Crossing the Strait of Georgia

After a quick one day stay at Montague Harbor, we pressed on to Nanaimo, transiting through Dodd Narrows at slack.  Nanaimo was a great stopover for us. We anchored behind Protection Bay and dingyed to the government dock in town. The dock has nice showers, a great grocery store within a short walk and complete boating supply store next to a Starbucks. What more could a boater want? As it turned out we needed a different set of cams for our double deck Spinlock cleat that was installed earlier this year. Paul researched the part needed and the guys at the supply store assured it would arrive by float plane the next day. They were right in their assessment of the delivery time. We picked up the package the next morning and were ready to depart.

Our sail maker Carol Hasse wanted Janet to make nettles for the reef points along the mainsail. Janet had been measuring and whipping to get these ready for install. Before pulling anchor we raised the sail and installed the nettles, deciding to remain reefed to the first set for the crossing. Winds were projected to be SE10-15 with a flood. We were starting a bit late due to the part delivery and we also wanted to make sure we were not over canvassed as winds were expected to increase. We have a new Monitor windvane which we also planned to use on the crossing. The company stressed to keep things in balance for best performance. They also said to expect some challenges the first several times of use.

We departed with steady 10-15 kts of wind, building to 20. We put in another reef before we got into the main channel. Paul set up the monitor and we set our course. From that point on we could have just set back and watched for deadheads and traffic. The monitor was fabulous. The seas were very confused, swells were 3-5 sec intervals and probably 4-6 ft. Winds remained 18-20 for approx 20nm. We made a few course corrections as we approached Welcome Passage. The monitor took everything in stride and worked perfectly. The only time Paul felt it struggled was on a close downwind. We disengaged it, placed our preventers and self steered at that point, but otherwise, it performed flawlessly.

The sail plan was to spend the night at Smuggler Cove. We were not tired, so opted to press on to Pender. Seas had settled to near flat and winds wee 10kts or less. We arrived at Pender tired but very happy with the Monitor Windvane. Janet was very happy with the nettles and how they controlled the excess canvas while reefed.