May Long Weekend

We set off from Point Roberts and headed to White Rock Pier to pick up Laura, my Mom had kindly picked her up from school and delivered her to the pier. (We felt this would be quicker than waiting until after school to leave for the boat, plus we could clear customs in White Rock thereby killing two birds with one stone.)


Our destination- Gibsons. We were happy to be visiting our wonderful friends Geoff and Dianne. Geoff has been building his beautiful house just past Gibsons, and while we had seen it in the spring at lockup stage we were anticipating seeing it finished, with the gardens in full bloom. Let me say we were not disappointed! It is a lovely, lovely sanctuary.



This was new waters for us, we had not been this far north before. From White Rock to Gibsons, with a small detour thru the Pasley Islands which John had wanted to see, it took us an hour and fortyfive minutes. Fairly smooth run, small chop, motor abit grindy after a quick looksie at Keats Island.

We pulled into Gibsons Marina, called Geoff and Dianne who came to pick us up. While we were waiting - scary boating story - a man in a small fishing boat came cruising into our slip area, "where is this?" " Uh Gibsons" , our neighbour replied. "Holy !#%" Apparently he had left the mouth of the Fraser and was heading for Vancouver Island. What?? No charts, compass, GPS,or radio. He had rented the boat, and with much bravado was busy on his cell phone trying to figure out what to do next. We were still shaking our heads when Geoff and Dianne arrived.
















The weekend was great, we enjoyed Geoff's hospitality, cooked some great dinners, ate, drank wine with a beautiful water and sunset view, Dianne and I walked on the beach at Bonniebrook. It was very relaxing.



We topped it off with a picnic trip to Gambier Island. Geoff had sold his 32ft SeaRay the year before and was very familiar with the area, so we headed to their favorite spot. Beautiful, scenic, protected in the main bay. Dianne and I are trip planners, the guys are nappers. We did our collective things, Dianne giving great tips on Desolation Sound - our July holiday destination, the guys held up their end.




We had an amazing weekend, weather hot hot hot, wonderful hospitality, magic friendship. Lovely!!


Thank you Geoff and Dianne




Kalena

New motor bracket

Our dock trip to Sucia didn't work out because of the weather. Here's hoping for a nice long stretch of sunny weather for everybody. We did have a nice visit with Dave and Barb on the Sunday, looking around each other's boats, their 28.5 Bayliner Invictus is a beauty, so much storage, sigh! Dave is a treasure trove of knowledge and gave us some good pointers on boat stuff (who knew that the canvas vinyl could melt against the stainless steel canopy arms?) (Get spacers said Dave).

Last weekend I needed to get my hands in the soil so I spent some time in my garden planting, staking, and moving some things around. I have a good number of perennials so this year the high maintenance annuals are at a minimum because of the boat. Mostly good old tough geraniums for blasts of color.




While I was on dry land, John went down to the boat and created a removeable bracket for our dinghy motor. It's a beauty and completely removeable. It folds and stores away quite nicely in one of the storage lockers. The motor is 6 hp Suzuki that up to now we have just laid in the back of the boat when underway, not the best situation as it cuts down on deckspace. We haven't been able to buy a mount that works well for the swim grid so my handy dandy husband came up with this idea and made it in our shop. He used stainless steel fittings (tough to get locally but managed to bid on them on E-bay) and then used super-strong recycled plastic lumber for the motor bracket to sit on. Works great, looks great, what a smart husband!



Kalena

What's in a name?

Boat owners spend considerable thought and energy on naming their pride and joy.

Here's a few that caught my eye or made me chuckle, some people's originality is amazing.

Stiff Ripples
Afrayed Knot
Shore Thing
Passing Wind
Reely Mine
Aloan at Last
Aquaholic
Ta-Keel-La
Harvey Dockbanger
Promocean
Knot on Call
Knotty Times / Nauti Times
Fog Ducker
Ship For Brains
Com.Seas
Reality Cheque (our friend Geoff's 32ft Sea Ray)

Top Favorites for 2007 - The Black Pearl, Liberty, Second Wind

Always at the top of favorites - Stargazer, Osprey, Happy Hours/Ours, Carpe Diem.

My personal favorite - Never Again, Two

Why Treazure? John, a pirate at heart, chose it as a reminder of one of the best times of our life - diving for treasure in the BWI's. We applied for the rights to salvage a Spanish wreck but in the end lost to another salvage company. It was an amazing adventure none the less. A tale for another time...

Post what and why you named your boat.

I'll update this list as we get more names.

Kalena

Daisy on the Dock

Life is tough on the docks.

I must be vigilant!

So difficult though..

I give up!

Daisy

Our Aussie Shepherd

I fell in love with her photo on the New West's Dog Pound website. John and Laura gave her to me for my birthday. She is a treasure!

Sucia-Those that know it love it!

Beautiful Sucia Island is probably the most popular of all the San Juans. It is my favorite that's for sure. We have spent two weekends in a row there and it looks like we're heading there again on Friday for a first of the season rendezvous with our dockmates, five or six powerboats heading out. Should be lots of fun! Our target will be Fossil Bay because of the big dock with picnic tables.

John and Laura exploring at Echo Bay

Here's a little of what I've learned about Sucia. Shaped a bit like a hand it has five excellent bays for anchoring or tieing upto a mooring buoy. Echo bay, Fossil Bay, Fox bay and Shallow. Have not been to Ewing yet. It is a little north of Orcas Island, you can easily see it's backside from Echo and Fossil bays along with a very nice view of Mt Baker. It is part of the National Park system, and you must pay a small fee to use a mooring buoy, but not to anchor. Great hiking trails among Arbutus, Madrona, and Pine trees link most of the pretty bays together.

Gorgeous beachfront campgrounds, good bathrooms and potable water during the spring summer season make it a favorite with campers too. At Shallow bay this weekend we saw two smaller boats beach right onto the sand, unload children, pets, camping gear, coolers, pitch their tents in a campsite and then go anchor their boats in the bay. It looked very convenient to say the least.

Sucia presently has 48 mooring balls, due to the island's popularity you have to get there fairly early to snag one. Echo is the largest of the bays, but careful where you anchor as they are trying to protect the Eel grass in the center of the bay, makes for a long dinghy ride to the beach unfortunately. According to a Parks fellow who was cruising slowly around Echo, there are 30 more buoys scheduled to go in which is good news. They have the balls but unfortunately lack funds for chain and rope. He thinks it will be at least another year before they will have the financial resources to put them in.

Echo bay really does have an echo, we learned this thanks to the little dog moored next to us on a sailboat who enjoyed barking at Daisy ;)
Sparkly green phosphorescence trailed our dinghy at night, making a moonlit run to the beach magical.

North facing Shallow bay can get quite bumpy even in a South or SEasterly. We had anchored for the night but when the wind picked up from the SE we were bouncing around pretty good. Lucky for us a trawler decided to leave so we made a quick decision, pulled anchor and we did a twilight tie up to their vacated mooring buoy. We slept the better for it that night, though Laura needed a couple of Gravol.

Sucia is very pretty right now, with wild roses and honeysuckle blooming along the trails as well as several varieties of berry bushes in flower.

The hummingbirds were having a field day torpedoing through the air at breakneck speed, chasing each other off their territories. They were so fast, just a noisy blurr. Lucky we could hear them coming, we had to duck a couple of times, and John and I had a little chuckle wondering if anyone has ever been impaled by one.

Hope the sun shines on Friday so we can go back.

Kalena