We checked into the Ham net early on Saturday (June 30) and told them our plans were to head for Bamfield, then we listened to the weather forecast. The winds were looking like SE building on Sunday through to at least Wednesday. Saturday’s forecast was for light variable winds with 10-15 knot westerlies in Juan de Fuca Strait. So we called the Ham net again and told them we were heading back to Victoria (or there abouts). We upped anchor by 09:15 and left in fog and light rain. After about an hour or so, the rain let up, the fog lifted and it turned into a pretty nice day. We pulled up the main and motored in light variable winds. We got about an extra ½ knot from the main so we made pretty good time. Over the first nine hours we averaged 5 ½ knots under power. We had decided when we left to do 3 hour watches. It worked out pretty well (better for Cathy, as I somehow managed to be off watch for all the meal preparation!). We saw a few harbour porpoise and had one Dahl porpoise swim with us for awhile at the entrance to the strait. No matter how many times it happens, Cathy and I are still excited to see porpoise or dolphin swimming and playing in our bow wave. Throughout the last two months, we have actually seen very few of these magnificent creatures, and no whales at all. We did have fun overnight watching all the shipping traffic in Juan de Fuca (we were NOT in the traffic lanes most of the night). We saw a whole lot of cruise ships, three from Seattle and three leaving Victoria. After I took the watch at 03:00 we had just got to the point where we had to cross the traffic lanes into Victoria. I called Victoria traffic and let them know who we were, where we were and where we were going. I ended having a few conversations with them over the next few hours as they advised us of deep sea traffic moving down Haro Strait and into Juan de Fuca. One of the conversations went more or less like this:
“Sailing Vessel Tarun, Victoria traffic”
“This is Tarun, go ahead Victoria traffic”
“Is it your intention to cut across the bow of the deep sea vessel “Aqua Blue?”
“Victoria traffic, does it look like I can?”
“Sailing vessel Tarun, I can not tell from here”
“Victoria traffic, I think it best if I alter course to starboard”
“Sailing vessel Tarun, thank you very much”
What had happened was I saw a vessel’s lights head on, red/green and the bow and stern white lights in a line a long way off. I thought, great, I will alter course to port and get across the traffic lanes, should be no issue. Well “Aqua Blue” was southbound in Haro strait and then westbound through Juan de Fuca and was starting his turn to starboard as I tried to cross the traffic lanes. As he was moving at 15 knots and would not have noticed it if they ran over a small fibreglass sailboat, I was quite happy to go a few miles out of our way. When all the traffic had cleared, Victoria Traffic contacted us one last time to say thank you for our cooperation (after the Aqua Blue incident they asked if would continue east until the next ship cleared). A nice gesture on their part.
Once we rounded Discovery Island, we hit the current and our progress slowed to 3-4 knots, no worries, it was a beautiful sunrise and we knew where we were. A couple of miles from Tsehum harbour, we saw a 35 ft power boat stopped in the water. I got out the binoculars as it was a odd place to stop. Looking back at me through binoculars was the other skipper. As soon as he saw me looking, he stood up and started waving his arms (international distress). We altered course and headed over. It turned out that he had run out of fuel in his main tank and he couldn’t get the boat started off the fuel in his auxiliary tank. He asked if we would tow him to Van Isle marina’s fuel dock. OK, “what’s your displacement?”. “6 tons” was the response. So we tossed him a line and motored against the current with a 6 ton dinghy in tow. He had his 13 year daughter and a bunch of her friends on board and all we could hear was giggling and laughter. Well, 2 hours later (remember we were only 2 miles out!) we got him to the fuel dock. I mean why not, it’s July 1st, we had been up at that point 26 hours and we had the pleasure of everyone seeing a sailboat towing a motor launch into a VERY busy marina. We dropped the hook, slept, went to shore briefly and collected our bicycles from Van Isles bike rack and went into town for some fresh food. After a 12 hour slept that night, we actually felt human again. The next few weeks will be filled with family stuff and preparations for the trip to San Francisco so I will end this portion of the blog here.
I hope everyone has enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it
Fair Winds
Brian and Cathy, S/V Tarun
