To take advantage of the tides, we leave late after running errands in Campbell River. We see our friends from Andiamo and many other wonderful, familiar people in Campbell River. It's almost as if we had returned home to Santa Cruz, and almost as busy. The southerly flowing flood propels us past Cape Mudge, along the coast toward Comox Bar, which we easily pass on our way to Comox Harbor. After checking in and taking showers, we walk about town, then buy and eat three pounds of fresh prawns from the shrimp boat Love and Anarchy.
32 nautical miles: We're off early to ride a southerly flood along Denman Island for 15 miles. Conditions are glassy and calm until we ride a steep, short swell entering the Strait of Georgia. The swell elongates as we get to deeper water, but the wind rises. We see a marina as the wind builds, and we decide to pull in.
French Creek Harbour has a rock breakwater that surrounds a small and crowded basin. The entrance is narrow, shallow, and has a dog-legged passage. It's tricky, but is well-protected and calm inside. The port is crowded, and rafting is the only to get a space. Everyone is helpful and cooperative with the process. This is a busy, working harbor that has everything we need, but isn't fancy. It's our kind of place.
We motor into a high overcast and a gentle head-on swell. As predicted, we experience mounting winds and chop, making for a bouncy ride over the shallows to Nanaimo. Itsuro handles the conditions well, but it's nice to pull in. This is our first time back to Nanaimo since we first started doing our Inside Passage journeys. We still have the charts that we bought at Nanaimo Maps and Charts,and we return for a visit to thank the owner for his guidance from years before. Nanaimo has grown a great deal over the past few years, and now boasts new laundry and shower facilities right at the harbor. We enjoyed our quick return tour of this cosmopolitan stop.
We are up before first light so that we can comfortably complete the 40+ mile run to Point Roberts, WA. We take Kyra up for her walk, and cast off around the top of Gabriola Island, then past Silva Bay, Porlier Pass, and across the Twassen Ferry ports to Active Pass. Dodging ferries and chop, we make our approach to Point Roberts.
In Nanaimo, we called U.S. Customs to determine the correct place for us to clear customs, as we had heard that Blaine is not an official port of entry, even though it's a border town. Point Roberts is a tiny, isolated peninsula that is surrounded by outskirts of Vancouver, B.C. Kids who live in Point Roberts need to travel 40 minutes through Canada each day to get to a school in Washington. Its peculiar geographic location make Point Roberts a very interesting place, that we were happy to discover. We decided to hang out an extra day, even though it's just a three-hour run to Blaine. We enjoyed Lighthouse park, with its incredible sunsets and great orca displays.
It's an easy run to Blaine from Point Roberts. Because we enjoy the ambiance of Blaine, we decide to "vacation" there for awhile, rather than immediately put the boat on the trailer. There are also a number of chores that need to be completed before we can head home, so we enjoy several days in the Blaine/Ferndale/Bellingham area. Among the highlights:
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We enjoy a beautiful hike in the Mt. Baker area. We discover that Kyra is very agile in the snow, and looks like a sled dog, when she runs along. |
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We had the trailer custom built for Itsuro by Tufftrailers in Ferndale, Washington. The trailer was ready when we returned. It was recommended that we have a travel lift place the boat on to the trailer, especially for the first time. We had Westman Marine lift the boat on to the trailer, and their expertise really helped with the nerve-wracking process.
Once the boat was on the trailer, Shawn had some well-founded misgivings about driving this massive rig down I-5, and eventually over Highway 17. We weighed the pros and cons of leaving the boat behind. We had noticed a U-Haul business with indoor boat storage near the freeway in Ferndale. We decided to take the boat over there. We paid for an indoor storage space, with the intent of leaving the boat in Washington until the next summer. However, once we pulled the boat up the storage space door, it looked like the exhaust pipe would not fit. We got out the tape measure, and indeed we discovered a one foot shortage of clearance. So, we got our refund from U-Haul (the gentleman in charge was very gracious), and we returned to our original plan of driving the boat to California, so that we can put some "fine-tune touches to it before taking it to Alaska for the 2008 season. The trailer worked very well. The boat was secure for the whole 3-day trip. Because the rig is so high, we can't live in it conveniently on the road, like we could with the C-Dory.
Now the boat sits in our back yard, where it just fits. We hope to store it permanently in Craig, Alaska, starting next summer.
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