Victoria

The weekend plan. Sail to Victoria with Devin and his buddies. We all caught the 8:20 ferry and the 5 of us fell into a good discussion on a variety of topics. It was great getting caught up on their lives. College will start all too soon and it’s tough to stay in touch long distance.




Friday morning dawned with some overcast but the mood aboard was up beat and appreciative as Jodi made her “kitchen sink” eggs: sausage, sun dried tomatoes, cheese and a few other things scrambled together into warm yuminess.



We left Friday harbor shortly after 0900 and after clearing Cattle Point hoisted the job and reached across the straits.

I never get tired of coming into Victoria. There is so much going on. Seaplanes, small ferries, big ferries, whale watching (harassing) boats. tugs, fishing boats and other recreational traffic all in a rather confined area. And this time there was a huge 356 foot square rigged barque that was in front of us. We learned later it was a Russian school ship.



We tied up and strolled around Victoria with cocktail hour in the cockpit surrounded by the sights and sound of the city. Dinner was pulled pork tacos. Moored in front of the Empress hotel. Nice.



Saturday morning we fired up the stove and u made pancakes, Jodi prepared Canadian Bacon (when in Rome...) and the boys devoured it as soon as it left the cook top

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We decided to take a long walk through the Beacon Hill park which drops down to the water. It was at this point that I was on the cell phone getting the news that my father wasn't doing well. We needed to go back to Friday harbor.



We walked back to the boat, secured everything and got underway. Devin and crew took advantage of the sun bathed foredeck. As we approached San Juan we saw a few whale harassing boats and then we saw the Orca. They were headed south and it looked like the pod was all south of us to our starboard. Good. We could keep a good distance away from them yet enjoy them as well. A few minutes later I looked back and to our port. Headed towards us was another group of 4 whales. We (or they) were way too close. We spun the wheel to starboard to at least parallel them and cut the engine.

They passed fairly close but seemed unperturbed. Engine off, we quietly listened to them blow and swim on.



After getting back to Friday Harbor, customs took longer than usual and once again a shining example of wasted tax dollars. Owing to an international ferry, no customs agent was available. Fair enough. But after waiting about 30 minutes the customs agent appears on the dock and asked for our passports, then without ever stepping on board, dutifully checked that every passport had a bonafide visible human in the cockpit. If you are going to require passports I'd feel a lot better if he boarded the boat and confirmed that every human had a passport. Instead they merely confirm that every passport I handed him had a human. Checking humans to documents at least has some merit. Checking documents to humans is a waste of time and money.

The drama started as we pulled away from the Customs dock. There was no wind and little current and we maneuvered away from the customs dock, but when we were about 50 feet away, the boat didn’t respond to forward or reverse. The engine was running fine, but the propellor wasn’t spinning. I dove down below hoping to see that the linkage had come undone. No such luck. We were drifting towards the other dock. No wind to sail.



Hmm. We lowered the bullfrog and made it fast to the port side as far back as I could get it (you have more control if your ‘pusher’ boat is far aft). Jodi said ‘what are you doing’? I said, ‘You’re going to land the boat’. Her eyes went wide.



I put the bullfrog in gear and soon we had steerage way. Jodi started to steer to our slip – which involves 2 turns before turning into the slip. The first was a near 180 to port around the breakwater. I wasn’t worried about that one. With steerage way, CAMBRIA could slowly steer and all I had to do was kick the bullfrog in reverse and with the drag on the port side the momentum of the boat would result in a sharp port turn. It was the next turn to starboard that worried me, but Jodi did it just fine. As we approached the final turn, Devin was on bow, Andrew was on stern and Anthony had a spare fender in his hand. His role was to put the fender between CAMBRIA and the first object we might hit.



The landing turned out pretty good. I was a bit too conservative as I was down in the bullfrog on the port side. We were 3-4 feet away from the dock, but Devin and Andrew managed to jump with their lines and Anthony fended off the boat on our port side. Jodi did great at the helm. All worked well and it was a team effort that resulted in success.



Dinner was cheeseburgers with sun dried tomatoes in them. All ate well.

After dinner I saw Jim Whittaker walking the dock with his wife. He was kind enough to pose with the boys for a picture.



Good weekend, but we knew there would be difficult days ahead.