I’m back, but I’m gone again.
Now, isn’t that confusing?
Well, it has been too long since I have contributed to my PMM blog. So, I’m back already and eager to blog once more. But I’m gone too – on my way to the distant wilderness of northern British Columbia aboard my 42 Grand Banks Europa, Quadra.
My cruising partner is Ellen Kaiser, who sailed the lower stretches of B.C. waters 15 years ago. But she never has turned Cape Caution or crossed Queen Charlotte Sound. She will check them off her list in the next couple of weeks. Guaranteed.
This 10-week trip has been planned for nearly a year. My original intent was to take care of every item on my Quadra to-do list by April 1, then take a couple of shakedown trips and do landscaping work at home (usually with chain saw and weed chopper; I live in the woods) before making a leisurely departure in a perfectly tuned boat.
Instead, I spent ten days helping deliver an 81-foot steel-hulled yacht to Alaska in mid-March. And then Ellen and I went to Tucson for a week to see her family and friends and soon after that I joined some male friends in a guys-only trip into the San Juan Islands. So, nothing got done on time.
I thought Quadra was in okay condition when PassageMaker asked me to contribute her to the Women’s University program at TrawlerFest in Anacortes in early May. I delivered her to the Cap Sante Marina, home port of TrawlerFest, and tested all the systems before eight students and an instructor arrived. Everything was ready to go, except the Webasto furnace. It whirred and clicked, but it wouldn’t start. With nine people in the saloon, it probably wasn’t missed.
After TrawlerFest I did what I could do – replaced the injector nozzle and fuel filter. Frustrated that it still wouldn’t start, I called Bob Dickey of First Mate Marine, a specialist in furnaces, head systems and other yacht plumbing. He had the diagnostic tool needed and told me the coil had failed. He didn’t have the part, so I took the furnace to the repair center in Seattle- 80 miles from my Anacortes home - on the Monday before our planned sailing date and went back for the repaired unit on Tuesday and replaced it the same day
That gave us Wednesday to finish cleaning, loading and provisioning. As planned – surprise! – we pulled out of the marina on time Thursday mid-day. Our first destination was the rendezvous of the Puget Sound Grand Banks Owners’ Association in Roche Harbor, San Juan Island. More troubles were coming.
My Walker Bay inflatable needed air after a long winter’s rest. I got out the bellows-type foot pump and discovered that the piece that connects to the boat valve was broken. I gotta have a dinghy full of air, I thought, and looked around desperately. Two boats out from my slip in Roche Harbor was Orca, another 42 GB, and on her upper deck was a Walker Bay inflatable just like mine.
David Twyer, her owner and a British Columbia resident, lent me his pump – a double action Airhead pump resembling a Bunyanesque old-time bicyle pump – and in a dozen squirts of air my dinghy was ready to go. But I couldn’t keep David’s pump, as much as I liked it. Then came along Ron Mauselle, a Portland, Oregon, inflatable dealer and 42 GB owner who told me the valve piece I needed was made by Halkey-Roberts, a prolific manufacturer of valves and valve parts. The piece I needed is characterized by a pair of tangs that lock it into the valve in the dinghy and which relieve the owner of holding it in while trying to pump with his/her right foot. He offered to ship one to me.
In Nanaimo, Ellen and I hiked from the port marina to Harbor Chandlery, Ltd. during a rain and hail storm in search of the Halkey-Roberts part. I couldn’t find any on shelves, so Ellen did what never occurred to me – she asked a clerk. He went into a parts room and came back with the part. I asked him to add a good pump and he took me to the Airhead display. I was in heaven.
We’re well along the route now. This is written on our seventh day at sea, from a yacht club moorage in Pender Harbor, B.C. I have another writing chore to complete – hopefully in one day – and then I want to persuade my ship’s computer to recognize a new AIS receiver and then we’ll head out into Jervis Inlet bound for Princess Louisa Inlet, a beautiful spot I haven’t seen in a dozen years.
Don’t ask me what happened after someone (Who did it?!) flipped off the circuit breaker serving the Sealand overboard pump.
More later. I promise.