By: Nancy Davidson

Stalked

Bugs are my nemsis aboard Three Wishes. That's why her enclosed cockpit and flybridge are more important to me that the beautiful unobstructed views from other Selene's open cockpits

As large of creatures as we humans are, it’s often the little things that scare us the most – bacteria, viruses and destructive insects. For me, it’s mosquitoes – I’m a magnet. This is yet another reason why I hate hot weather. It both breeds the mosquitoes and makes me want to open all the door and windows. Then, of course, they come in on the hunt. I had been pretty well bit up during cocktail hour on the dock at Lagoon Cove and again at Blind Channel while enjoying the openness of “Rendezvous”. (So as much as I covet the wonderful open plan of “Rendezvous”, I require a closed screened-in boat like “Three Wishes”. My bites were big and red and itched, itched, itched.

After Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, I was gloriously anchored behind Rebecca Spit. The afternoon was warm and sunny, a refreshing change from the pea soup fog of the morning. I opened up the boat and had a mosquito free evening. Thank heavens, an anchorage without nasty little biting bugs.

The next day was hot. I showered and put on shorts and a tank top knowing no one would see me that day. As evening brought its cool air, I closed up the boat and settled into reading. Oh no! A mosquito! I had been wrong about there being none in the anchorage. Now I was trapped in the boat with at least one mosquito. Feeling vulnerable with so much exposed skin; I put on a zip-up sweatshirt and tossed a throw over my bare legs. Then I continued reading with my electrified “tennis racket” at the ready but the mosquito didn’t show itself again. However, when I got up I noticed new red itches on my legs. The little bugger had stealthily bitten me under the throw. I went downstairs to bed and was about to go to sleep when I heard its buzz. As I lay in bed it flew close to my ear several times. Wide-awake and rigid, I swiped ineffectively with my racket. My nerves were on edge. I imagined new bites all over my body. I felt stalked and very vulnerable. It looked like a long sleepless night ahead. All this tension over a tiny bug! But miracle of miracles, I finally got it with the electrified racket. I saw the spark, smelled its body burn . . . and went to sleep.

It's a Boat

Powerboats, being very complex creatures, are notorious for things going awry. “Three Wishes” had held up very well this trip with the exception of the dinghy motor. But now as I was heading south and nearing the end of the cruise, the boat started letting down its guard. The first serious malfunction occurred during the third leg south from Blind Channel to Rebecca Spit. Halfway through the cruise I turned on the stabilizers and within a few minutes an alarm sounded. The stabilizer screen on the dashboard warned me that the oil for the stabilizers was overheating. I turned the stabilizers off, let them rest and then turned them on again. Same thing. Just great! My next 3 legs would be on the Strait of Georgia where I might really need the stabilizers but I would be without them. Fortunately luck was with me. When I cruised the 4th leg south from Rebecca Spit to the marina at Ford Cove on Hornby Island the Strait of Georgia was calm.

At Dent Island, "Three Wishes" looked like a rowboat compared to the huge yachts, but in Ford Cove, she looked more like the Queen Mary.

After docking at Ford Cove, I went downstairs and couldn’t help but notice that the slight but disagreeable odor in the master stateroom had become noticeably more pronounced. Kneeling on the stateroom floor, I lifted the cover to the bilge with trepidation. The normally dry bilge had water in it. Gingerly I put my finger in the water and smelled it. It wasn’t my worst fear, which would have been a leak in the line from the head to the holding tank. But where did this smelly water come from? Then I noticed the shower sump. It was full to the brim with murky gray water with strands of darker gray ooze floating through it. Yuck! I put my arm in the gray ooze and lifted the float switch that turns on the pump that empties the shower sump. Nothing happened. So either the float switch or the pump had stopped working. If I wanted to get rid of the odor, I had to get rid of the unspeakable liquid in the sump and clean it and the bilge. There went the remainder of my afternoon. What a yucky job!

“Three Wishes” can look larger or smaller depending on the size of the boats around it. In the marina at Dent Island it had looked like a rowboat compared to the huge yachts. But Ford Cove is a small funky marina with mostly small funky boats and here “Three Wishes” looked like the Queen Mary. As I was sweating from effort and dumping the smelly bilge water from a bucket off the swim platform, an unkempt man approached me and thanked me for gracing the dock with my beautiful boat. I smiled and said “Thank you” but at that moment I felt that my “beautiful boat” had some pretty ugly innards.

Last single-handed cruise

From Ford Cove I cruised the 5th leg south to Silva Bay, which is just off the Strait of Georgia on the southernmost end of Gabriola Island. Again the strait was peaceful making stabilizers unnecessary which was good since mine weren’t working. I also had to live without the use of the sink and shower in the master head. To remind myself not to use the sink I had made a spider web of blue tape over it.

The skies were blue at Silva Bay and the weather hot. Since the flybridge was too hot to be useable, I ensconced myself in the pilothouse after opening the small screened windows and training a fan on the spot where I sat reading undisturbed by the biting bugs undoubtedly lurking outside.

After getting up at 5:30 to make the slack tide at Gabriola passage, I was greeted, once again, by fog.

From Silva Bay I planned to clear U.S. Customs in Roche Harbor before continuing on to Bellingham to refuel. For this 6th leg I had a choice of two routes. The longer one would take me down the Strait of Georgia again. The positive of this choice was that I could choose the timing of my departure and the negative was the possible acting up of the strait. The second, shorter and more attractive route would take me inside the calm waters of the Gulf Islands. However, I would have to go through Gabriola Passage at its 7 am slack water and get up at the ungodly hour (for me) of 5:30 am. After much inner debating I chose the ungodly hour route.

