Alaska Cruise 2014 Part one- the trip begins

After a short turnaround at home, checking mail, etc, we headed back to Anacortes, where Spirit was fueled and nearly ready for departure.  After a nice gathering with friends at Skyline (Tucker’s, Lieschner’s,  Alveys and Hislops’s), we headed to Spirit for a much needed night of sleep before rising early to launch our new tender which had been in dry storage.  We installed the new propeller, intended to improve performance, but it actually made the performance worse so we put the original one back on.

After a final trip to Costco and Safeway we met our cruise guests, Ted and Lisa Marx about 7 PM for dinner at the Brown Lantern before retiring for an early departure from Anacortes Marina.

May 15, 2014

Dawn arrived all too early as we prepared to depart Anacortes Marina.  Spirit departed the slip right on schedule at 0600, while Miriam and Ted took the tender out separately to meet outside the breakwater and hook up the tow line.  By 0620 we underway seriously and headed down Guemes Channel to take advantage of the large ebb tide.  Passing through Thatcher Pass we then headed across Blakely Sound and through Pole Pass and then past Stuart Island across Haro Strait to Bedwell Harbor where we cleared Canadian Customs.  That process took only a few minutes by phone since the Customs dock was unmanned.

A short run from Bedwell Harbor brought us to Port Browning where we anchored Spirit in a nearly deserted bay in 25 feet of water.  Patrick and Ted headed ashore to check out the Pub menu and hours before all four of us took a scenic cruise in the new tender through the Pender Canal back to Bedwell Harbor and then around South Pender Island via Haro Strait and back to Port Browning.  Dinner at the pub was good, with an interesting cream of broccoli soup with blue cheese.  Thursday was also fish and chips special night, with good beer battered cod for very reasonable prices.

Cruising the Pender Canal

New Fishing Tender at Port Browning

Spirit at anchor in the deserted bay at Port Browning

Returning to Spirit the four of us played “Mexican Train” until late, then realized that with the large ebb tide in the morning that we needed to have another 0600 departure.

May 16, 2014

We raised the anchor right on schedule at 0600 and decided to try a new route (for us) via Georgeson Passage into the Strait of Georgia.  Georgeson Passage, while a little narrow, has less current then Active Pass, and is 15 nautical miles shorter than going around the east end of Saturna Island.  There were a few violent eddies and whirlpools, but nothing the boat autopilot could not handle.

Exiting into the Strait of Georgia we set a course for Vancouver that would keep us in Canadian Waters until we cleared the northern USA boundary and then cut across the VTS lanes to the correct northbound lane near Sand Head.  The wind and seas had built to 25 knots and 3-5 foot seas on the starboard quarter.  The stabilizers were working hard and we kept hearing a strange banging noise.  Checking the engine room Patrick found the starboard stabilizer top bearing support housing bolts were loose, causing excessive motion and presumably causing the leak in the seal we had noticed.  A few minutes with a large Allen wrench on the capscrews solved that problem and the rest of the trip into Vancouver’s False Creek and Quayside Marina was uneventful, where we arrived at 1225.  We have now covered 85 nautical miles, only about 4000 left to go until we return to Anacortes.

The new tender towed nicely in the seas and arrived behind us in Vancouver with no spray on board, unlike Spirit, which had a lot of salt spray.

The new tender tows just fine!

We re-provisioned with the fresh vegetables we could not bring across the border at both Costco, just a few blocks away, and at Urban Fare, one block from the marina.  After a snack of fresh oysters at “Provence” Bistro at the head of the dock we put on a rack of St. Louis style baby back pork ribs to slow cook for a late dinner.  The sun and warm temperatures made the cockpit the perfect place for dinner, which started with a shrimp and avocado cocktail.  As the skies gradually darkened we finished off the evening with another round of “Mexican Train”.

Enjoying evening dinner in the cockpit with Ted and Lisa Marx