Barkley Sound Day 5 – The Straits…

Rose early (about 5:30am) and got going.  We had to slip out between a few boats since we were “parallel parked” with boats on the opposite dock as well as behind us on our dock.  The wind was pushing us off the dock which sort of helped but it also meant Devon didn’t get back on the boat after untying the lines.  So I had to back out slowly by myself between the boats, and then back around to the other side of the dock to pick her up.  After that we motored slowly out of Victoria Harbor and out into Juan de Fuca Strait, exiting the harbor about 6:30am.

We made our way South-west and rounded Race Rocks.  The wind about 14kts dead on the nose.   As we got closer to the point the wind shifted more westerly so as we turned to head out toward the Pacific Ocean, we ended up with the wind on our nose again.

Also, we’ve had a sort of bum zipper on the cockpit enclosure for a while, the box end where you put the two sides together and start zipping had broken off a while ago which meant if you put too much pressure on the panel it would come apart from that end.  Unfortunately, re-zipping it backwards is super hard to do but we’ve sort of dealt with it for a while.  Anyway, Devon went forward to drop our big flag since we didn’t do that before departing, and after unzipping the sides of this problematic panel, the wind caught it and caused it to unzip backwards. I tried to fix the zipper using a pair of vise-grips on the zipper handle and pulling backwards (vise-grips because I couldn’t hold the zipper handle well enough by itself). And got it to go back a few inches, then BOOM!, broke a tooth on one side of the zipper and lose the back of the metal zipper itself and now there is no zipping it whatsoever.   So that sucks.  Time to try out sewing canvas with the sewing machine.

We started to get a little wind waves, and the bow was bouncy, so we checked on the girls in the v-berth; Morgan said she felt a little off so it was out to the cockpit for her, Olivia on the other hand curled up in her blankets as far forward as she could get, against the side of the berth and squealed every time the bow started to come down off a wave.   It’s funny how much like Devon Morgan is and how much like me Ellie is.

After breakfast, Morgan and Ellie got out their projects again.  I baked Morgan’s clay charms in the boat oven and made more hot water for various coffee and cup’o’noodles requests.  We have so much food on board I actually don’t even know what I want anymore, I just stare at the galley and lose my concentration, then walk away.   Turns out buying tons of food may be the cause of me losing some weight..  (NOT!).

As we got further out toward the West Entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait, we found the swell for the first time.  It was only about 2 feet high at 8-10 seconds of period.  So it wasn’t much to speak of, but it’s there.  The wind has also fallen down to about 5-8kts.

I managed to listen to some weather reports on the SSB, but it was not super clear, still need to work on how to use it, of course the engine was running, and the inverter, and other electronics so that might be affecting it, or it might not.  On the VHF we were hearing the Coast Guard looking for a vessel that reported it was taking on water and sinking off Whidbey Island.  But they didn’t have a boat name, or a true position, or any other info.

BOATERS!! Please Install and Configure your VHF radio’s DSC functions, it literally sends your exact position to the Coast Guard when you press the red button.

I wanted to work on the joker valve in the aft head, but that involves taking a shower as well.   So the first step is to recommission the watermaker so that using fresh water (and yes, on board showers are nice and hot) for a shower isn’t a big deal.   So we opened up the valves and started flushing the antifreeze (Propylene Glycol) out of the system, installed a new particulate filter and then started running test water through the membrane.  Unfortunately, I think using antifreeze was a mistake, because I can taste it in the water coming out of the watermaker.  The good news is that it’s food grade antifreeze, so it’s not going to hurt us.  We ended up letting it run out the test hose for 2 hours, pumping like 16 gallons of new water overboard.   The taste subsided a good bit so we switched over to filling the tank at about 3:45pm.  I’m guessing we’ve used about 15 gallons since filling up at the dock so that’s about 2 hours of watermaker time.

While letting the first 2 hours of water out through the test valve, I ended up washing some of the teak in the cockpit.  It’s been a while since the boat was washed well and there’s lots of dirt and grime in the cockpit.   Then girls were getting antsy, so we sent them off to play Minecraft for a while.

After that it was time to be ambitious again and replace the joker valve and base plate valve in the aft toilet, while at sea in the swell with the boat rocking side to side and fore/aft.   Because we were in the open ocean, the holding tanks valves to sea were open, so the tanks were empty.  This makes it much less messy.  I pumped a ton of water through the toilet for a while, then pumped it as dry as I could get it.   Then I removed the hoses and pulled the pump off, a little sea water spilled into the floor.  After that I removed the joker valve and nothing came out (Score!).   So I popped the new one in, replaced the base valve with a new one, and put it all back together.  Voila!  Toilet is good as new.  Since there’s random sea water and gunk on the floor, and I myself was dirty even before this project, I shower right there in the same head, cleaning all the surfaces, floor, etc and pumping it all right out with the shower sump.  Bam! – Clean me and clean head.  The forward head seems to be working alright so there was no point in working on that one.

Dinner was a frittata that ended up more like a casserole while underway because it was a one-pot meal.  It was pretty good.

• Anchored in Bamfield, Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island, BC
• Engine Hours: 1421.2hrs – 1434.9hrs = 13.7 hours
• Winds 15kts to 5kts, no sailing
• Water Consumption – 177/8.1 = 22 gallons
• Water Produced from Watermaker = 26 gallons
• Distance Travelled – 100nm
• Barometer at 1014mb and slightly falling
• Ocean swell from the South and West, about 1 meter and 10 seconds, two swells mixing to form rolling conditions.

FYI, PredictWind nailed the forecast