The next morning the sunrise was beautiful. Although it had rained hard in La
Connor over the night, the morning was calm and the sun was coming up with a reddish glow at 8 am. We started on the last leg of our journey to Seattle’s Lake Union and the weather only improved as the day continued. It was so sunny that I had to wear sunglasses and we were in shirt sleeves on the enclosed flybridge during the day. The strongest wind we experienced was less than 5 knots and the sea were at most rippled. What a magnificent last day. We reflected with our friends and crew, Bill and Sherri, how many experiences we had packed into a short ten days. We had the delightful visit with the live-abroad sailor John in Oak Harbor, the two days in the wind at Silva Bay and the trip to Nanaimo on the ferry, the snow at Princess Louisa Inlet, the magnificent meal with our Grand Banks friends on New Year’s Eve, and then the two days of adventure heading into a gale. In between these events were reacquaintance of past friends, meeting of new friends, reflecting on the magnificence of Princess Louisa Inlet, and taking quiet time to think about the year past and all its joys.

It is interesting that upon our return from our first new year’s celebration at Princess Louisa Inlet three years ago we encountered storm force winds traveling across Boundary Pass. This was only three hours of the trip, but remain today as one of the most indelible memories of experience. And so it was again this year that weather played its part in making this a memorable experience for all the crew of the eight Grand Banks that shared the 2007 New Year’s experience together. The take-away for any winter cruising is to not be on a set schedule and allow time to stay in port until the weather passes. But personally I feel that the weather is one of the joys of winter cruising. It is part of the adventure and memories that are part of any boater’s repertoire of experiences. But clearly it is important to have a well maintained boat and one as seaworthy as a Grand Banks when you venture north for a winter cruise.

As we pulled into our dock in Lake Union we had traveled 456 miles in 10 days and enjoyed memories that will tide us over until our next big adventure. We all recognized that it is now time to start planning our summer cruising and writing new pages in our personal logs describing the nearly infinite places to cruise in the Pacific Northwest.

Here is a final photo that captures this trip rather well (click to enlarge):

There is an important principle in boating that should never be forgotten- don’t conclude what the weather is like when you are sitting at the dock. So why did we forget this when we awoke to an overcast morning with no rain or wind in the Marina? Good question for which I have no really good answer. Feeling emboldened with optimism we listened to the VHF weather and our hope for improved weather was dashed on the rocks of unrealistic optimism. We ventured out anyway when we saw a small 18 foot outboard boat leave the harbor. Once outside the harbor, it didn’t take us long to see that the weather forecast was correct. In fact the small boat tucked in behind us very quickly and stayed on our stern until it could find a place to turn off back to the harbor.

We continued on south past Vancouver harbor and beating into the 40 knot wind and sea past the various tributaries of the mighty Fraser River. With the amount of water coming down the river from the rains and the wind and changing tide it made for “interesting’ seas (there’s that word again). In this case interesting meant steep waves that had breaking crests. Again to the credit of the Tom Fexas designed hull on Sanctuary we made safe passage ultimately crossing the boundary to the United States at Blaine. This portion of the trip is always rough when there is wind in that the currents and wind and changing bottom contours commonly make the waters of this area “confused’. It would be safe to say that confusion had degenerated in this case to chaos. We held on and transited to the safety of the east side of Lummi Island where we got a rest from the southwest wind and waves. After passing the southern tip of Lummi Island the anemometer quickly recorded gusts of 58 knots. Fortunately the fetch of the wind in this area was not as great as on the Strait of Georgia so the swells and waves were smaller than we had encountered earlier.

We made our way to the Swinomish Slough and transited to La Connor which by the time we arrived at 4 pm was calm, clear and a portion of a sunset was just starting in the west. After clearing Customs we headed to town for a stretch of our legs and those of our two dogs who had been patient with us during the past two days of rough water. We had successfully ridden out the storm by transiting from Pender Harbor to La Connor down the Strait of Georgia over the past two days. This became more remarkable when we learned later that evening by watching the television news that people from Seattle to Vancouver, BC had experienced a blow that was considerable and resulted in numerous power outages.

