 |
|
|
| 2009 CRUISE REPORT, WEEK TWO
|
|
June 16, 2009.
First, a comment about this weather. Sunny and warm with light winds, for two solid weeks. Not a drop of rain. Last year, June was so cold and rainy people called it “Junuary.” We waited five and one-half weeks to find summer last year, and finally found it in Desolation Sound on our way home. But this year, wow!
Except the locals are beginning to worry. “We need rain,” a store clerk told us. “The forests are drying out and fire danger is high. Here on the island, wells are close to going dry. Lawn watering restrictions are in place.”
The following notes are mostly about the Canadian Gulf Islands. In Bedwell Harbour, Poets Cove has replaced some of its docks, and installed a new ramp between the docks and shore. The hotel, dining areas and spa are elegant, as always. The little store above the swimming pool is undergoing another re-thinking, and – if I understand correctly – will be more of a coffee bar with light snacks approach. Think something like Starbuck’s. They were painting the walls when we were there, and a few days away from opening. They do have a complete liquor store.
Tara Hodgins, now Director of Operations, showed us around. Tara has been at Poets Cove for seven years, and has come up from the docks. She is smart and attractive, with energy that amazes Marilynn and me. Were we ever that good?
Big news at Port Browning Marina. Lou Henshaw has owned the marina, with its pub, pool, and extensive grounds, for a long time, and in recent years the place has been going slowly downhill. This spring, Lou’s son Gary and his wife Lynn, who live in Victoria, got involved, and the changes are impressive. The café has been cleaned up and redecorated. In the pub, new carpet, new equipment, new furniture and new menu, with less emphasis on deep fat frying. The lower level of the pub is being rebuilt as a store. They were pouring concrete when we were there. New showers were being built. A new ramp connects the land with the floats, and the wiring on the floats has been improved. Eight 30 amp outlets have been added, although most the outlets remain 15 amp. We won’t see new floats this year, but I would expect replacement in the near future. They’re needed. We’re impressed with Lynn. She’s clear-eyed, organized, and good with people. (Gary was in Vancouver that day, so we didn’t meet him.)
At Otter Bay Marina, Jess and Charlene Mansley are wonderful new managers. They’re boaters themselves, and spent the past two years cruising the Sea of Cortez in their 45-foot powerboat. Ever since Kay Spence died of lung cancer several years ago, Otter Bay’s store has needed a woman’s touch. Welcome, Charlene. Charlene’s good on the docks, too. She knows how to use the radio, talk a boat in, take a line, fend off, and tie it down. Jess is the kind of man who can’t sit still. He was busy constantly, yet seemed to have time for everyone.
The staff was bouncing off the walls at Salt Spring Marina in Ganges the day we arrived. The afternoon before, the Islands Trust granted approval for a major expansion of the marina, the first such Islands Trust approval in four and one-half years. It’s a multi-million dollar project that will install a wave-attenuating floating breakwater to protect the docks, and add much new mooring space. Money Makers Rock will be covered, although Zachary Rock will remain a concern for deep draft vessels on very low tides. The engineering contract was let at once. Construction is planned to begin in October, with May 2010 the planned completion.
Moby’s Pub at the head of the Salt Spring Marina’s docks has a new owner, Robert Steinbach. Robert is a bright guy, with an impressive background. He has renamed the pub M.O.B.Y’s, for Moby’s Oyster Bar. They serve oysters and chef-prepared pub food. Ganges doesn’t lack for good places for supper.
Somehow, we can’t stay out of supermarkets. Although we stocked up at Thrifty and Safeway in Sidney just a couple days earlier, the Thrifty Foods market near the dinghy dock in Ganges lightened our pockets again. The Thrifty stores are too small for the range of stock they must carry, as is the Marketplace IGA in Madeira Park, on the mainland side of the Strait of Georgia. To get everything in, the shelving is high and the aisles are narrow. Since the stores are busy, everyone must cooperate. “Excuse me,” “pardon me,” “let me move my cart” and other such politenesses are the order of the day while shopping. After several near-collisions with a smiling, middle-aged woman at the Madeira Park IGA this afternoon, we saw her coming down the aisle toward us again. “You can run but you can’t hide,” I said. “We’ll get you yet!” She laughed, and both of us moved to the side so the carts could clear.
Back to Ganges, Ganges is filled with interesting shops, restaurants, and many art galleries, but one place that astonishes us is the big Mouat’s general store. Mouat’s is old, the floors are uneven, and the shelves are close together. By modern standards the layout is inefficient. Mouat’s has pretty much what you might need, however, whether marine supplies, general hardware, lawn and garden, furniture, kitchen tools. A few days earlier, Marilynn had bumped our Mr. Coffee glass coffee carafe against the sink and a small crack appeared near the mouth of the carafe. If the crack spread, my morning coffee would be in jeopardy. This was a serious matter, and needed prompt attention. In the home and housewares department on the lower level of Mouat’s, Marilynn found a replacement carafe. The clerk showed her how to adjust the lid to fit our coffee maker, and now morning coffee no longer is threatened.
At Genoa Bay, the Genoa Bay Café is still putting out great meals. We didn’t eat there this year, but a couple from another boat raved about it. There’s a beautiful garden, dense with plantings, between the café and the marina’s washroom/shower/laundry building. The person in charge of the garden obviously loves it. What’s unique, however, is the collection of sculpture in the garden, made from old industrial equipment: sawblades, axe heads, gears, rope (a snake), an engine crankshaft. The artist is Tom Faue. If you walk down the boathouse dock on the west side of the marina, you’ll see a whole stream of Faue’s work. I think he’s good.
