By: Nancy Davidson

On the Hook Again

Leavings Jennis, I cruised back to Sullivan Bay to await the arrival of the new spark plug for the dinghy motor. This dragged out for 3 days and the spark plug wasn’t the problem as I mentioned before. I had now been at marinas for a straight 12 days and longed to be back at anchor. But where did I want to go?

It has been 12 days in marinas, so I longed to be back at anchor....but where?

Friends told me that I could anchor near Little Nimmo Wilderness Resort or in Little Nimmo Bay. Timing the long roundabout cruise for slack water, I avoided the minor rapids and whirlpools that can accumulate in the narrow channels. But the last leg, Mackenzie Sound, had a long fetch and I was surprised at the roughness of the water this windy day. “Three Wishes” negotiated the narrow, partially charted entrance to Little Nimmo without difficulty. Cruising by the upscale resort that specializes in helicoptering guests in for fishing was interesting and I was glad to see the resort in person but it didn’t appeal to me as a place to anchor. Little Nimmo Bay gave me a level of discomfort as well with the combination of 15-knot winds and a rear shoreline that shoaled to a long drying flat. Leaving Little Nimmo, I returned to white-capped Mackenzie Sound. At the other end of the Sound was Blair Islet, which has anchoring spots for several boats. I chose a difficult one-boat spot where my husband and I had anchored in past years. After two tries, the anchor placed “Three Wishes” where I wanted her to be. Whew! Finally able to relax as the boat floated on calm water, I was still able to see the whitecaps only 200 feet away.

ALARM!

There were always chores to do on non-cruising days and the chore rearing its head at Blair Islet was planning my trip back to Port Sidney with a detour to the U.S. for fuel. Six to seven hours was the maximum amount of time I wanted to cruise in any one day. I also needed to allow a day to rest between cruising days so I could avoid the exhaustion I experienced at Jennis Bay. Using a large map and the Waggoner’s Cruising Guide I planned a return trip that would be made up of 8 stops, each of which would be for two or more days.

Now it was time to turn on the Nobeltec and chart the courses. First I had to flip on the Electronics switch at the panel. A loud and unbearable alarm went off. I flipped the switch off and then on again. SHREEEEK! I was stunned! This was a bad one. Without flipping on the Electronics switch, I couldn’t use the Nobeltec and Raymarine GPS navigation systems or the radar or the autopilot, depth sounder or wind-point – in other words, very important items I needed for cruising, especially single-handed.

Fortunately, I was able to call Raven Marine, the company that maintains our boat, on my sat phone. I spoke to their electronics specialist and we tried some things but none of his suggestions stopped the alarm. As a last resort, he suggested I put tape over the speaker to mute the noise. Well, tape wasn’t enough for me! I was going to tape a multi-folded dishtowel over the offending speaker to mute the noise. So I did and the noise was as loud as ever. *#%*&!!! There must be more than one speaker in the pilothouse. Another thing that wasn’t good!

I have very little hearing in my right ear, which means I don’t have directional hearing. To compensate I had purchased a noise meter for the boat to be used in the unlikely chance of this very situation happening. I found the meter and poked it at anything that remotely looked like a speaker but the sound level it measured stayed the same. It seemed that the best I would be able to do was wear earplugs during the lengthy cruises south but that meant I wouldn’t be able to listen to my books on tape to relieve the boredom.

In frustration I called Brad, Raven’s Service Director. After some discussion, he said he’d make a few phone calls and get back to me. While I was waiting, I poked the noise meter into unlikely places and, voila, the noise was coming from the control box of the Yacht Controller. It had been attached to a hidden upper corner of a cabinet shelf formerly used for storage. Flipping off the dashboard switch for the Yacht Controller stopped the screech. A little later Brad called back with the same solution. NOTE TO NANCY: Learn the location of every speaker that can sound an alarm and learn what those alarms are for.

Blunden Harbour -- Home to Athletic Fish"

Anchoring in Blunden Harbor was a breeze. The bad news was that it poured almost the whole time I was there.

Blunden Harbour was the last and northernmost destination of my Broughton exploration. The good news: anchoring was a breeze. The bad news: it poured almost the whole time I was there. It was windy as well although the harbor is well protected. But I have never seen fish jump the way they did in that harbor. The small silver fish that I would guess to be 10” long would jump straight up in the air for 2 to 3 feet and they would do this 5 or 6 times in quick succession. This phenomenon happened multiple times during my stay (and those are only the ones I actually saw). Before this I had only seen fish jump at an angle more parallel to the water, maybe a 5 or 6-inch leap if that.

