Return to Princess Louisa Inlet

My friend, Ian Costanzo and I have spent several weeks, over the years, cruising together on sailboats. This year we decided to spend a 9 day 'week' visiting Princess Louisa Inlet. We planned to sail up the inlet and attempt to locate and hike the path up to a plateau above the inlet that I had read about in the 'Curve of Time'. Thanks to Ian for joining me on this trip and for providing some of the photos below.

Motoring up Jervis Inlet

We sailed from Maple Bay on 'Swamp Angel' our 1968 Nicholson 32, reaching Nanaimo the first day. Here, we warmed up for our potential hike by walking a circuit of Newcastle island. The next day we pushed all the way across the Strait of Georgia, beating into 15 to 20 knot headwinds and then motoring into Jervis inlet to the Harmony Islands. Day 3 was a motor to the head of Princess Louisa inlet 40 miles away, stopping en route for some kayaking at Soda Falls. At Princess Louisa Inlet, we anchored just to the left of the falls with a stern tie to an enormous boulder.

Ian kayaking at Soda Falls in Jervis Inlet - we took turns playing in the surfy water, letting Swamp Angel drift off the falls.

Swamp Angel at anchor in Princess Louisa Inlet next to Chatterbox falls.

Kayaking at Chatterbox falls - photo by Ian

On day 4 we climbed up to the Trapper's cabin where Rani and I had hiked a few years ago. On that occasion we were literally soaked to the skin and waterlogged by the time we descended. This time, we were grateful to have sunny weather. We made sure to leave very early because we hoped to reach the 6000 foot summit plateau and return in one day. From the trapper's cabin we crossed the stream, taking off our boots and traversed a short way south until we reached another stream. Here we got off trail for about 40 minutes, following, by mistake fall line flagging tape. We retraced our steps and found a roped route up a rock face where someone had pulled the rope up and tied it to a tree at the top. I climbed up and dropped the rope and we donned our packs and ascended beside the rock face.

Rooty climb - photo by Ian

Letting down the rope to assist in the climb - photo by Ian

From the top of the rock the trail crossed another 2 creeks ascending fairly steeply to another rock face where again we lost the trail for a few minutes. Turning left at the rock face, we dropped down to a 4th creek at somewhere around 3000 feet elevation, where we climbed through a cave (using a provided rope) and on up the creek bed to a further wooded ascent. The mosquitos got gradually worse as we ascended and we stopped to Deet up.

Ian looks back at the falls by the Trapper's cabin

View from about 3000 feet where we came out into the 4th creek bed. Princess Louisa inlet is just visible from here but hidden behind Ian's back

At the top of this ascent we found the north traverse we had read about in one of the blogs. Here was a nice level walk through woods and by tarns where we encountered the only really muddy section of the trail.

Walking along the north traverse - photo by Ian

The trail climbed a bit further until we reached a ridge with fantastic views to the north and west. We entered a snow filled gully, which in a week or two would probably have been clear of snow. Near the end of the gully, a clear path dropped down to the north to a campsite and our lunch spot at somewhere around 4000 feet elevation. This overlooked a couple of small lakes that were still choked with snow and ice. 

Climbing up the snow filled gully - the trail is under the snow here.

Photo from the lunch spot showing the base of the climb to the plateau we reached after lunch and the actual summit plateau to the upper left.

Enjoying a much deserved beer

Panorama above lakes near lunch spot

After a break for a much deserved beer and hummus and veggies we climbed back up and continued off trail up the gully and onto a series of rocky slabs and snow filled depressions. We reached about 5000 feet where we came out onto a plateau facing back down Princess Louisa inlet. I left Ian to enjoy the view and nurse a sore knee and climbed up to a local height for a panoramic view at about 5300 feet. We would not have time or energy to reach the final summit plateau above, which would have required slogging over snow filled dips and across rocky slabs.

Climbing up to the plateau

On the plateau - photo by Ian

View back to Princess Louisa Inlet. Our boat is the small white dot at the lowest point of water.