When we called Brian Pemberton on the cell phone to find out how the rest of our group had done he related that they had decided to stay at the dock in Pender Harbor for the two days. He indicated that it was a wise decision in that the wind in Pender Harbor blew all night with gusts in excess of 50 knots in the harbor. As I said “welcome to Winter”.

We decided to treat ourselves with a dinner at one of the fine restaurants in La Connor. Walking to dinner the weather was actually balmy. There was a bit of wind, the temperature was in the low 50’s and a near full moon started to shine brightly. It is always a gift of being on the boat to be close to and in tune with the weather and the world about you which we often miss in our normal urban lives. It is also one of the great rewards of boating to earn the good weather that follows a storm.

Here are some pictures from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

The New Year started with low overcast and drizzle as we all headed to Malibu Rapids to hit the 9:30 am slack tide. Given that the crew of Sanctuary had to be back in Seattle by January 3 we left the dock at 8 am and were first to comfortably slip through the rapids on an outgoing tide at 8:30 am. The water of the various reaches heading back to Pender Harbor was flat and the cruise allowed some of the crew to watch the Rose Parade and football on the way. After we got back into VHF radio reception range we learned that the storm had arrived and we were back into “Windter”. The barometer had dropped 15 millibars in 6 hours and was still plunging. We knew that the trip back to Seattle was going to be a lumpy ride if we continued on. After leaving Agamemnon Passage we hit the southeast wind head on. As we headed south past Pender Harbor and then Secret Cove to the Merry Islands the swells and wind grew substantially. The stabilizers and autopilot kept the boat tracking true and stable given the conditions that we were encountering.

As we headed south toward our ultimate objective for the evening of the Union Steamship Marina on Bowen Island we had the opportunity to test the seaworthiness of the 72 Aleutian. We all commented that the boat handled the conditions of 35 to 50 knot winds and large swells and wind waves very well without porpoising or rolling. We rode up above the waves and although the boat had considerable spray engulf it we never took any blue water over the bow.

It was a nice sight, however, when we arrived at the Marina just as darkness set in at 5pm. The rain then came down in buckets for the whole of the night. It was definitely a very nice evening to stay warm and dry inside with the heater on and watch the great DVD movie “Searching for Ned Devine”.

Here is a picture from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

The last day of the year at Princess Louisa Inlet was a rainy, but warm day that allowed everyone the time to get the big dinner “feast” prepared. I was amazed to find that we were getting satellite television reception at the dock as well as satellite radio. This boded well for the New Year’s Day football games. It is truly amazing what technology can provide these days.

We spent the day dock walking and boat visiting catching up on the memories of 2006 and discussing where we all wanted to cruise in 2007. Watching satellite television news and weather we learned that a large low pressure front was forecast to move in the next day and would bring 50 knot winds to the Georgia Straits. At 5 pm we had the customary bonfire and cocktails with the pot luck dinner to start on Sanctuary at 7 pm.
We were overwhelmed to see the cornucopia of food that arrived at Sanctuary. How were all these marvelous contributions to the pot luck prepared in our 8 Grand Banks? We had a whole smoked turkey, honey-roasted ham, a Thai squash soup, a 5 cheese gnocchi, three salads, chicken, several marvelous starch and vegetable dishes and of course desserts to die for including a homemade sticky toffee pudding that made the word “rich” seem insignificant.

It was great to see that Sanctuary could comfortably accommodate the 19 of our group for dinner. I was so pleased that we had put heat on the enclosed flybridge with our Kabola heating system in that it made this area very comfortable for people to visit and eat at the tables that are in front of the settees. Someone even renamed it the “Sky Lounge”.

Did we stay up until 12 pm to see the New Year in? Well let’s just say that it was New Year somewhere when we celebrated before everyone turned in for the night.

Here are some pictures from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

We awoke to find the snow had remained on the dock, trees and cliffs and displayed itself as a beautiful morning with high overcast skies. Chatterbox Falls was running with diminished volume of water due to the freeze in the high country above the Inlet. We all broke out the kayaks, dinghies and snow boots and started into a day of exploration, photography and boat to boat visiting on the docks. As the kayaks took to the water the resident Princess Louisa seals (at least 20 of them) arrived to see what was going on. The two dogs, Misha and Mickie, of Brian and Carol Pemberton took to the water for a swim only to attract the curious seals to come visit them. This resulted in an amazing dog to seal exchange where neither party knew exactly how to treat to the other party. All of the humans at the dock who were witness to this event recognized that there must have been some type of “kinship” between the dogs and seals that was connected somewhere to evolution in the distant past.

