The boat is as ready as we can make it although no doubt problems will arise along the way. We have enough food aboard for months and our friends Ron and Marg Boisvert will monitor our progress via satellite and send the Coastguard if we get lost along the way.
The round trip should take about 2 or 2 1/2 months and cover around 2500 nautical miles.
Following are some log entries so far.
Monday May 14th.
Left Cochrane around Noon after lunch at DQ, beautiful drive, nice day all the way. Almost 30 C at Kamloops when we arrived around 6 PM BC time.
Nice dinner at Earl’s and early to bed. Accent hotel is quiet and comfortableTuesday May 15th
Another nice day and easy drive, about 400K from Kamloops to Anacortes.
Sumas border crossing is fairly quiet so only about a 5 to 10 minute delay. No problems crossing.
The boat was in the main yard next to the main office, they just took it out of the building this morning and were washing it when we arrived. Spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and getting organized and fridges turned on etc.
Wednesday May 16th
Another beautiful, sunny day for a trip to Costco to stock up for the summer or at least for a couple of months anyway. Prices are so much cheaper here than in Canada plus we can drive right alongside the boat and unload directly aboard rather than hiking along a few hundred yards of dock somewhere
Thursday May 17th
We originally planned to splash the boat today but asked them to delay till tomorrow so I could haul out all the anchor chain and paint the marks. We paint about a foot of the chain with luminescent orange every 25 feet so we can easily count how much chain we are lowering when we anchor.
Through time the paint wears off although this is the first time we have repainted it so it has lasted a long time.
Gave it one coat of paint in the morning, did another big shopping at Safeway in the afternoon and did a second coat of paint in the evening.
It was another fine day today
Friday May 18th
Splashed the boat just after lunch and tied up at NHD’s dock. JJ came aboard to service the watermaker and we found out we had an electrical problem. Turns out that the 30 amp shorepower socket was pretty seriously burned both at the cord and on the boat socket. Lucky we found this now as this is where most boat fires originate. Replaced cord end and boat socket.
There also seems to be a 12 volt problem but JJ stayed till after 6PM with no solution so decided to stay till Monday to repair this.
Saturday May 19th
Went to Trawlerfest again and bought a sample LED lamp for the cabin lighting and also an LED replacement bulb for the anchor light. The Anchor light bulb cost about $30 but uses 2 amps per hour versus about 30 amps for the regular bulb so should pay for itself over time.
Took a nice drive to La Conner, a lovely little tourist town nearby and had a nice walk along the waterfront and the main street. Lots of gift and art shops.
Sunday May 20th
Stayed aboard today as the weather changed and we had rain all day.
Big crisis just before dark though. We ran the generator for a while so we could use the electric oven for dinner and next thing we know our slip neighbour notices that we are leaking diesel overboard.
Panic stations, there are some VERY serious fines in USA for environmental spills.
Turns out that whoever changed the generator fuel filter either changed or accidentally bumped the tank selection valve lever and when we used the generator it was pulling diesel from the port tank but instead of returning the excess to the port tank it was going to the starboard tank which subsequently overflowed thru the air vents.
We started the starboard engine and switched it’s valves to pull from the starboard tank and return to port tank so it only took a few minutes to lower the starboard tank level and stop the overflow.
We then spent till after dark spraying detergent on the oil slick to break it up.
The overnight rain and big tidal exchange did the rest and all was clear on Monday morning.
Monday May 21st
JJ came by first thing this morning and load tested all the batteries, all good!
The 12 volt problem was due to a blown fuse in the DC to DC convertor which reduces our 24 volt battery voltage to 12 volts for the stuff that needs 12 volts.
Boats, like cars , used to always use 12 volts but as boats got bigger the 12 volt wiring became an issue. 12 volt requires wiring 4 times as big as 24 volt wiring which substantially adds to weight and cost so it makes sense to use mostly 24 volt then use a convertor to reduce some of it to 12 volt where needed.
Radios and some electronic toys as well as most cabin lighting runs on 12 volts so when we lost it we had no communications.
Anyway after a new fuse was installed all is now good with that issue.
Next problem was with the electronic keyboard which runs one of the chartplotters, it was live but would not communicate with the plotter. We traced wiring and plugged and unplugged cables all over the place. Powered the units on and off several times and , finally, 2 frustrating hours later, it started working. We never did figure out why but anyway we are now good to go tomorrow morning.
Rained all day today and was quite windy for a while so hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Tuesday May 22nd
Still raining today although not as much. Left at 09:00 and had to spend the best part of an hour setting up the compass and autopilot again as we had done a factory reset on the electronics yesterday.
Seems I need re-trained every year as I forget everything over the winter!!
Arrived Port Sidney at 13:00 and cleared Canada customs by telephone at the marina. The customs officer was fairly polite and civil but far from the welcoming and friendly officer we saw last week entering the USA. We Canadians sure don’t go overboard to welcome visitors or returning residents.
It was still raining lightly while we cleared Customs but after that the sun came out and it turned into quite a nice afternoon.
The only reason we came to Sidney was because my safety flares and smoke signals were outdated and needed replaced. We looked for them in Anacortes but in the USA they are marked as US coastguard approved whereas in Canada they are marked as Transport Canada approved.
They are the identical product by the same manufacturer other than that approved statement.
The other BIG difference is that the Canadian ones in Canada cost about twice as much!!! Our boat is required to carry 12 flares and if they are outdated (expired date), or (heaven forbid) are approved by US coastguard instead of Transport Canada, then the fine is $200 PER FLARE.
Anyway, shopped for those and for some fresh veggies and fruit this afternoon and are now “good to go “ tomorrow morning for Nanaimo.
Wednesday May 23rd
Left Sidney at 09:30 and arrived Nanaimo at 1:30 total of 42 miles.
Cloudy with some showers, particularly when we had to go through Dodd Narrows, a very narrow tidal passage, it poured just when I needed to go outside and steer from the open flybridge area so I got thoroughly soaked.
After that it cleared up and the sun even came out when we went uptown for charts.
We intended to get our Canadian charts here since there is a really neat bookstore in town that has been here and selling unusual books for the last 50 years. The owner is very helpful and also very knowlegable about charts and nautical books etc.
As it turned out he is also a USA chart dealer so we bit the bullet and bought all our charts for Alaska except six which were out of stock. He says he has at least 2 or 3 boaters come in and stock up on Inside Passage charts every day at this time of year. He must do OK as we spent close to a boat unit ($1K) in his store today and we already had a lot of the Canadian charts.
Forecast looks good for North Georgia Straight tomorrow so will head out for Campbell River in the morning. It is about 75+ miles so 8 hours dock to dock, if we leave by 9 we should be tied up by 5pm
Sorry to post all this at once but we did not have internet access in Anacortes.
No comments:
Post a Comment