Panorama from the highest point reached

Panorama from the lower plateau - photo by Ian

We returned to the trail by retracing our steps and came across a party of 4 younger people off a small sailboat who intended to camp out above the lakes. They were surprised we were making a day trip of it, but I think that they likely had a harder time of it than we did with their heavier packs, even spread over 2 days.

Steep but manageable with the provided rope

Most of the trail is in the woods - this section was beside some lovely massive mossy rock bluffs

The descent was steep but manageable and we reached the boat in time for a late swim in the chilly ice cooled waters below the falls.

I guess we should have read the sign before we went up! - photo by Ian

GPS track of the route - the red mark is roughly where the first rope climb is found, top right is our lunch spot near the lakes and far right is the highest point reached.

After we returned to our boat, the Azura anchored beside us. It is 40 meters long and was made in Australia. It had no port written on it, so I am not sure if it is Canadian or a covert international boat here despite the Covid-19 restrictions. 

The return trip out of Jervis inlet was a pleasant motor with a few hours of sailing and we made it to Pender Harbour in time to avoid the south east winds that had been forecast for the next day. We rested there one day, exploring the harbour's many bays by kayak. Two days later, broken up by brief overnight stops on Jedediah and De Courcy Islands, we were back in Maple Bay.   

We anchored near a ship wreck storage area in Pender Harbour called Whiskey Slough - photo by Ian

Leaving Pender Harbour we were reminded of what can happen so easily if you let your guard down or are just unlucky - photo by Ian

A nice flat walk on Jedediah island on the way home. The island is a park with several lovely trails through woods and old pasture.

Desolation Sound in a Nicholson 32

In late November I purchased Swamp Angel, a Nicholson 32 sailboat, built in England more than 50 years ago. She is a full keel blue water boat that has seen a few adventures including a transit of the Panama Canal, sailing the Atlantic seaboard, and a trip to Mexico and back. By coincidence we had met the previous owners, Greg and Lorraine, in early 2009 when we arrived in Mazatlan Mexico on our first Ladybug.

Nicholson 32 Plans

Swamp Angel as we bought her

Rani returned from the UK in December after nearly a year away from home and after a bit of arm twisting agreed to accompany me to Powell River where Swamp Angel is currently moored. (We will keep the new boat in Powell River until we can sell our other boat, Drifter) 

We brought along plenty of food, sleeping bags, and lots of reading material and headed north to Desolation Sound the day after we arrived. The winds were light and following for much of the trip north so we ran under diesel until we entered the sound where we had a light NW wind that allowed us to sail for an hour or two. The Unwin range at the head of the sound was wreathed in cloud but we were happy to catch glimpses of peaks as we sailed in.

Rani on the foredeck heading into Desolation Sound

Unwin Range

We had a weather forecast that promised reasonable weather for a day or so followed by a day of rain and near galeforce winds followed by calm weather. So we decided to find a well protected anchorage on day one and stay there for three nights. We selected Melanie Cove in Prideaux Haven because it is extremely protected and also offers some nice hiking. We were happy with our choice and saw almost no wind in the anchorage despite high winds in the Strait of Georgia outside. We saw no other boats for the three days we were there nor were there any visible from the places we hiked to.

Peaceful Melanie Cove

Lots of water in the creek at Laura Cove

On our second day we hiked the trail out to Melanie Point as well as the one to Laura Cove and beyond up another lightly used trail where we came across the remains of a squatter's camp. The trails were a bit wet and there were a lot of wind fallen logs, which have not been cleared probably because the trail is unofficial and not maintained by the parks people.

Interior of Swamp Angel showing the diesel heater - a great comfort on this trip.

View of the Unwin range from the end of our walk past Laura Cove

Melanie cove was also packed with jellyfish. I remember this was true also on the one other occasion I have been here (in May 2005) but this time there were much larger ones as well as the 2 to 4 inchers I remembered.

Moon Jellyfish - Aurelia Aurita - Not easy to photograph, but the video gives a better idea

The trip home was also done mostly under motor and we were treated to mountain views as well as sightings of a humpback mother and calf. The whales swam so close to the boat that their breathe spray settled on our faces. We were too busy enjoying the experience to take any photos!

Swamp Angel under sail. Note the wind generator and vintage solar panels.

