A Very Interesting Day

Port Hardy - June 23rd

It has been raining since we arrived yesterday morning. There was one small break in the rain yesterday afternoon when Jim and I took a walk into the downtown area of Port Hardy. It is only about a 20 minute walk. With my ankle 20 minutes is plenty.  It's that hard pavement the especially does me in. 

This morning my iPhone died -- dead!  So - what to do. We needed the phone. Jim has an old flip phone with no real value except emergency type calls. 

Searching for the nearest Telus store --  I thought there would be one in Prince Rupert -- we found one here in Port Hardy!  

We called and they had the iPhone 6s and I had one put away. We took a cab to the store -  it would have been a long walk in the rain. 

Seems Telus had made some changes in their available plans and the new phone would require a new plan - which would be $90 a month instead of $60 plus the cost of the phone. Plus the amount of data I currently get was no longer an option -- and so on and so on. 

So we were sort of chatting with the young man who was helping us. -- I thought maybe just buying a new iPhone 5s - no -- he didn't think that would be good value.  He says -  could it be your battery is dead??  Certainly could be. It had be losing charge very quickly as of late.  For $50 he could put in a new battery - he wasn't a trained Apple tech so it wouldn't be guaranteed. I figured for $50 it was worth a try. 

It was worth $50.00 just to watch him work!  He brightened up - got out his little collection of special tools - some of which he made himself. Telling us all about  what he was doing.  He had made a little stand to hold the phone in a certain position as he took out various minuscule screws. He had a special little suction cup contraption to separate the phone. He used a heat gun to loosen the dead battery.  We watched as he gently took the phone apart.  And he carefully replaced the battery and put the phone all back together - like nothing had ever been done to it.  He could be an orthopaedic surgeon! 

He says he taught himself how to do that. And he was just full of knowledge about all sort of things. I wish I could have taken a photo. It was amazing to watch him!  He reminded us of Eric. 

And... The phone is back on and working!  Yay!!

While we waited for the phone to start charging we had lunch at A&W and spent $17.00 on Smarties at Save On Foods. 

When we got back Jim took Jenny for a walk in the rain. Everyone required full rain gear! 

We decide to have dinner at the Quarterdeck Pub right by the marina.  It was - ok. As we were eating dinner we watched the all the firemen from the volunteer fire department doing some sort of a drill at the marina. Very interesting to watch. 

There were all kinds of other interesting sites we observed -- too bad I didn't have my camera!  

We had a bit of a concern about the guy in the sailboat across from us - the Webasto has been running all day and we hadn't seen him at all.  We mentioned it to the fire department and the Harbour staff as we were coming back from dinner. We had knocked on his window - Webasto still running. He did come out - I guess all is well!   I feel bad we disturbed him but I was a bit worried. I think he was confused by the fuss!  

The marina is full of derelict boats. They are a sad sight to see.  There is a trimaran tied up next to us that is in a bad way.  

There are number of old fishing boat that have been left to rot at the dock. 

And on top of all that -- it has been raining steady all day. Wet - wet - wet.  We are thinking of leaving tomorrow but it's hard to get motivated to do anything in the rain.  

Blunden Harbour and Port Hardy

June 21th and 22nd 

We left Port McNeill around 8 AM and had a calm and easy crossing of Queen Charlotte Striaght to Blunden Harbour.   Unfortunately the AIS was not transmitting. We saw Blue Moon on the AIS and they could not see us. Very frustrating. 

We decided to drop the anchor in Blunden Harbour. Try to do a little bit of fiddling with the connections and if we couldn't get it working we would head to Port Hardy and get Stryker Marine Electronics to come look at it. 

Blunden has the big long dock for tying up the skiff and taking Jenny to shore. 

It rained!  Hard!  Most of the night!  And it was cold. Good this the Webasto is now working well. We used it! 

Jim up on the boat deck in his wet gear. He did a little bit of cleaning of the green in the rain.  

We have surrendered the boat to the cat. We give up!  Haha 

Jim is preparing the nightcap as Lilly sits where Lilly wants to sit. 

We pulled the anchor and motored off to Port Hardy. 

The service tech from Stryker came to the boat and did some diagnostics and resetting of the AIS.  So we are hoping he has fixed the problem!  Seems all the connections are working. Just a "hard reset" and some reconfiguration -- so fingers crossed!  

We are going to spend tonight and tomorrow night in Port Hardy. It is supposed to be a bit windy tomorrow. So we will plan t go around Cape Caution from here on Friday. It will be a longish day --  44 nm - so 6 a7 hours or so. But if we leave from a dock we can get away earlier without the time needed taking Jenny to shore in the skiff and then putting the skiff back up on the boat deck. 

So here we are in Port Hardy at the Fishermen's wharf - in the rain. I think this may be the theme for this summer!! 

Port McNeill

We have been in Port McNeill for 3 nights.  I always enjoy our stay at the North Island Marina -- Steve and all the staff here are wonderful and hard working!! 

Jim and I discovered that Port McNeill -- is not Port McNeil -there are two L's!!  All this time I thought it was one! 

We are heading out this morning.  We had a quick visit with a friend of Jim's last evening - which was great to see him again. And maybe on the way back down Jim and Pieter will go fishing!  That's the best kind of fishing for Jim -- guided! 

Beautiful sunset - lots of Krogens here. 