The village of Cowichan Bay is a treat, and mooring space is getting better. The public moorage at the east end has added new docks, and Dungeness Marina, at the west end, has a float that sticks out into the bay. If an easterly wind is up, however, the float is no good. You’ll really bounce. Rob and Carrie Hokanson, the owners, are wonderful. They want to make you happy. The Waggoner says Carrie is a one-woman P.R. whirlwind for Cowichan Bay, and it’s still so. If you meet her, you’ll like her.
Fish boats occupy much of the space at the public dock. We were told that one of the prawners keeps a rooster on board. They call the rooster “Timex.” Every morning at 5:00 a.m. . . .
Researching the Waggoner is about as fine a job as a person can have, but one downside is that we must hurry to the next stop and can’t spend the time we would like to spend. The Cowichan Bay village, for example, is only a couple blocks long from one end to the other, and only on the water side of the road. Yet to really prowl the village, you would need a couple days to go up flights of stairs and down ramps, and peek in doors in the sides and backs of the buildings, to discover the most fascinating little shops and businesses in the unlikeliest of places. You will have to discover them, because we had to move on.
We saw a heartwarming gesture at Maple Bay Marina. The fuel dock closed at 5:00 p.m., and the fuel delivery valves on shore were turned shut for the night. Shortly after 5:00, a sailboat came in to report that their friend, in another sailboat, had run out of gasoline. Carol Messier, who with her husband David runs the marina, came down to the dock, opened the valve, and waited for the out-of-gasoline sailboat to be towed in. The tank was filled, which didn’t take much, and the boat left. Carol told us she enjoys helping people.
Let’s have a come-to-Jesus chat about landings. Because we stop at so many facilities (sometimes as many as five stops in a day), we get considerable practice landing the boat and getting away. I admit that I take pride in my landings. Marilynn sets out the fenders, puts a mid-ship line on the forward of our two mid-ship cleats, loops the bow line back along the rail, and repairs to the swim step, ready with the stern line and mid-ship line. My job is to lay the boat along the dock and stop the forward movement as the stern swings gently to the dock so Marilynn can step ashore, take the mid-ship line, and hope I get off the boat quickly to take the stern line (see Langley landing, Week One).
Often, we get it just right. In fact, Langley excepted, our landings during the first part of the trip ranged from darned good to magnificent. I mentioned this to Marilynn, then regretted it. The landing gods are brothers to the golf gods – gods that punish any spoken hint that things are going well.
And so to Chemainus. Other than along the exposed outer face of the main dock, the easiest moorage at Chemainus is a side-tie along the finger float at the end of the main dock. There’s lots of room, and on the afternoon of our arrival, there was no wind. Marina manager Harmen Bootsma, who has helped countless boats tie up, was on hand to take our lines. So what did I do? I chickened out and didn’t get close enough. Marilynn got the mid-ship line to Harmen, however, and then things really fell apart. Because Harmen pulled on the line, then tied it down. As noted above, our mid-ship cleat is forward of mid. When Harmen pulled, the bow swung in and the stern swung out. I tried starboard engine, port engine, forward, reverse, full left rudder. I tried every combination I could think of. Nothing worked. The bow pointed to the dock, the boat stayed sideways in the fairway.
Finally, I called to Harmen to release the mid-ship line. I backed away and tried again. Somehow we got tied up. Since all’s well that ends well and there was no damage, we could laugh about it. Also, there was no audience. If the landing gods had wanted to really hurt me, they would have assembled the skippers and crews from several boats to witness my inept performance. I thank the gods for their compassion.
Silva Bay. We planned to cross the Strait of Georgia from Silva Bay, at the east end of Gabriola Passage. Slack, turn to ebb in Gabriola Passage was almost noon, so I hoped for an 1100 passage against the ebb. At 1100 we were at the west entry. A sailboat broadcast a Securite that it was entering the pass westbound, any concerned traffic come back on channel 16. I called and told the sailboat we would wait for him to come through. The skipper waved as they went by.
As reported in the updates columns of this web site, permanently moored boats take up most of the anchoring room in Silva Bay, so I won’t repeat that information here. We had arranged to tie up at Page’s Resort & Marina, where we hadn’t tied in the past. To my surprise, I was told there was ample dock space. Page’s is small, and most of its slips are filled. When we got to Page’s, I learned why they had moorage available. They had 150 feet of new float installed, most of it reserved for visitors. (The float wasn’t exactly new. It came from the Royal Vancouver YC outstation on the other side of the bay.) Page’s has made steady improvements since Gloria and Ken Hatfield and their kids took over from Gloria’s parents. It’s good to see younger generations taking over.
Next door, at the much larger Silva Bay Resort & Marina, Jenny Ireland is the new marina manager. They’re a boating family, they are longtime Gabriola Island residents, and Jenny has the touch. She’s a natural for the job. She also suggested that we meet Don Mayrand, the new operator of the Silva Bay Shipyard. He had taken over only a few weeks earlier, and already had improved the haulout yard, repaired the Travelift and marine railway, and earned the trust of local boaters. So we went over to the yard and met him, and liked him.
Those who say nothing changes on the coast just haven’t looked.
Let’s close with a note of near-perfection. No, not near-perfection, perfection itself. We left Silva Bay at 1500, destination Pender Harbour. And we had our best crossing of the Strait of Georgia, ever. There was no wind. Flat calm. There was a long flood tide that carried us all the way. Area WG (Whiskey Golf) was inactive. Four hours later, at 1900, we entered Pender Harbour. It couldn’t have been better.v
|
|
|
|
