Leaving Notes

We’re in position to leave tomorrow. The weather is looking good for the first few days of the trip and we’re mentally prepared for the onslaught. 

I’ll be putting on a scopolamine patch … a medication that has various unfortunate side effects (like a dry mouth and extreme tiredness) but keeps actual sea-sickness at bay. We are fully provisioned for the trip. The cranky autopilot seems to have been cajoled into working again.

Even with our finances, our wills and our meds in order, I always have the same Leave-taking emotions and those are harder to quell than mere sea-sickness. I miss my daughters … they both loved sailing as kids. Of course, Alice has been gone (dead at 25 of a brain tumor) for over 18 years now, and Hope is ‘locked in’ at her home in rural Ontario. She and her husband Darin are caring for 4 children, 3 cats, 2 aged female horses, 4 ageing chickens and a psychologically-challenged Doberman. Hope’s oldest daughter (age 18) is working and living away from home, but the youngest child is only 6. 

I still ardently wish Hope could come on this trip as it’s likely to be our very last offshore trip.  I can envision how much she would love looking at the birds, looking at the sunrises or sunsets, seeing the differences in the wave patterns, and doing the actual sail-changes and physical work of sailing during her watches.

This photo of Darin and Hope on a calm day at sea says it all.

On our way to Mexico SOON!

 

We plan to leave for Mexico once the winds and weather are favourable ... we hope to leave around May 1st.

Before leaving, we want everyone who reads this to learn something important about Traversay III and our treatement of the Sea. Traversay was built with two tanks ... one for sink waste and the original tank for toilet waste was replaced with an oversized tank.  This tank is known as the blackwater tank. While we're in port and here in Victoria, we pay to have our toilet tank emptied on a weekly basis. Every civilized country has rules about waste and Traversay follows them.

Once we're far awy from land, we empty our blackwater tank into the Sea.We are not reaponsible for much black-water waste in the ocean. 

WHO IS THE GREATEST DEFECATOR INTO THE OCEAN? 

To find the answer click here

Home again ... Victoria British Columbia!

 

The Essential Galley Companion by Amanda Swan Neal

Pender Harbour 

We’re about to leave the beautiful wilderness behind along with the underwater critters, eagles, whales, dolphins, and even a few other similarly wilderness-addicted fellow sailors who shared some spaces with us. 

 Luckily this time my re-entry into Civilization will be much easier than usual. That's because I'm looking forward to Shopping ... Not for clothes ... but getting into Full-on Grocery shopping. In central Victoria I'll be able to search for some hard-to-find ingredients not available in Northern BC. Our friend the beautiful Amanda Swan Neal has tested all of the recipes in her new book over the course of her 345,000+ offshore miles with family and later on with the International Mahina Expeditions. I estimate that there are over 1000 recipes in this collection. To it she has brought her incredible intelligence, her savvy and her well-researched knowledge to tickle and delight every palate. With this book, Amanda will keep us all healthy and vibrantly alive … even while we might be encountering less-than-optimal conditions at sea. To that issue she’s included an excellent chapter on sea-sickness. 

She has numerous tips for stretching or diminishing the recipes to feed from 2 people to a crowd, she tells us how to keep provisions fresh, how to arrange a large or a small galley, how to shop in Foreign lands (she has visited 80 countries) and she tells us how to cook some fabulous standard Authentic  cuisine, or  local food bought cheaply at a market in a distant land. You can cook a real Provencal Beef Stew or a delicious Canadian Maple and Ginger glazed Salmon. In Polynesia you can find out how to make Coconut Creamed Taro Leaf. Further along, you might even try making the Fijian Curried Octopus. 

For the more practical cook, she includes less expensive tips for making your own peanut and tartar sauce, dressings: such as Miso or Thai and she includes 10 different spice mixes. Do get the paperback version of this book (all 390 packed pages for only $31 CDN on Amazon). Paging through a Kindle version would be quite tiresome, and she has left space at the end for you to attach some of your other favourites. 

A favourite aspect of this book are the personal accounts she includes ... her youthful experiences sailing with her family, her stories on passage as a Competitive sailor in an all-woman Team and on the Whitbred and Sydney-Hobart Races. She generously includes recipes from some of the many boats she and Mahina have ‘broken bread’ with. 

