Sailing Vessel Karma

After a few stops in

harbours and islands we visited last year in the Southern Gulf Islands we found ourselves once again at the town of Ganges. A lovely little town, often called ‘the Friday Harbor of the Gulf Islands’ we returned more out of momentum and the the thought ‘this is a place people visit, so lets stop there’. Last year we had a fun time here for a few days between hanging with the flotilla of lady sailors my aunt was participating in and getting to know the Saltspring locals over Shipwreck IPAs, but this time around we were less enchanted.

This doesn’t mean the stop was a bust though! We finally got to meet the crew of the yacht Tangent, two fellow SU students who have been cruising aboard their Cooper 35 in the PNW for the last 5 years. We also finally met Ben, captain of SV Dual Dragons, or maybe Sailing Spaceship Dual Dragons. This Voyage 470 catamaran pulled past me a few weeks prior in Friday Harbor flying Dutch registration and Chinese lettering on the hull so you know that boat traveled far. Dual Dragons has been out and about for the better part of 18 years, across the Atlantic and Pacific, and now since been in the area for a few years.

After spending the morning aboard Karma with Tangent’s crew having coffee we wandered town, bought a small amount of groceries realizing we are far more better setup for cruising than we were last year, and then sorta had the itching to move on. Tangent recommended Wallace Island, and our friends on Chandelle were there so we set off in hopes of now new places and stern ties.

After tacking upwind to get out of the three mile inlet on Saltspring where Ganges lives, we turned the corner to go north and the wind entirely died. Not uncommon around here, so we motored the second half of the day to Princess Cove in beautiful sunny and warm weather. Rounding the corner into the seemingly small anchorage, it did look like a good place to practice this new anchoring technique.

To fit more boats in a small place, or to anchor in spots where it may be too deep to let out enough scope, the stern tie is pretty common north of the 49th parallel. Chandelle was already anchored, so we came along side them, dropped our anchor on one side of the long skinny bay, then reversed backwards towards the cliff behind us on the other. Heather went out in the dinghy with our longest line (an old haylard, definitely not long enough) and tried to tow Karma’ stern towards the rocks. We ended up having to let out tons and tons of chain so that we could pull the boat closer to the cliff. It took a while this time but we have since gotten smoother at this.

Chandelle came over for some celebratory beers after everyone’s first stern tie and we then hit the sack in preparation for some Wallace Island exploring the following day. The island had a fun history of a summer camp being built and run there for a while by a couple who met on the island back in the day. It has a good network of hiking trails and its placement amongst the islands makes all the views spectacular. National Geographic’s small PNW cruise ship was anchored off the south end so we ran into a group of 30 or so older tourists all being corralled around by chaperones in their white socks and kitted out trousers which was an interesting contrast to how we had gotten to the same place.

Back onboard Karma we had our first jump in of the season! While still cold it was definitely refreshing and right as we were sun drying SV Tangent came along side and stern tied on the other side of us. This time it was Karma’s and Chandelle’s crew watching some masters at work as they have had a bit more practice at this. 3 boats together with friends on board? Pot-lock time.

We had decided to take Chandelle’s weather window and quasi buddy boat the following day at the crack of dawn to push further north. The wind for the following day was to be light but southerly, then it was to switch, possibly for the season, to the North-westerlies. Instead of taking a few days in Nanaimo we decided to go out Polier Pass and cross the Straight of Georgia with favourible winds and not have to motor against waves.

Untying and picking up anchor 20 minutes or so behind Chandelle we motored through the calm of the Islands as the sun came up through what could have been a lake it was so calm. We left so that we could hit Polier pass with just a tidge of current with us, but essentially at slack so we wouldn’t be rocked in some sorta rapids. The crossing was easy and all of a sudden we were in the wide open. We had 10 or so knots of wind on our starboard quarter, so up went the sails, off went the engine, and we were cruising along at 6 or so knots with following seas!

This was to be a big day, more than 50 miles total, our longest to date. The other fun thing about this was the open space! As compared to sailing in and among the islands, we had a bit of sea-state and we also could go 30 or so miles in a straight line. Our autopilot was doing a supreme job keeping up with the waves and we had the boat balanced just right. After confirming on the radio that Whisky Golf was active, we sailed almost due north on its eastern boarder about 120 degrees to the wind. We did have to make a few sail changes, at one point we had the spinnaker up as the wind started to lessen. Later on after a few hours we gybed to head into the Malaspina Straight, east of Texada, and essentially tried every sail combo to see what worked best down wind and landed with just the genoa out on one side. This kept us going for a while until we decided, being a few miles behind Chandelle, that we were going to take a pass and anchor in Secret Cove. As we spinnaker sailed through the pass though the wind filled back in so we just pushed all the way to Pender Harbour!

It was an amazing day which provided a small taste for what it might be like on longer, more opened passages. It also felt good to now be significantly more north than we had been before and everything from here forward would be entirely new. This is also Karma’s first time on mainland North America with us aboard! Fitting it’s BC’s Sunshine Coast as we sail chasing the sun. We spent just a day in Pender Harbour doing a big grocery run, sharing beers on Chandelle to celebrate an awesome day of sailing (see their post about the day here) and planning what to do next. I am writing this almost a month later and we are still working our way through these provisions!

Karma definitely feels better equipped this time around for long distances and we find ourselves not having to plan on when the next town we are going to hit is and this leg of the trip was really the beginning of where the feeling of ‘woa neilly, we really are cruising now’ began to set in.

Stay tuned as we cruise through Desolation Sound!