A summer of drifiting

I ended up spending much of the summer on Drifter, a 24 foot C&C sailboat. In total, since I bought her near the end of May, I have spent more than 7 weeks cruising the Gulf islands, visiting the US San Juans, sailing down to Victoria to meet up with old friends, crossing to Vancouver to visit my brother, and sailing up to Desolation Sound and the Discovery islands to cruise there with my friend Ian. The following map shows this summer's trips.

In June I added a nearly new 6 horsepower Tohatsu motor bought second hand in Port Alberni. It is specially designed for small heavy boats, rather than dinghies or runabouts, with an extra long shaft and a small battery charging magneto as well as a modified propellor. I tried to sail the boat without an engine for two more trips totalling 8 days after her first delivery voyage and concluded that the engine would make things enormously easier, especially in the very light airs of the Gulf Islands.

Drifter in the boat yard at Maple Bay with fresh bottom paint

Old farmhouse Jedediah Island

Tranquil anchorage in Malaspina Inlet

In July I hauled the boat out and cleaned and painted the bottom, which made a huge difference in her speed. She was like a different boat after this both under power and sail. In this time I also replaced the compass, fitted a depth sounder, and added an anchor roller and chain deck pipe so that the anchor can be easily raised and lowered, with chain and rope rode storage in the forepeak. I also added a 50 watt solar panel and charge controller to top up the battery and additional support under the mast compression post.

Sunset and quiet water

Drifter ghosting along

The first major trip was only about 80 miles in total - a visit to Cadboro Bay in Victoria. However due to light winds, a somewhat fouled bottom, and having no motor, it took me 6 sailing days to cover this distance. One night I had to sail out the anchor when I woke in the night to find the wind had come up and set me onto a dock in the bay in which I had anchored. The boat did not respond to the helm as I hauled up the anchor and I had to gybe her around and run her in very close to the beach to get her under control. What followed was a stressful night that ended at 2 am after three hours of downwind sailing, navigating using a small scale paper chart with occasional fixes from my cell phone GPS. I had to locate an anchorage I could enter under sail in the dark without the benefit of depth sounder and chose the shoaling water on the north end of James Island near Sidney as my 'landing spot'. The return trip was equally exciting when I ended up drifting into the ferry lane near Schwartz Bay around dusk after a day of painfully slow progress. I was forced to anchor in very deep water to avoid becoming a hazard to navigation because I could not fight a 2 knot current with my sculling oar. I ended up accepting an offer from a kind person on a passing sailboat to be towed into a better location. All this decided me to fit a motor. Perhaps if I had cleaned and painted Drifter's bottom before this trip, I might not have made this decision, for she would have made much better progress in light air.

Jamie Orr's Orkney Lass near Montague Harbour on Galiano Island

Chuck Godfrey's Blue Moon

Her first larger trip with the motor took me down to San Juan island in the US for a visit to friends Gary and Beth who have a house on the island. Rani and I had met this couple in Mexico where we cruised together for a couple of weeks. I anchored in Garrison Bay off the English Camp historic site (where the British army stationed a garrison during the so called Pig War - a border dispute between the colony of Canada and the US). This is a well protected anchorage and I felt comfortable leaving the boat there for a couple of days. After this I took Drifter to the Small Boat Rendezvous at Sucia Island that my friend Jamie Orr organizes every year. You usually meet interesting people at this kind of event - the type of people who are not afraid of traveling long distances on small boats. I met one fellow on an 18 footer who has sailed and rowed his craft in the race to Alaska a couple of years ago. No mean feat for a healthy 30 year old, but he was into his 60s at the time. From the San Juans I cruised in company with Jamie in Orkney Lass - a small wooden schooner, and his friends on Blue Moon - a 34 foot Pacific Seacraft. We sailed up into the Gulf Islands, parting way at Pirates Cove on De Courcy island from which I sailed to Vancouver to visit my brother's family. I anchored Drifter in False Creek and spent a few days ashore hiking and rock climbing and took the family out for a sail around Stanley Park and under the Lion's Gate bridge. I returned via Gabriola passage with a short stop to visit my friend Andy who has a house on Ruxton island. This trip was two weeks long.

