While in Naniamo, our attention
was drawn to check out "Blue Steel" which had been unloaded from a
barge a day before. It may look rather ordinary because the picture
doesn't do justice to the scale of the thing. It is eighty feet long
(that's right 80). It is powered by three 2000 HP engines (6000HP
total) and will do 48 knots. 
Musicfest was fun. John
especially enjoyed the instructional workshops and smaller
presentations. John found the large concert settings in the evenings
for the big name groups to be a bit loud, crowded and dusty (see
picture left). Eleanor especially enjoyed
listening to the "Higgens" harmonizing in one of our instructional
workshops. Valdy was excellent in the instructional workshops as well. 
We left Comox early in the
morning on Wednesday, July 16th hoping to take advantage of a lull in
the persistent North West winds we have been getting. (The North West
wind is the typical nice weather summer time wind here). The route we
like to take when the wind is NW is to tack all the way across the
Strait of Georgia passing under Savary Island and then power up the
side of the Malaspina Peninsula to Desolation Sound. Well it turned out
to be a more boistrous crossing of the Strait then we prefer, but it
was a fast crossing! 
on board and their friends
Roger and Marie on "Lucy May".
We arrived about 2pm but were exhausted after our 6am start and crashed
before happy hour. On Thursday "Sarah K" headed south and we had a nice
hike into a local lake with Roger and Marie. 
All told we had four idyllic
days in Grace before picking up a weather window and moving over to
Heriot Bay. A weak frontal condition brought a prediction of South East
winds (perfect!). As it turns out the South East winds only lasted a
couple of hours and we otherwise powered over glassy seas. (which is a
lot better then beating into a North Wester). 
The Heriot Bay Marina was almost
empty when we left for Vancouver. When we returned it was full. The
Heriot Bay Marina is an excellent place to visit during rainy weather.
It is now emptying out again as the boaters head out to their favourite
anchorages. 
We caught a ride back from
Vancouver after the funeral with our daughter Kathy, the grandchildren
and Kathy's niece. We arrived back on Galiander
Aug. 1st. after
we spent one night at the Poetker home in Comox en route. Everyone came
over to check out the Marina yesterday, including our son's mother in
law and favorite real estate agent, Poppy. Then we all celebrated with
a lovely meal out at the Heriot Bay Inn. 
We are back home! We did an
overnighter and made the whole trip from the Heriot Bay Marina on
Quadra Island to Whaler Bay on Galiano Island in a little under 26
hours. Our trip back started uneventfully as we powered out of the
Heriot Bay Marina on Sunday morning at 7am to catch a lovely Northwest
wind south. This lasted until about noon then it died and the middle of
the Strait of Georgia remained as placid as a millpond until about 10
pm in the evening, this despite the continued consistent forecast of
10-15 NW. We could only use the engine at a very low speed and
were
not making good time and this left us in a quandary. If we overnighted
near Comox the long range wind forecast suggested we might end up
facing more light winds and even a South East wind in a few days. But
the forecast for the night was "Strong Wind Warning late in the evening
- Winds NorthWest 15-25". Now that was more like it so we decided to go
for an overnighter and get it over with. 
As darkness fell we were
entertained by the passage of three cruise ships which seemed to be
moving at a glacial speed but generated a gigantic wake we really had
to watch out for. I figured with the forecaster predicting 10-15 earlier in the day and us actually getting zero the prediction of 15-25 that evening would be a lot less anyhow. Actually the forecaster was dead on. Late evening turned out to be about midnight but from then on all the way to Galiano the wind seldom dropped below 20 knots - what a ride! We tied up at the Whaler Bay Dock at about 8:30 Monday morning.
One baton in the mainsail will
need to be
replaced. We arrived dead tired but triumphant and elated. An hour's
sleep and two stiff cups of coffee over at Peter and Dorothy's place
have got us going again. Tomorrow I will make an appointment to take Galiander over to Canoe Cove for repairs.
--
When I
last sent a
report way back in August we had just finished our 26 hour overnight
run from Desolation Sound to Whaler Bay (our home port), nursing an
engine with a leaking head gasket. A couple of weeks later John and
extremely capable helper Tom Bennett took Galiander over to Canoe Cove
to have things put right, again never getting the engine much above an
idle. Power sailing all the way we arrived in a mere 4 hours, which is
about normal for that trip. The weather conditions were uncertain. At
times we were in fog. The wind was generally against us. On the left
you see Galiander sitting at the Service Dock. 
