Sailing Vessel Karma

11 boats, 5 with all women crews,

and one happening to have my aunt on board. During mid to late August we were literally bobbing about wondering when we were going to be able to get our mast back. It was already 2 or so weeks past the time we originally expected when we had it unstepped, and the sailing season was fast coming to a close. All of a sudden, in one of the 32,000 family group chats going around, Linda announces she is going to be the 5th member of an all women crew on a charter boat heading from Bellingham to the Gulf Islands and back right around the time our plan was to head straight to Canada.

Details were exchanged, we found out it was a whole flotilla; it turns their boat was one we even talked to early in the season, Tivoli! I was thinking it was a good moniker, to name a yacht after some tasty pasta but turns out it’s some garden in Denmark. Good name either way, so the interception date and place was decided.

We pulled into Montegue Harbour on Galiano Island a few days ahead of the planned arrival of Tivoli, which was a Monday. We spent the first days on our own, renting scooters and hanging with the famous Tommy Transit who drives the Hummingbird Pub bus to and from the harbour. This is all in another post of our own time.

Monday rolls around, the internet service at Montegue sucks making work difficult so I solved that by taking the two days off, and Tivoli arrives in full force with the rest of the flotilla. After they grab the mooring ball we go onboard and meet the crew. Aboard were three serious sailors, one of which Linda sailed with in the BVIs in a charter earlier in the year. Mary (the BVI charter captain) and Gail race rather seriously together on S/V Abstract out of Portland. Both of them have done some serious offshore races as well such as the Americas Cup to Hawaii and a Fastnet! It was excellent hearing from them and we even all piled into our trouper of a WestMarine dink to have a tour of Karma.

This all sets us up to miss the pub bus, of course. Anytime a Frazer or a byproduct of one is involved everything is automatically delayed by 10 to 50 minutes. No worries, Tommy comes around about every 45 minutes and so Heather and I play pine cone hacky-sac with the Tivoli crew until the Transit Master himself arrives. We had a lovely dinner at the classic Hummingbird cafe and headed on back for sundowners and chats well into the night. Tivoli even has underwater lights off the stern, a true super yacht like feature to have on a 40 foot cruising boat. While that is a nice feature, and the boat is probably less than 5 years old, it’s not without its own issues. The outside engine controls don’t work! They have to start the engine from the starter inside the boat on the engine. As you can see below, we can’t escape boat projects even if we go aboard someone else’s almost new yacht.

The next day was the race. Tivoli vs Karma from Montegue Harbour on Galiano to Ganges on Saltspring. Off we go at around 11:00. We have to pick up anchor and with our manual windlass it takes a bit longer than just dropping the mooring ball over on the competitor’s boat. Tivoli comes past as the anchor gets home and we head out the south end of the harbour together and raise the sails. Now, not to make excuses, but we are sailing currently with a mainsail probably 65% of the full size. I don’t want that to be the reason we didn’t necessarily win, but it is definitely part of the reason.

The wind was light so we sailed back and forth past each other time and time again which was a good ole time. Taking lots of pictures of course. It is interesting, it isn’t too often you get to see a picture of your own yacht under sail as it’s too big to get in a photo of yourself onboard and you’re often times too far for anyone else to get a good picture. We chased the wind around for a bit, but as Tivoli had a slip reservation time to meet, they soon “joined the cruising class” and fired up their diesel (from down below of course) and motored on away. We, without a schedule and definitely without a slip reservation, sailed or drifted around at 1kt drinking hot chocolate until we too decided to motor the last few miles to Ganges Harbour where we anchored then dinked in and tied back to Tivoli.

Ganges, what an interesting town. Built in a sort of loop, Heather and I walked around one and a half times and ran into each crew member of Tivoli individually. We were looking for loonies to take advantage of the marina shower and also for a water fill n such, something that’s been strangely hard to find in the gulf islands. Then back to Tivoli where we shared rum, wine, made nachos in a working yacht galley oven (ours doesn’t work) and wasted the night telling stories, jokes, and general nonsense. We never did make it out to dinner.

Overall, hilarious and a great experience. It was so random but also form fitting to run into a family member in such a far flung part of the world. Hearing stories from experienced offshore sailors is always awesome and now we have more contact information for a piece of Karma’s history! We are definitely going to stay friends with the rest of the crew of Tivoli, Mary might even help us sail down part of the coast when we feel like we are 80% ready to make that big left you hear so much about.

They took off the following morning early, headed to Roche Harbor on San Juan Island to get yelled at by US customs/immigration officials before heading back to Bellingham where the charter started. We stayed in Ganges for a few days and aimlessly roamed around and returned back to our slow paced no goal cruising life. In this time we got the bill for our rerig…. that’s definitely going to be its own blog post, so it sort of put a damper on Ganges; however, the bakery was awesome, we met a local in Moby’s Pub who was a true character and awesome to talk to, the scenery impressive, the holding good, overall Ganges and the sassy sailors will be remembered fondly.