Blown into Vancouver

July 6, 2013

Hale Passage where murky waters of Bellingham Bay meet

inflow from the Strait of Georgia. The Frazier River water

is much dirtier looking.

We extricated ourselves by backing out the fairway, odd, but not too hard in a windless early morning. The calm continued through Hale Passage alongside Lummi Island, a channel we’d never traveled. Lummi island is pretty and scantly inhabited on the east side. Bellingham YC has an outstation there and we saw a quarry and a cute little ferry crossing as we pushed into a two knot ebb.

At the end of the island our rubbernecking ceased abruptly. Steep seas built up over the local shoals by a brisk northerly smacked our bow. Sloppy going, aka bashing, had us making sail in a hurry. Poor Charlie had to run around through the spray on deck removing the flapping sail cover and stops. Once we had a double-reefed main working for us, we found motorsailing about 40 degrees off the wind pretty comfortable. This worked with occasional tacks.

Cherry Point refinery with tanker.

Sightseeing included our first view of the Cherry Point refinery, not half as big as the ones at Anacortes. Otherwise the coast there is mostly trees.

We enjoyed the lee of Point Roberts but about 1:15 were pounding again out in the Strait of Georgia. Finally around the bulge of the Frazier River Delta, we headed off, set the jib and sailed for the last 3 hours. Still with plenty of wind, we averaged about 8 knots!

Even on a windy day, from English Bay Vancouver is a gorgeous city.

The river water mixing with the sea produces a brownish murky soup that feels spooky. How could water that dirty be over 400 feet deep? Each outlet of the Frazier adds its own tint to the shades of brown. We were thrilled to enter Burrard Inlet where the water was for a while a reassuring bluer brown. However the wind picked up to 30 knots, making furling lively. None of the usual sailing fleet were in evidence. In fact the only hardy souls on the water were windsurfers.

Running down Burrard Inlet in late afternoon, all roped in.

Although at 6 p.m. there’s plenty of day left, the sun was low enough in the sky that facing west and looking through the salt crusted windshield, I was blinded as we entered the Royal Vancouver YC marina. It was tough to figure out the slip location. Charlie also squinting into wind and sun, was really unsure where to go when some nice folks shouted to us from their cockpit. They pointed, jumped off and ran for the far end of the marina to meet us. I just aimed toward where they were heading. When I saw the slip, I didn’t want to try to wedge the boat in next to the other sailboat in the adjacent slip, but with two helpers on the other boat and two on the dock Gratitude shouldered in with fenders squeezed on both sides.

July 7, 2013

The Clarrens were in town at their sort of new condo, ready to brunch with us and show us around. It was a lovely morning for walking through their Kitsilano neighborhood to Juliet’s their favorite breakfast spot. Afterwards they took us home and we admired their freshly painted and furnished place. While we were there Charlie discovered that the best way to get a Canadian fishing license is on line. By the time we returned to the boat it was all registered and we printed out the official document. Could have done it from Seattle! Oh well.

View of RVYC from beach just east. The city is creating

a waterfront access trail all around English Bay.

Sandy and I strolled down the beach to the local sailing center where we could have rented a boat or a kayak but instead we just drank an experimental “Arnold Palmer” mixed up by the local snack joint owner and enjoyed the balcony view of Sunday boating mob á la Jericho. Everyone who could get outside was loving the beach and water. After Sandy left, our terrific dining experiences continued with delicious dinner on the RVYC balcony.

Just a nice little beach collage left by waves and wind.

The purplish clam shells reminded me of quahogs in New

England.