 This book and its priceless knowledge should really be devoured BEFORE you set out. Displaying even more wisdom, you should internalize Amanda’s precepts BEFORE you even BUY a boat. 

However, if you’re like me and you love your good old boat – and after all Traversay’s been our home for 23 years - this book will make you look forward to introducing some new ‘licks’ to that old repertoire you have already been playing for too many years!

A cloudy day

 

North Kent Island

In the anchorage, the day started well  ... at 6 a.m. the sun shone brightly. However, by 8:00 the fog had rolled in and there was a total white-out. Later and even as the fog dispersed, it was unreleningly cloudy. 

 Undeterred, we jumped in the water and into the amazing colourful world Beneath. I marvelled at the beautiful plumose anemones ... Larry captured some amazing photos. The World Beneath is spectacular here in Supernatural British Columbia!

plumose anemone

Clown nudibranch with eggs

Our Underwater World

Excitement in the Narrows

Approaching Rait Narrows

We're gradually making our way back south to Port McNeill. The aim is to spend more time underwater. Every time we stop for a few nights, we look for suitable dive spots. We look for  steep rock walls which we can anchor close to in safety. Steep walls and deep water depth close to the wall ensure more interesting underwater life. This time of year, walls which are in shadow are preferable because kelp proliferates in the sun and we have more trouble descending into kelp-laden water. 

We've passed through Meyers, Jackson and Rait Narrows on our way here. Larry's been choosing interesting routes. These Narrows are on routes we hadn't experienced before. 

Because Traversay has a large Under-carriage, we don't want to get stuck. Getting stuck was FUN in Australia where we could wait (along with other marooned boaters) for the water to come back in and float us up. However, here in the BC Wilderness we often don't see another boat all day. So Larry approached the Meyer's and Jackson Narrows with due caution ... on a rising tide so if we did get stuck, the tide would come in and release us. 

In contrast, the Rait Narrows gave us (and the Watch-bird) quite an exciting ride. The Rait is VERY narrow (see photos) but it is also Deep. So we didn't worry about touching ground. As we gingerly proceeded through the Watch-bird (a huge eagle) swooped up into one of the overhanging trees. He proceeded to monitor us very closely as we passed under him and through his territory. All three of us had a most exciting time.

In the midst of the Rait Traverse 

Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest

 This beautiful book is by Dr. Andy Lamb and Bernard P. Hanby. It's  invaluable for everyone sailing or  living near this coastline. The assembled photographs and basic information introduce one to all the amazing plants and animals gracing this coast from Alaska down to mid-California. We live in one of the BEST scuba-diving and adventure regions on earth (at least that's our prejudiced view). 

Nearly 30 years ago,  we took up diving to allow us to clean, monitor and dive under Traversay's hull. However we were not happy together underwater ... Larry was too fast-moving for my leisurely pace. That changed once we enrolled in Andy's Marine I.D. course and Larry started photographing animals we saw.  We really enjoyed the course - particularly savouring Virginia Lamb's breaktime cookies! Discovering the New World underwater became one of our paramount pleasures. 

We never imagined that scuba diving would become one of THE most fun, people-meeting and important skills we could have during our travels. Shortly after we met Andy we spent significant time on Lamb-organized West Coast Dive Charters.  Bernie was also 'on location' using his skills to photograph the tiniest and most improbable-seeming underwater creatures. His images literally took our breath away.

During our travels, in order to meet local people, we would sometimes print extra photos of endemic underwater creatures so people could see the wealth of beauty underneath their boat hulls. Some marine folks we met (including Dr Paul Brickle in the Falklands) wanted to use this book as a model for future Marine I.D. books for their dive areas.

Tunicate Siphon Hydroid (endocrypta huntsmani)

A few days ago, I decided to start reading the book rather than just using it as a reference. I admit I didn't get very far into the first section (on Flowering Plants and Marine Algae) ... my attention  span began to  falter with the enormity of knowledge present in these pages. Progressing a little further, I was amazed to find the I.D. of a species Larry had just photographed under the later Hydroid category. 

This ANIMAL lives with a more advanced life form - the tunicate - but rather than attacking and eating the tunicate itself, it harmoniously shares it's food in a commensal relationship. Thank goodness we had Bernie's picture and Andy's description of the Tunicate Siphon Hydroid (see it on page 103).

Emily Carr Inlet

We couldn't have guessed that such incestuous goings-on could be happening in this beautiful location!