The First of the Legs South

Anchor pulled up easily: Good. Nobeltec working and route drawn: Good. Autopilot not working: *#%*&!!! This has happened before but not when I was alone and counting on it. Instruments on boats often develop idiosyncratic personalities. No matter the attempts to fix it, our autopilot almost always takes a sharp and lengthy turn to port when first engaged. I never turn it on in a narrow channel or when there’s an obstruction on the port side. However, today it was sounding an alarm and its read-out said “Off Course”. After this happened several times in quick succession, I got out the manual and looked up the page on alarms. No “Off Course” alarm was mentioned. Not only that but thee autopilot is not set to automatically follow a course. The thought of hand steering for 6 to 7 hours was daunting. The silver lining is that I learned to balance the wheel. Granted, it wouldn’t stay balanced for more than 2 or 3 minutes but I appreciated even those short breaks to sit on the settee instead of standing. (“Three Wishes” doesn’t have a proper captains chair. It’s set up to be controlled from the end of the settee where you’re on the center line of the boat and you control the boat with remotes for the Nobeltec and autopilot). The wind was 18 – 25 knots on Queen Charlotte Strait that day but the ride was comfortable because of the stabilizers. I was hopping up and down to rebalance the wheel frequently but figured that was good exercise. And I did have to stand and hand-steer the frequent times there were currents that wouldn’t allow the wheel to be balanced. However, I did arrive safely in Lagoon Cove by mid-afternoon.

Attack of the Killer Logging Debris

The recent heavy rains brought a parade of logging debris all around "Three Wishes" at Lagoon Cove

Apparently the heavy rains I had experienced all cozily anchored in Blunden Harbour caused landslides on recently logged hillsides in the vicinity of Lagoon Cove. In the midst of cleaning “Three Wishes” the day after I arrived in the cove (I finally couldn’t stand the clutter and dirt anymore), I emerged in the galley, glanced out the window and was shocked to see what appeared to be a never ending parade of logging debris consisting of the smallest splinter to entire trees and everything in between. And it all seemed to be heading for “Three Wishes”. Naturally I got out my camera and documented the phenomenon. It was fascinating to watch it as it outlined the patterns of currents in the cove. At first it surrounded “Three Wishes” and then it left and streamed off in another direction. This led to the first of my “Please don’t let there be . . .” in this case “Please don’t let there be logging debris in The Blowhole and Chatham Channel (which are very narrow, shallow and tricky to navigate) when I leave tomorrow.

I awoke to a pea soup fog and it was 9 am before it lifted enough for me to leave Lagoon Cove and get underway on my 2nd leg south. Of course the logging debris was indeed in The Blowhole and Chatham Channel. For the most part the big stuff was hung up on the shallow areas and was no problem but there was no way to avoid the smaller debris that streamed in the fastest current which, of course, was where “Three Wishes” needed to go. I proceeded very slowly as it was hard to tell what exactly was in the mixture. After making my way carefully through The Blowhole and Chatham Channel I thought I was home free. Wrong. The debris, having not bested me yet, took a last stand. Ahead of me was an unbroken line of debris from shore to shore littered with big logs, so many they could not all be avoided. I chose what appeared to be the least dense part of the litter line and proceeded ahead at two knots, gently brushing the unavoidable logs aside. Once past that, I hand steered to Johnstone Strait.

Outwitting the Autopilot

The autopilot kept generating "Off Course" alarms....until I ignored them and just turned the course knob. Really??

Johnstone Strait was behaving that day but I was tired – probably too much boat cleaning from the day before. I dreaded the thought of bouncing up and down from the settee for another 5 hours trying to balance the wheel again. Maybe the autopilot was over its “Off Course” snit. So I tried it. Alarm . . . with the familiar read-out of “Off Course”. It switched it to standby to stop the alarm and then tried it again. Same thing. *#%*&!!! I sat back on the settee and glared at it. I was just too tired for this. But . . . the boat was going in a straight line. Either the wheel was balanced or the autopilot was working in spite of the alarm. I decided to see if the boat turned if I turned the autopilot knob. I could live that that alarm if the autopilot worked otherwise. I turned the knob. Miracle! The alarm stopped and the autopilot returned to normal. Good grief! That’s all I had to do. So I got to relax on the settee, eat my Rogers chocolate bar (a cruising tradition), and listen to my book on tape for the rest of a very pleasant cruise to Blind Channel.

Rendezvous with Rendezvous

I enjoyed a couple of days at Blind Channel in the company of Frank and Kathy Montgomery on their Selene 55 "Rendezvous".