As the kayaks headed out for exploration we were further treated to the sight of a single kayak occupied by both Brian Pemberton and his dog Misha patiently sitting between his legs. Now many of us had seen dogs riding in kayaks with their masters before, but rarely was the dog as big as Misha, a 70 pound Sharpe/Labrador mixture. Brian later explained that Misha instinctively maintains her balance in the Kayak and knows not to move, a trait not shared by Brian’s other dog, Mikie.

The other usual activity that occupied the day was exchange of boat maintenance tips from owner to owner. Winter boating is a great time to “stress systems” and find out what might be in need of repair. It is therefore not surprising that many minor systems were repaired during the day. It is amazing to see the technical expertise that exists within a group of 8 Grand Banks owners related to the systems on their boats. I felt particularly lucky to have Bill Harpham as a member of our crew on Sanctuary in that he was a chief engineer on the Washington State ferries for more then twenty years prior to his retirement. Having him on board was like having a live-in service center at you disposal. There were numerous little jobs that he took on and of course I was the beneficiary of his skill in being the receptive student. Bill did mention that if we invited him on a winter cruise again he might have to decline due to his ‘busy’ schedule. Wonder if I overworked him?

That night at 5 pm we had another bonfire get-together where we all brought hors devours. The diversity of the appetizers was amazing and made dinner really unnecessary (although we all did head back to our boats at 7 pm for dinner). We all learned from Michael De Vos from South Africa aboard the 32 Grand Banks Our Lady about the changes that are occurring in the country since apartheid. It sounded to all of us that the country was in for a transition and some turmoil until the change to new leadership could mature.

Here are some pictures from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

The flotilla pushed off from the Egmont Marina dock at shortly after sunrise at 8 am. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day for cruising to Malibu Rapids where the slack tide was to be at 12:25 pm. We were so pleased that one of the boats in our fleet was a 32 Grand Banks Our Lady skippered by the young couple Noah and Dominique France from South Africa who had invited her father, Michael De Vos also from South Africa to join them. They were a tremendous addition to our group bringing such joy and appreciation for the grandeur and beauty of the scenery that the cruise had to offer. They also felt that the bad weather the days before gave them the sense of adventure and “earning their way” to the majesty of Princess Louisa Inlet. They obviously have the right stuff to be successful boaters.

Joining the fleet were also the couple from British Columbia Jim and Joy Eastman, our most experienced crew with 14 trips to Alaska, 12 circumnavigations of Vancouver Island and 6 trips to the Queen Charlotte Islands under their belts. They were 80 years young and had recently purchased a marvelous 46 classic which became their fourth Grand Banks named Kimje (The name comes as a contraction of the first names of their children and fact that their initials are both J.E.)

As we cruised up the reaches to Malibu Rapids we wondered if there would be ice at the Rapids as there had been three years ago when we arrived at slack tide to head into Princess Louisa. During the previous trip Brian Pemberton, our fearless leader, took the point and broke ice for us as we approached the Rapids. This year, however, we were fortunate to find the inlet free of ice. We arrived at the perfect time for a slack entry past the Malibu Camp on a very high tide. It is always interesting to enter in the winter and have no sunbathers on the rocks or anyone in the swimming pool of the camp. The tide was so high that the water was almost up to the level of the pool, which, had it been the summer, would have allowed swimmers to roll directly off their beach towels directly into the inlet.

Once inside the rapids we all felt the sense of once again being in a sacred place. It was so calm and beautiful that we didn’t even want to produce a ripple as we headed the several miles to the head of the inlet and our destination at the dock at Chatterbox Falls.
We all landed on the dock to then have the remarkable occur- it started to snow. At first the snow was more like frozen rain, but very quickly it became beautiful, large and fluffy snow flakes. After 30 minutes the snow started to stick on all the boats and dock. As the afternoon turned into night the snow left the inlet and all its beautiful granite ramparts shrouded in snow. Is was the perfect winter experience in Princess Louisa Inlet that we all hoped for- and we didn’t have to break ice to get admission to the show. We all had the opportunity to read the comments in the Visitors Book at the head of the dock at Chatterbox Falls, and felt that the comments such as “the most beautiful place in the world” and “a spiritual experience” captured our feeling about the day perfectly.