The longest trip of the season (22 days in total)  took me up to Campbell River, via Nanaimo, and then on to Jedediah, Lasqueti, Hornby, and Savary islands.  It took about 6 days to reach Campbell River following this route and I particularly enjoyed a tranquil but spectacular anchorage in little Bull passage between Jedediah and Lasqueti islands. The trails on Jedediah Island (which is a park) were excellent walking and there is an old farm to explore on this island as well as lovely woods and rock formations. The anchorage at Tribune Bay on Hornby island is open to the south and was too exposed for a comfortable sleep so I headed round the corner to a more protected anchorage after a few hours ashore walking the beach and trails. Savary island looks like it should have a good anchorage protected from NW winds, but I found that an annoying swell wrapped around the west end of the island and set Drifter rocking back and forth for several hours.

Ian Costanzo enjoying breakfast on Drifter

Ian and friend on Quadra Island near Rebecca Spit

Ian on Drifter with Don Selden's Grampian 26 in the background

I met Ian in Campbell River, docking at Fisherman's wharf for a day to make this easier. We provisioned and headed off for 6 days cruising in the  Discovery Islands. En route we met Don Shelten who was also sailing a smaller boat - a Grampian 26. Don had spent nearly 10 years restoring his boat and she was clearly a work of love. Together we cruised the coasts of Read and Quadra islands, seeing humpback whales almost every day and enjoying pot luck meals on both boats. Back at Campbell River, I dropped Ian off and met some more small boat cruisers on an Alberg 30. Mick and his daughter Mathilde and son Tristan were nearing the end of a 3 month cruise and we decided it would be fun to sail together to explore some of the anchorages on Cortes Island. Video below courtesy of Ian.

Don's 'Little Blue Boat'

Old fishing boat in Hjurth Bay, Read Island - just needs a lick of paint to put her in order

Mick was leading an interesting life and seemed quite fearless to me, having driven down and around central and south America on various small motorbikes, usually with his son or daughter on the back. He had a doctorate in waste water management and managed to make a living in between adventures consulting for clients mostly in the US. Mick and family had lived on board a 23 foot sailboat one summer at Mansons Landing on Cortes island and made excellent tour guides when we visited this island.

Mick's wife was joining the boat at Gorge Harbour on Cortes, so I parted with them and headed south, stopping to visit friends in Powell River and on to Garden Bay in Pender Harbour. Here I met up with Paul Scott who had sailed his Contessa 32, 'Wind River' to Pender Harbour to attend the Chamber Music festival that has been held here every year for 15 years. We had met Paul and his wife Susan in Mexico 10 years ago when we sailed there on Ladybug. I managed to get last minute tickets to the Sunday concert and really enjoyed the experience of world class music in such a beautiful setting. Paul and I left the next day for a rough beat to windward down to Nanaimo. The 3 foot chop and strong winds made for a tiring day and had the only incidents of the trip on this day - a dinghy rescue under sail when the painter (towing rope) chafed through, a lost winch handle (non-floating) during this rescue, and some dings to the bow when the danforth anchor broke free from its clips.

All in all it has been a great summer on the water and I am very pleased that Drifter has turned out to be a good little cruising boat.

Camping Trip to Alberni Valley

I wanted to find out how it would be to camp out of the Nissan Pathfinder, so packed up enough food and gear to last most of a week and drove up to Port Alberni. After looking at an outboard motor for 'Drifter', I headed over to the base of Arrowsmith, which is accessed by driving up a couple of logging roads that branch off the main highway 4 near Alberni summit.

The hike up started inauspiciously when a doberman attacked me on the approach trail and got its teeth into my leg. The damage was minor - torn pants, bruising, and a couple of teeth punctures but it put me in a sour mood for a few hours. I found out later that the same dog had attacked another hiker and a dog that day. The judges route is steep and quite eroded in places - a victim of the popularity of climbing Arrowsmith as this is the only route that is non-technical and hence used by everyone and his dog. There was low cloud as I approached the summit and limited views to the west with none to the east.

View looking back the way I came up from summit of Arrowsmith

Camp set up on a logging spur road.