So at 7:30 am, having survived the 5:30 wake-up and the uneventful cruise through Gabriola Passage, I was on the inside of the beautiful Gulf Islands. But nature wasn’t through with me yet. Fog reared its head once again and was with me for 4 hours of the 6-hour cruise. So much for viewing the beauty of the islands. At times the fog was a pea-souper and at times I had some visibility but it always required the concentration of alternating between viewing the water, the radar and the Nobeltec screen. Becoming the queen of cruising in fog, I made it unscathed to Roche Harbor, docked and checked into customs and docked again at the guest dock. I had been alone on the boat for nearly 5 weeks.

Niel Arrives

I arrived unscathed at Roche Harbor, where my husband, Niel met me for the last 9 days of the summer cruise

My husband Niel had decided at the last minute to join me at Roche Harbor for the last 9 days of the trip. We had been apart for 6 weeks and I was really looking forward to seeing him. But I also felt apprehension of what it would be like with him aboard. I was comfortable in my “Master of the Vessel” role and used to making all the decisions. But my worried were for naught. After a warm reunion, I learned that he was impressed with my accomplishments and he clearly had a new respect for my ability to operate the boat. It was good to have him aboard.

The next day we cruised the 7th leg to Bellingham with blue skies and flat water.

The Bellingham Adventure

I had chosen Bellingham for refueling instead of Anacortes because I looked forward to seeing Leslie and PJ of “Moondance”. Bellingham is the homeport for “Moondance” and also where Leslie and PJ live. Leslie had encouraged me to make an appointment with McEvoy Oil, which brings a truck of fuel to the dock. She met us at the guest dock when we arrived and drove us to Bellingham’s second and more commercial boat basin to show us where we would be docking the next day to be accessible to the fuel truck. It was a place they call the sawtooth where the commercial fishing boats back in so that their fishing gear for the season can be tossed into their cockpits from the wharf above. I gazed at the fishing boats below me and noted with apprehension that they fastened to the sawtooth by putting lines around the creosote coating pilings. I could imagine our beautiful boat getting creosote on its sides and our beautiful green lines, which match our green canvas, becoming stained with the unremoveable tarry goo which then transfers to whatever else it touches. What had I gotten myself into?

Leslie and PJ live in Bellingham and their lovely home overlooks the bay.

That night we had a yummy dinner at Leslie and PJ’s lovely home, which has a glorious view of the bay. PJ joined us the next morning and we motored to the commercial basin where we met Leslie. Luckily we didn’t have to tie “Three Wishes” up to the sawtooth as the abandoned fireboat dock in the basin was empty. We decided to back into it. This was when the Yacht Controller decided to stop working. The remote control simply wouldn’t turn on. Niel and I quickly put on our headsets and he expertly gave me directions for backing into the dock. This was the way we had docked for the first 5 years we owned the boat and we still had the magic! The fueling was uneventful except for a small amount of overfilling the starboard tank that we quickly cleaned up before the dribs of fuel could reach the water.

Leslie and PJ left to meet friends just returning from Alaska. Niel and I motored to the pump-out dock. “Three Wishes” has two indicators telling the amount of waste that’s in the holding tank and, of course, now that things were going wrong, neither of them was working. The pump-out equipment worked fine when emptying the tank. We filled the holding tank with water both to clean it and to try to get the indicators working again. Now, with a holding tank full of water, the pump-out hose stopped working. Geez Louise! Was there no end to things going wrong? After we spent much time and many phone calls to the harbormaster, he arrived at the pump-out dock to fix it. There were two hoses at this station and it turned out you couldn’t use both at the same time. I had turned on one hose just when a 2nd boat was finishing with the other one. Wouldn’t you think they’d put up a sign explaining this or only have one hose to begin with? Finally we were able to pump all the water out of the holding tank (we hoped. as the indicators still weren’t working). Then we motored back to the guest dock and collapsed.

Return to Port Sidney

The next day Niel and I cruised the 8th and final leg from Bellingham to Port Sidney. Of course it was foggy and of course the foghorn on the VHF didn’t work. One feels a bit vulnerable in a trafficked area shrouded in pea soup fog without a proper foghorn. We did fire up our huge air horn and used it once to warn a boat appeared on the radar to be getting too close to us. I was now developing quite a list of repairs for Raven Marine, the company that maintains our boat.

Plans for Next Summer

For some time I have longed to go around Cape Caution and explore British Columbia’s more northern inland passage. I am told that the further north you go, the more beautiful the scenery becomes and the more wildlife you see. Four months on the boat sounds good to me to accomplish this. My first choice is for Niel to come with me the whole time. If he decides not to do this, I plan to cruise with a combination of guests and single-handing.

As amazing as the areas we've cruised so far are, I'm anxious to go around Cape Caution and explore more of British Columbia's inside passage. Hopefully, that's on the agenda for next summer.

This fall I will fly to Sidney where Raven Marine will teach me some simple repairs such as changing out float switches and impellers and cleaning the yuck off the holding tank indicator. I’m already an old hand at cleaning out sea strainers. There will be some additional tools and parts added to “Three Wishes” inventory. And then I will be as prepared as I currently can be to enjoy the beauty and challenges of the Pacific Northwest again.

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).