At 6 pm we headed to MacDonald’s shelter for a bonfire (yes, Brian Pemberton had brought dry wood on Deception for the event. He commonly thinks of everything given his experience in guiding the Mother Goose trips to Alaska on chartered Grand Banks boats with his company Northwest Explorations in Bellingham, Washington each summer).

The get-together was great fun sharing stories among the crews of the 8 Grand Banks boats. The group came from Washington, California, Tennessee, British Columbia and South Africa so there were many stories to be told. Drew and Jane Clark on their 42 Europa Victoria own a second Grand Banks in the Bay area of California so they had a number of comparison stories to share that clearly demonstrated the difference between California bay area summer boating versus the adventure of winter boating in the Pacific Northwest. Both have their merit and uniqueness, but they did indicate that in terms of “an experience” that the Princess Louisa winter cruise was unsurpassed in their boating backgrounds.

Glenn and Karen Parker on Grand Adventure are both pilots. She is a captain for Federal Express as was Glenn until his retirement a few years ago. Glenn still flies his own plane which he keeps in his hangar on their property in Tennessee and Karen has horses that she still jumps. They both love boating in the Pacific Northwest and the adventure it adds to their already activity-packed lives.

Here are some pictures from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

We awoke at 6am to calm. After the usual morning dog walk we pushed off from the dock at 7am. As we exited Silva Bay with Kaikoura the sun was coming up over the city of Vancouver across the Straits and the east horizon was a beautiful orange glow. The Straits were friendly and what a difference a day made. We stopped in Pender Harbor to do some shopping and pick up an impeller for the macerator pump after a beautiful transit of the Straits. The key to winter cruising is to let the weather be your guide and to stay in place until in cooperates. A testament to the type of people that serve the boating public was the staff of Madeira Marine Supply in Pender Harbor that opened their doors on a day they were officially closed to allow us to purchase the needed impeller. Once again we were reminded of how special the people that are involved in the boating industry are.

The rest of our fleet left Nanaimo two boats less than the original group. It seemed that the previous day had created some attrition of the group. So the fleet of eight Grand Banks of which we were a member headed to Egmont Marina as a stopover before our final transit to Princess Louisa Inlet. We met Lady Suzanne who had transited the previous day to hear of their story about the “work that their stabilizers got” during their adventure across the Straits. It said something about their trip in that they stopped at Secret Cove rather than go the entire distance to Pender Harbor in that their speed was reduced to 5 to 6 knots across the Straits.

By 3pm the whole fleet of eight Grand Banks had arrived at Egmont Marina. We all visited with last year’s Winter Cruise alumni: Drew and Jane Clark in their 42 Europa Victoria, Brian and Carol Pemberton in their 49 Classic Deception, and Glenn and Karen Parker in their 42 Motoryacht Grand Adventure. Some of us took a walk to the Skoocumchuck Rapids to see the world famous tidal currents. We were not at a spring tide so the rapids were not at full force, but were still impressive in the water’s rush to the sea on the ebb tide.

That night we had a great group dinner at the Egmont Marina Pub with several of the more adventurous members of our group being brave enough to have a Skoocumchuck Burger. If you ever saw the John Candy movie “The Great Outdoors” when he ate the “Great 96 ouncer” it was very reminiscent of the size of the Skoocumchuck Burger.

Here are some pictures from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

The next morning the wind was still blowing 30-40 knots. The intrepid crew of Lady Suzanne decided to head across the Georgia Straits to Pender Harbor on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. As Lady Suzanne left Silva Bay the crews of Sanctuary and Kaikoura all decided that the trip across the Straits was a little to adventuresome and admired the courageous crew of Lady Suzanne for taking on the Straits of Georgia in her fury. The boats could certainly make the trip safely, but the crews reminded themselves that they were on vacation and maybe they didn’t need to have an adventure of this magnitude. Later we learned that the seas in the Straits were running at greater than 7 feet and were “confused”. We all felt that we had made the right decision holding up until the next day.

