This showed up beside the sidewalk at Camel Point - near Ogden Point. It brings up a whole host of feelings for me. I recall reading about it in the local paper; they have been tearing up the roads in James Bay for a year now, upgrading the stormwater infrastructure, and a crew found her remains.


This is where they found her, under all that asphalt:


And she wasn't the first:




Without a doubt the city was built up over an area where the local First Nations inhabitants used to bury their dead; the location was lost and forgotten and the apartments and houses, concrete and asphalt were laid above. It's anyone's guess how many others are resting under this area.

One one hand they're just bones, not people, but it's still saddening to imagine those unknown remains lying there, cars and pedestrians passing unaware overhead, every day. I wouldn't want my family buried in such a location, but what do you do? it's an inevitable accident of colonial history.
I'm not trying to disguise or apologise for Canada's colonial past, but there's an argument to be made - if you are going to condemn that past, the logical conclusion is that you have to condemn Canada's contemporary existence. Would the world be better off Canada did not exist?

I've finally completed updating and improving my Discovery Adventure Sailing website. There's been a few tweaks and I've added another program, but most importantly it can now be found by google! This debacle is a classic case of a little knowledge being a bad thing. I created the website myself, with little idea how google works or the deeper, technical aspects of web design. In my ignorance, I created all the text for the website in graphics mode, rather than HTML. It looked nice, but the problem is google bots can't crawl a graphic, and therefore the website wouldn't show up under a search. Even if you googled the exact name of the site you wouldn't come up with anything!

I've had this site up since November, and it's been a complete bust. It's like it hasn't even been there. I did wonder why the traffic stats were so low, and that the only referrer was this blog, and not google. it was that anomaly that started me digging to find out what was going on. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me earlier to try googling the site, but I'm relieved that I found the problem long before the season really gets going.

Since I was redoing everything anyway, I also optimized all the images so it should download much faster.
I suppose I could have just paid a web designer 100 bucks to make one for me, but that flies in the face of my self-sufficiency ethos.


And speaking of self-sufficiency, I've come to understand that as a value system it needs a closer examination than I've given it before.  But I'll leave that for the next post.

Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

Tumultuous day today, weather-wise. I was planning on going sailing but it's snowing! I went for a walk to Ogden point with the dog today and was very surprised to find it blowing from the northwest, which is very unusual, especially this time of year. There was a very ugly storm cloud coming, with dark streaks down to the Juan de Fuca Strait. The wind was cold. Eventually it got quite dark and it started snowing and hailing. Being out there on the water would have been quite uncomfortable as I need to have a look at the Dickenson furnace and tighten up the flame detector before it will stay lit. Maybe tomorrow.

Feeling quite bushed these days as I've been burning the candle at both ends. I was in Vancouver Thursday and Friday and then had a weekend long RESULTS conference. I'm afraid I kinda let the organiser down as I committed to be there as tech support and then subsequently forgot. In my defense I didn't hear from her about it. I knew the conference was going Sat morning but the damned dog woke me up at 6 and I was feeling very worn out, never mind sleep deprived, so I decided to catch a few extra zzz.
Of course the almost-new digital video projector packed it in during a power point and the phone started ringing.

The rest is history. It was a fantastic conference. We even had Raffi as a keynote speaker. Yes, that's the Raffi of Baby Beluga fame. he is no longer making children's music but instead advocating for children's rights at his centre on Saltspring Island. What a kind, open, beautiful man. it was a real privilege to meet him.

The focus of the conference was serious -how to end poverty and human suffering around the world. RESULTS has had an admirable record in this regard and I'm humbled to be a small part of it. And yet this sombre focus, the warmth and joy was palpable. Many of those present have spent a great deal of their lives trying to make the world a better place, and you could feel their love and compassion.
On the last day, many people had tears in their eyes when they talked about certain situations, and how they had been moved by a presentation. It was so wonderful to see that even though a situation is important and takes objective, rational planning, we don't have to park our hearts and emotions at the door.
This is important as I believe it is our warmth and humanity that will bring about global change, not our intellects.


Raffi at our RESULTS Northwest Conference


As an aside, I want to apologise to Keith Fountain for a few comments I made during my stint on the Hill in Ottawa at the national conference in November.

This is what I said: ...the morning started with a meeting at CIDAand the government's policy adviser Keith Fountain. Although the guywas as much a politician as one could get and was hard coreconservative, we pretty much got everything we asked for...