One of the boats I had wanted to contact on this cruise was “Rendezvous”, a Selene 55 owned by Frank and Kathy Montgomery. They altered their itinerary to meet me at Blind Channel and I was docked next to them. They invited me for a glass of wine in their cockpit after I was tied up and we had dinner that night at Blind Channel’s very good restaurant. The next day was my day to relax and the Montgomery’s decided to also stay another day and relax as well. Kathy invited me to dinner that night. She had lots of ripe tomatoes on board and was making her special Bolognese sauce from scratch to go with spaghetti. Yum, one of my favorite dishes.

So here’s where I might talk about food when I cruise alone. First of all, although I love to eat, I don’t love to cook. My sister got that gene. I can do it but it’s not my passion. When I prepare food, it’s very simple and healthy – lots of salads, steamed veggies and simply prepared meat. I’m perfectly comfortable eating the same thing for multiple nights. I typically will cook a dinner for 43 and eat it for 4 nights. I also have tolerance for cold food – something I picked up when raising children. This comes in handy because for 3 of those 4 nights my dinners are cold.

Kathy Montgomery made the best spaghetti I've ever had, topped with great conversation.

Back to dinner on “Rendezvous”: What a treat that was – the best spaghetti I’ve ever had! And very good conversation. I had never been inside “Rendezvous” before. Frank and Kathy had ordered the boat with double doors leading to the cockpit and the interior was designed to have very clean lines. It all worked beautifully to frame the view from their unenclosed cockpit. I’m into views which is why I love the flybridge on “Three Wishes” but their view off the cockpit was spectacular. I admit I was envious. I also admire their cruising style. They rarely have guests and socialize by meeting other boaters at marinas or buddy boating.

The next morning I planned to cruise to Rebecca Spit where I would anchor. I had to leave by 8 am to go through Dent Rapids at its 10 am slack. Dent would be quickly followed by slack at Gillard and Yuculta Rapids. It was one of those schedules where time and tide wait for no man. So here was my 2nd “Please don’t let there be . . .” “Please don’t let there be fog tomorrow morning.”

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

When I awoke, I was greeted with the thickest pea soup fog I have ever seen!

I overslept my 7 am alarm and awoke to its annoying buzz at 20 minutes to 8. OMG! I threw on clothes and rushed up to the pilothouse. And stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t see further than the bow of my boat. It was the thickest pea soup fog I had ever seen. The options raced through my mind. I could leave now, chancing the fog and hope it would lift soon. I could wait for the 4 pm slack but that would put me anchoring behind Rebecca Spit in the dark. I could wait until tomorrow to leave but that would have me cruising two days in a row setting me up for exhaustion. Besides there was no guarantee tomorrow would be any better. I didn’t like any of the options but decided to gamble on the first one and that meant leaving right now. I quickly pulled in Anna Conda, our thick 50-amp shore power cord. Then I hurriedly turned on all the instruments and running lights all the while looking at “Rendezvous”, hoping that someone would be up to take off my lines. Kathy was up and willingly obliged after I turned on the engine. I put the engine in forward. And then I was out into nothingness.

The current was running fast in front of Blind Channel, turning the boat in all sorts of directions in the invisibility. Relying solely on instruments, I was reminded of the doomed flight of JFK Jr. who had none. It took a while at the helm to wrestle “Three Wishes” onto the course line. But finally I got oriented and started the steady rhythm of circulating my gaze between the radar screen (watching for other boats), the Nobeltec GPS screen (making sure I was on course and not headed for shore) and looking out at the 20 feet or so of visibility ahead of me watching for logs. The current was against me and at my normal rate of speed I wouldn’t make the 10 am slack. Usually in a fog that thick, one would slow way down but I had to speed way up and that’s what made it feel like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. For two hours I raced through the dense fog, reaching Dent Rapids at the time of slack and still the fog hadn’t lifted. There were two other boats going through ahead of me. We all said our Securities over the VHF radio although the other two boats didn’t announce their direction. The fog didn’t lift until just before I reached Gillard Passage and it was a good thing it lifted as that passage is very narrow. I could now see the other two boats ahead of me and was relieved they were traveling the same direction I was. Once I got through slack at Yuculta I could relax. I slowed the boat down to its normal speed and the rest of the cruise was relatively uneventful as was the anchoring behind Rebecca Spit. Whew! What a day!

Next Month: The final Part of Nancy's Story: "More Adventures for Nancy."

You can find a complete album of Nancy's cruising photos in the Selene photo gallery on this site (you must login to view the Selene photo gallery).