That night I set up camp on a disused logging spur and found that making supper on the fold out shelf and later sleeping on the platform, with everything shut up and cosy, worked out very well. I used magnets to attach screens to two windows to reduce condensation and keep the car ventilated.

The next day I packed up the full backpack with tenting gear and added some food I could eat without cooking and headed up to the Cokely Arrowsmith saddle - the same place where a year ago Rani broke her leg. The clouds were still low and visibility not ideal. The trail, although steep, was much more pleasant than the Judges route and I saw only a few people that day - and no attack dogs. I set up camp just above the saddle on a plateau that overlooks Jewel Lake. I then hiked over the 'Bumps' to get to the base of Arrowsmith, which I climbed up until my nerves got the better of me about 100 feet from the first summit.

View from the plateau where I camped with Jewel Lake below

Walking back to the campsite over the bumps, the clouds swept in and obscured everything. I lost the path on one bump and made one and a half circuits of the summit I was on before finding it again. In the process I climbed down and back up a couple of cliffs and ran across either a grouse or ptarmigan (which I understand is a type of grouse anyway). The bird had a brood of chicks - 6 or 7 in number - and I felt very guilty for disturbing their warm nest in this bleak and windy place.

Spot the bird

And spot the tent

I retired to my own nest and read a book for the afternoon, occasionally glancing out to see if the cloud showed any signs of lifting. It got worse however and eventually the inside of my 20+ year old tent started to resemble a steaming kettle, with wind-driven cloud boiling in under the fly and rain dripping through from above. Around 6 pm I capitulated and packed everything up to head back down to the comparative luxury of the truck, driving this down toward the highway and parking on another spur road with a level patch for camping.

The next day after a short hike along Roger Creek, I drove the 80+ kilometers of dusty logging roads to Bamfield and Pachena Bay. I have been to Bamfield on three boat trips over the last 15 years but had never driven in. Now I remember why. The road is actually passable for a low clearance vehicle driven with caution, but there is a continuous danger, not so much from the logging trucks and road making equipment but from small pickup trucks driven by people who, I would guess, commute into Port Alberni or further. These trucks would swing into view, often in a full 4 wheel skid around a steep bend going 80-100 kph on a road whose 70 kph speed limit was in places pretty optimistic. The road is also very dusty and I spent a lot of time breathing recirculated air.

Buoys mark the entrance to the trail at Keeha Beach

Pachena Bay has a campground run by first nations and is also where the west coast trail starts or ends. I walked along the beach and paralleled the trail for a portion enjoying tide pools and lovely views out toward the open Pacific. From here I drove to South Bamfield and hiked out to Keeha Beach - which was where Rani and I had intended to camp last year before she broke her leg. The trail has been described on various Internet sites as being muddy and rooty and much more difficult than its 3 km length would indicate. It was not too bad on the day I hiked it, but the portion near the lake was quite overgrown and very muddy in places. The roots and mud make it very hard to get into a regular walking pace as you seem to be always stepping up or down. There is much boardwalk and corduroy road on the trail but much of it is old and a bit rotten or disrupted. The trail could certainly do with some attention from the National Parks folks (it is part of Pacific Rim park).

The only other hikers in front of me , a group of 4 adults and a child, turned back near the lake, so I had the beach to myself. It would be a lovely place to spend the night. I chose to do it as a day hike and spent a couple of hours walking it end to end and investigating the camp sites and facilities (including a composting toilet) in case we do this as an overnighter some year.

View to the west from the trail head at Keeha Beach

Curious tree growing from an old log on the Keeha Beach trail

In all the trip was a successful one and a good trial of the minimalist SUV camper setup. The sleeping arrangements will be a bit cosy with two of us I think, but certainly adequate for a weekend getaway or even a week or 2 of camping.

Camperizing a Nissan Pathfinder SUV

We came back from the camping trip from Mexico with a desire to do more boondocking style camping. The Yaris is a great little car, but its clearance for back roads leaves something to be desired and it is pretty hard to sleep in it with any amount of camping gear. To that end we picked up an older (2002) Nissan Pathfinder. Using a sheet of Baltic birch plywood (5' by 5'), two piano hinges, and odds and ends left over from renovations, including curtain rods from Rani's old house and some old table legs, I built a sleeping platform with storage under and a fold out food preparation/cooking shelf. The set up has to operate in three 'modes': eating, sleeping, and driving. The following pictures  show the vehicle in each of these modes.