As we were deciding what the day might bring we were visited by two friends of Bill and Sherrie who live on Gabriola Island and are avid boaters. We swapped boating stories. Their stories were about traveling on the Pacific Ocean side of the barrier islands off the central British Columbia coast where they said that they hardly ever saw another boat over several weeks of cruising in the summers. We all agreed that this is the real boating that we all dream of. Maybe next summer we will venture out to experience the “wild” they talked about with us. We then took the ferry from Gabriola Island to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and found that even in the “protected” bay that the seas were six feet and wild. We talked with the rest of our fleet coming up from Bellingham and the news was not pretty. They were beating against heavy seas and wind and were “tired”. The operative phrase that was used in the conversation was “interesting conditions”. This is boatspeak for horrible. They said that they were heading to Nanaimo and would meet us tomorrow for the transit across the Georgia Straits to Egmont Marina.

That evening the winds subsided and the rocking was replaced by a beautiful calm night. It was frosty, but beautiful and the power at the Silva Bay Marina did come back on by 7 pm.

Here is a picture from this day of our journey (click to enlarge):

After a quiet and restful night we slipped out of Oak Harbor before dawn at 6:30 am in calm seas. We timed our arrival at Deception Pass just right to hit slack tide. From there it was a beautiful cruise with flat seas through Rosario Straits to Boundary Pass where we avoided a couple of freighters transiting to Vancouver, British Columbia from their ocean passage. From Boundary Pass we had to stop at Poets Cove on South Pender Island to clear Canadian customs. After clearing customs and taking our dogs Cinnamon and Oliver Twist for a short walk we left for the last transit to Silva Bay on Gabriola Island. And then the wind decided to make its presence. We beat through 30-40 knot head winds and seas for the next forty miles until we reached Gabriola Pass at slack tide. Another 30 minutes had us secure on the dock at Silva Bay Marina meeting Scott Blake and Allison Horne in their 36 Europa Kaikoura and Mike and Suzanne in their 46 Europa Lady Suzanne. The other seven boats in our fleet were coming up from Bellingham and were still meeting the weather “head on”.

Attached to the dock the wind continued to build until 4am where the anemometer on Sanctuary was reading gusts of 60 knots. We held on in safety as the power on Gabriola Island was blown out. The new Panda generator system with autostart was a great addition to the boat in that it kept the batteries charged automatically after the power went out on the dock.

It was not winter, but rather “Windter” in the Pacific Northwest this December. We had rain, rain and more rain in November, but we waited until December for the big wind. Seattle had a wind storm so strong in early December that over a million people lost their power with some of the unfortunate ones going longer than a week in freezing cold without power. So it was not too surprising that when we left Seattle on December 25 to join the Grand Banks cruise to Princess Louisa for a New Year’s Day celebration that we had some concern about the weather. But notwithstanding this concern as we left Lake Union through the Hiram Locks with our good friends Bill and Sherri Harpham the sun was shining and the wind light. We were heading to Silva Bay in the Canadian Gulf Islands some 100 miles north where we would meet the other members of the Grand Banks New Year’s fleet. The cruising days are short this time of year so by the time we got through the Locks and were underway we only had about four hours of light left. We set Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island as our goal for the night. This meant that we needed to average about 11 knots in our Grand Banks Aleutian 72 Sanctuary which is a very comfortable and fuel efficient cruise speed.

We arrived at Oak Harbor shortly after dark. Navigating the narrow deep area into the harbor always calls for an attentive skipper, but after dark it required not only my GPS, the navigational software but also a vigilant crew. We made it without incident to the docks. The wind had come up, and we were grateful that someone was on the dock ready to catch a line. A live aboard resident, John, directed us to a vacant dock where we could get out of the wind. We invited John over for a glass of wine and the usual “boat talk”. He told us of his plans to single hand his 34 foot sailboat to the South Pacific next season. We immediately felt like “boat wimps” sitting warmly in our 72 Aleutian and enjoying all the creature comforts.

A photo of what we can expect (click to enlarge):