Willy Mitchell - once a Vancouver Canuck is from Port McNeill. His jersey on the wall at Gus's Pub. 

We saw a couple we know from the Krog-In -- John and Kitsi. The were flying out on Monday.  They will be back in a week and continue north - so we might see them along the way. 

Well we are off ....

Port Harvey

June 17

Spent the night at Port Harvey.  We had a very nice trip up Johnstone Straight this morning. Calm seas - and -- the AIS worked the entire trip as reported to us from several boats that saw us along the way. 

Jim said that one year ago on this day we were also going from Handfield Bay to Port Harvey!!  

The main barge in Port Harvey sunk last December. The marina had a store and a restaurant on the barge. They have raised the barge and begun the process of rebuilding. But in the meantime they have a tent on a new float and the pizza oven is up and running again -- so we will have pizza for dinner!  

Port Harvey certainly looks different with the store and the Red Shoe Cafe missing. It was very comfortable sitting under the tent and the pizza was fabulous - as usual!! 

We arrived about 1:00 and the weather was lovely - sunny and warm. We met a couple of a on a sailboat that have been sailing around the world for 30-40 years!  Lovely to meet them. They have been everywhere. Spent 4 years with their young son going to Turkey and South Africa and places, and also went to Singapore and area. Amazing!  Their son is now 38. They are on their way to Alaska.

We stayed one night, the next stop will be Port McNeill.  

Handfield Bay

June 16th 

We left Squirrel Cove around 1230 to time with slack water in the Dents. The trip was uneventful except for the AIS is not working consistently. It broadcasts the boat for an hour or so and then stops. We are still receiving though. It is annoying!  Hopefully that's the worst problem we have -- knock on wood!  There is always a little something! 

We decided to go to Handfield Bay and anchor for the night. We were thinking of going to Shoal Bay but it was so late in the day and it was most likely the dock would be full. We really like Handfield Bay anyway.  

We arrived around 5 PM and there was another Kadey Krogen in there already - a 48 ft wide body. After we put the skiff down Jim took Jenny out and then stopped by to say hello. The boat was called Hokulele. 

It was a lovely evening. The weather remains cool but no rain or wind. 

Handfield Bay 

Squirrel Cove

The compass cover - finally!  Jim is very pleased and it only took 3 years! 

We spent last night - June 15th - in Squirrel Cove.  We decided not to go to Prideaux Have because the weather wasn't that great and it adds another 1/2 hour to the trip.  We are trying to get north quickly so we are just spending one night here anyway.  Squirrel Cove seemed easier. 

The weather turned sunny and warm by the time we got here.  We heard there was some nasty weather in Vancouver recently - heavy rain and flooding - snow and hail at the higher elevations -- Grouse Mountain and Caulfield. The people staying at our house said it was wet there but no wind and no snow.  It is definitely a different start to the trip this year.  This time last summer it was so hot and dry. 

The solar panels are working great - so says Jim. He's keeping track of the numbers on the monitor and reads them out on a regular basis. 

First trip to shore in the skiff. All works well with the launching of the skiff and the skiff is running well. 

It's always a bit of worry as you start the trip wondering what will go wrong - seems there is always a little something!   This year the AIS is not working correctly.  We are able to see vessels but we do not seem to be transmitting our vessel consistently.  The new AIS was just installed before the trip last year and it took quite some doing to get it working correctly then!  

Our plan is to catch slack water and go north through "The Dents". Slack water is about 3:40 so we get a late start today. We are enjoying a relaxing cup of coffee with the salon door open and Lilly is exploring the cockpit - in other words - looking for the escape hatch!  

On our way!

June 14, 2016

We are behind schedule. As usual life gets in the way and boat work always take 3 times longer than planned and costs twice as much!

Jim wanted to leave before the end of May. They boat was up on the hard for 10 days or so - which was a bit longer than planned. Lots of things were done that needed to be done and that we wanted to be done this year.

The refinished floors looks great. We bought a new area rug for the salon. A bit of a splurge ....

Jim installed 3 solar panels on the pilot house roof. So now we can be somewhere at anchor for a few days without worrying about batteries -  it's all about battery management. 

We got the screens installed on the pilot house doors and portholes and the salon windows. We can now have wide open windows for a nice sea breeze without worrying about the cat!  That wasn't too expensive - all about cat management that was!  

Not a great photo into the sun. But the window is wide open and she can't get out - or wiggle between the window and the screen like last summer.  But she is looking for a way out - all her escape routes have been closed and she a bit annoyed right now - running around the boat - haha. 

We left Steveston around 9 this morning. And coming out of the Fraser River was sloppy and it was blowing 25 knts. Not very pleasant. Even I was a little nauseated!  Jenny was fine. Lily was not happy. But once we turned the corner to head north after the Sandhead light station the seas calmed down and the rest of the trip was pretty good. 

Leaving behind some thunderclouds as we look back towards Vancouver. 

Heading towards blue sky! 

We are in Pender Harbour at the public dock. It is pretty breezy here at the dock. Took a bit to secure the boat as it kept blowing off the dock. It is certainly not as dry and hot as last year. 

Our plan is to leave tomorrow and head to Prideaux Haven. We are going to work our way north to Port McNeil as quickly as we can - weather permitting - as we try to get to the central coast earlier than we did last year.