The first design dilemma was how high to make the sleeping platform. Ideally you want it high for lots of storage but not so high that you cannot read a book in bed or are always banging your head when you sit up. We chose a 9 inch height below the platform that is large enough for small storage totes but still leaves some headroom above the platform when sleeping or reading.

Cooking platform extended with room for a stove and a small food preparation area

Underside of cooking platform showing the curtain rod supports. The cooking platform is hinged where it joins the sleeping platform and again in the middle so that it can fold down out of the way when driving or sleeping

The next issue was how to have some sort of cooking platform extending outside the truck that would not be in the way when sleeping or driving. I considered using drawer slides but this would have cut into the storage room below and been a bit wobbly. I ended up using piano hinges and initially thought the platform would fold up when driving or sleeping, but the angle of the rear hatch door makes this impossible, so I had to cut the cooking platform in half and hinge it again at this point. I used curved curtain rod brackets and the curtain rods themselves (cut down) as slide out shelf supports.

In sleeping mode with thermarest mattresses under (not visible) covered by a home made comforter that Rani's Mum sewed up and then a sleeping bag.

View from the side door where one would enter to go to bed. Still need to make bug screens for these doors.

We will eventually get a locking food storage container and cooler because these will probably live outside the vehicle in sleeping mode and need to be bear proof.

One limitation of the LE version of the Pathfinder is that the driver's seat automatically moves to the fully back position to make it easier to exit the vehicle for large people. This means that the sleeping platform is limited to just under 6 feet. This is not an issue for us smaller people and you can move the seats forward at night to get more head/leg room. If I was 6 foot plus, I would add in a folding extension at the forward end to make the platform 6 inches longer.

Initially I planned to use 2 by 4s or 4 by 4s for the legs, but I had a set of table legs I had saved when I cut up an old table to make a work bench. I cut these to length on the table saw, using different sections of the legs for 5 different leg supports. The middle of the platform is supported on small lengths of 2 by 3 inch lumber that rest on the wheel wells. 

Detail showing table leg support at front. These are simply screwed to the platform from above with longish deck screws.

 I will probably buy a couple of containers such as those used to store clothes under a bed to better use the long spaces under the sleeping platform. What is shown in the pictures below is just an attempt to understand what sort of space we need to fill.

About to go into driving mode with cooking shelf cleared and ready to fold away and cooking stuff stowed under the sleeping platform.

In driving mode with cooking shelf folded down and stowed.

In driving mode, the bedding is simply rolled up. There would normally be clothing duffel bags as well on the sleeping platform and these would end up on the front seats at night.

A new boat

I missed the sailing as soon as our last trip was over and resolved when I got back to BC to find a sailboat for local trips and day sailing. Initially, I looked at boats around 30 feet - a Crown 34, then a Cal 2-29, Cal 2-27,  and another Cal-29. While any of these boats could have worked, they all had maintenance issues that I did not feel like tackling or were too big (the Crown 34) or too expensive (the Cal 2-27). I finally settled on something a bit smaller. Smaller boats are usually more fun to daysail, cost less to buy, and take less money and effort to maintain. They are typically available at far below a sane replacement cost perhaps because few people are willing to pay $3000 a year to keep a $3000 boat in a marina, especially when they might only use the boat a few days a year.

In our case, we have a mooring in Maple Bay that costs a few hundred a year to maintain (hiring a diver to inspect and replacing the chain every few years). So the running costs of a small boat make more sense, especially when one has lots of time to use it.

