the top of the jib was thrashing about. So far, I'm not sold on the roller system. Still, early in the game. Practice makes perfect.

First sail on Shuttlecock! Very different than T2. I was under the smallest stay sail I have, as it's the only one with sheets. (They're too short btw.) The storm jib is so small, it's actually sheeted on the inside of the shrouds.

I have to say, it's pretty nice having a rolling furler. I don't miss having to haul the sails up on deck and then hank them on each time I went for a sail.

I have yet to buy a new main sheet purchase point for the boom above the new traveller I installed. Then I'll need a slightly longer control line for the traveller and I'll really be ready to sail. After that it's new sheets for the larger stay sails and rigging the spinnaker.

I don't have a Navionics track to share because I forgot to start my route. I'm out of practice.

All in all, a great first sail. Can't wait to go out again!

I took advantage of a break in the weather to row out to T2.  The beach is still blocked so I don't bother with Skully. She was hard to start. It's been a while. I did a slow circuit of the bay just to keep everything moving freely.

An invigorating sail under Main and Jenny. Northeasterly 5 - 10 Kts. Flood tide. Sunshine.

As the wind increased it was harder and harder to handle the Jenny. Ended up pulling my back...

After a lazy morning at home, Gina came over and we headed to Cadboro Bay Beach. I needed water (tank was completely dry), to do dishes and figured, I might as well hit Oak Bay Marina and kill 2 birds with1 stone. Water AND fuel.

So we motored to Oak Bay Marina. There was a powerboat lineup, so I opted to tie up at a random dock and fill the water tank. Fuel could wait.

After clearing Oak Bay, I hoisted the Jenny and we were soon enjoying a gentle sail in the late September sun.

Navionics track.

After spending the night on T2, following our dinner with Kevin and Diane last night, we left for Princess Bay, Portland Island. The wind was light and on our nose from the North. So we motored. Yep, might as well rip the bandage off right away. Sail covers never came off.

Despite that, we had a quick cruise North, past Sidney Spit (about two dozen boats) to Princess Bay. We ended up with 15 boats in the small bay, including some huge power boats. The new mixing elbow worked like a charm. We had minimal water in the bilge and maximum water comin' out the pipe.

I'm still waiting for the recoil spring for Skully's outboard so we brought Trouper II Too, and rowed our way to a better planet. I have to say, I prefer motoring over to Shell beach in Skully, than hiking there. The campground was pretty much full at Shell Beach. I've never seen that before. There were also a couple dozen Kai Yackers camping at Princess Bay.

Returning to the Mother Ship, we enjoyed Bar-B-Que'd ribs for dinner along with grilled zucchini. After, we lit a fire and played a few games of cards before turning in.

Princess Bay, Portland Island

Click for chart view.

Dropped crab trap with Skully, then drove to Oak Bay where I visited with B man for a while. Returned to Cadboro Bay and, while searching for a good bark supply, I turned off the outboard. When I tried to start it again, the recoil spring broke so, knowing I'd not be able to get it started again easily, I returned to T2 and spent the next couple of hours trying to fix the spring. But it was broken so it needs to be replaced.

Without being able to start Skully's outboard, I was faced with the problem of retrieving the crab trap and having to row Skully to shore with one paddle. So here's what I did.

I picked up the crab trap in T2 and then anchored as close to the beach as I could. I struggled to paddle Skully back to the beach where I swapped her for Trouper II Too, my Minto.

After all of that, I had steak, potato salad and coleslaw for dinner. I took all of the cleaned and cooked crab home to share with mom and Gina. Oh and Kevin and Di as it turned out.