The boat I settled on is a C&C 24 made in Ontario in 1984. I bought her in Sechelt (north west of Vancouver) a week ago, almost 35 years to the day that she was first launched (I have all the original papers on board). This boat weighs about 3000 pounds, so she is a far cry from Raven, which weighs about 7 times as much! She came with 3 decent sails, a dubious battery, a mast compression post issue, and no motor - oh and a family of mice had been living on her but are, I believe, no longer in residence. She has 3 berths all a good length - a double V-berth and two settee berths, a small galley with alcohol stove, sink, and ice box, and a porta pottie for a head. There is not standing head room but you can open the hatch and stand up straight to cook so long as the weather is nice or you have remembered to put a tarp up over the boom.

The trip over to look at her was an adventure itself, mostly because I was determined to sail the boat home if she proved to be suitable and in decent enough shape. To get from Duncan to Sechelt without bringing a car required a complex sequence of hiking, long distance bus to Nanaimo, ferry to Vancouver, another Ferry to the Sunshine Coast, and another bus to Sechelt. This took most of the day and it was around suppertime when I arrived at the boat. I also had to lug a varied assortment of gear with me to fix things on the boat (tools, duct tape, crazy glue...) and clothing to handle a multi day cruise, as well as food preparation (pots and pans, dishes, cutlery, corkscrew), navigation (charts and cruising guide), and sleeping (sleeping bag, pillow). To make things more interesting, the boat did not come with a dinghy, so I bought a cheapie inflatable raft at Canadian Tire and carried that along too.

Yes - it looks like a pool toy, but actually worked out surprisingly well. Even rows into a headwind without issues

The owner's brother met me and allowed me to look over the boat. I then called the owner who was in Hawaii helping arrange a wedding.  We came to an agreement quite easily and I was now the proud owner of a somewhat neglected little boat. I spent Friday and Saturday getting the battery charged, cleaning the boat, laying in food for the trip home, and checking the sails and related equipment to ensure everything worked. Fortunately there was an IGA food store, a liquor store, and a Canadian Tire just across the highway from the marina. I was able to get a rudimentary electrical system working and pick up food that would be easy to re-heat on the simple non-pressurized alcohol stove.

The other minor issue was the lack of motor. The marina is small but there was one dog leg to get through in order to reach the Strait of Georgia. I found an 8 foot long twisted offcut someone had discarded from a 2 by 4 and lashed a canoe paddle from the boat to this with waxed nylon. This gave me a 10 foot oar to scull or row with. On Sunday morning well before sunrise I ghosted out of the marina with a light northerly breeze, using the oar to help her around one bend. The wind picked up in the strait and I had to shorten sail to the small jib about half way across. I sailed to Nanaimo, but the wind was favourable for going south so I transited the narrow and tidal passage called Dodd's Narrows with a nice following breeze and a slight current flooding against us. The boat was a bit bouncy on the crossing but handled a 15 knot beam wind and accompanying chop with aplomb. She is as fun to sail as I had hoped.

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Trip home

That night I spent at De Courcy Island, moving on the next day to the north end of Thetis - a passage that took several hours because there was almost no wind. I did try out my new oar, but could only make at most about one knot using this. The third day I sailed to Montague Harbour on Galiano island, which has a great little hiking trail and beautiful beach.

Wing and wing off Salt Spring island - note the custom whisker pole holding out the genoa

Day four I decided to go for a loop around the south end of Salt Spring Island, but ran out of wind before reaching my intended destination of Cowichan Bay. I had to row for half an hour to get out of the ferry channel near Swartz Bay and anchored beside a little islet off the south end of Salt Spring. Day 5 was forecast to be another day of light and variable winds, but I had just enough wind to run up through Sansum Narrows with a following current and reach my mooring by mid afternoon in time to get back home for band practice.

Drifter on her mooring in Maple Bay - the rowing oar is lashed along the deck.

I dived on the boat today and found that she has a good looking hull without too much paint buildup. The diver who cleaned her for the last owner left a heavy growth of barnacles along the leading and bottom edges of the keel. Apart from that, she is only a little fouled and weedy looking. The 35 year old knot meter even worked after I freed up the paddle wheel!

There are lots of projects to tackle this summer. She needs a new compass, some sort of depth sounder (none was ever installed), and an anchor roller, as well as the mast compression post fix (the base has subsided). I will also install a simple solar system because she has no motor to charge the battery. However, everything seems manageable, mainly because she is such a small boat...