I learned over the weekend that apparently his staff did a 'net search and found my blog. and this comment. Which subsequently made the rounds and came back to the RESULTS organisers. He was a good sport and laughed it off, but it is a reminder to me (yet again) that this is a public forum and that politicians are always scanning all kinds of media to see what people are saying about them.

Anyway, I hear he has moved on, but I sincerely hope I didn't cause any offense.


On a lighter note, several American RESULTS members professed admiration for Canada, and so were made "Honorary Canadians".
In the spirit of that, I've created an Honorary Canadian facebook group for those who believe that Canada provides a worthy example to the world. Feel free to join it and pass it along.

Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

it is a great relief that all were recovered alive after the sinking of the Concordia. But as this article shows, the teeth gnashing and hand wringing is about to begin.
I'm of two minds regarding this. Marine technology advances slowly and every bit of data we can accumulate helps this progression. Vessel design appears to be an inexact science, and even now ships are being built where the final performance is unknown. We in BC have had a long run of building or purchasing ferries that looked good on paper and in engineers heads, but failed to perform as hoped.
Unlike other forms of engineering and design, the behavoiur of man-made objects in the dynamic marine environment remains art as well as science.
This is not surprising; there are an incredible number of variables involved, both in the vessel itself and the sea. The fact that these have not been fully quantified means that it's anyone's guess what will be the real-world result of such and such vessel in such and such conditions. And as one of the commentors on the above article points out, what is measured on a new boat tied to a dock can be vastly different from a used boat heavily laden with stores, water, fuel, crew, and sails drawing in a blow. Maybe it will be impossible to ever know all the details that effect the stability of a vessel.

But my doubt emerges with what may be unspoken assumptions, which are that this shouldn't have happened and that this journey should have been ensured to be safe. Neither of which may be correct.
The simple fact is that going to sea is and will always be dangerous. There is a risk involved in sailing and too many seem to forget that. Going to sea - especially offshore - is not a trip to disneyland. All around the world people die every day in marine mishaps, and when parents send their kids to sea that need to realise this risk. Unfortunately, this fact is downplayed by the sailing schools because they don't want to deter potential customers. I'm no expert on the industry, but it is presented almost like an Outward Bound experience, where kids get to challenge themselves while the adults around them keep them safe. And that's simply not the case.
We can struggle all we like with certification and testing but sailing will always be dangerous, and for me that's part of the appeal. It is crucial that you follow safety protocols and learn to be the best mariner you can, which will hopefully eliminate the really stupid kinds of mistakes, but human error will always be a factor and equipment can and will fail when you need it most. It's that unpredictability that makes sailing an adventure.
There is a tendency for people to think that accidents and tragedies simply shouldn't happen, but the fact is they can and will and everyone needs to have their eyes open to the risk before they cast off.

Back aboard again and it's wonderful. And it's going to take some time to get used to the small space again after the mansion on the water, especially the V-berth. There was a lot of fussing and kicking last night as we came to terms with the fact that we have very little room, especially when compared to that massive king-sized bed. But getting up this morning to the sun on the water, to living back on the water, to the view of the harbour and the smell of the creosote was fantastic.
I was very surprised to feel regret at leaving that house, though. Very quickly the hottub, big screen TV, sauna etc lost their novelty, but the huge bed and waking up in the morning looking out over Haro Strait was lovely, and the one touch espresso maker was a delight. The massive kitchen and dishwasher was also a bonus. Being able to just open a door to let the dog out  and the laundry downstairs really spoiled us.
But now we are back to the lifestyle where everything is a little harder, a little more awkward. Adapting is going gonna take some time.

There has been a big consequence for living away from downtown though-i swear I've gained several pounds. it didn't help all the goodies at xmas and new years, not to mention our big birthday bash a few weeks ago, but the real reason is that we were too far from the gym to regularly work out, and we couldn't walk everywhere like we used to. I was cycling and walking everywhere before, rarely ever leaving the downtown area, but for the last three months we hardly ever went anywhere where we didn't need a car. Which is of course one of the worst aspects of the suburbs.
It's gonna be an uphill slog to work of this weight.

Check out the local rum that the folks brought back from the British Virgin Isles. Apparently the distillery is the only one on the islands and is the size of a large outhouse. Mother's milk for a sailor!


Keep an eye on our website as I will be updating it soon.


Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

It’s been an amazing few weeks for me; a bit of a crisis that resolved itself (as they always seem to) Not sure where it came from but it certainly turned things upside down. I wouldn’t be surprised if my 49 birthday last week wasn’t the precipitating cause, but then who knows? What I do know is I spent the last two weeks examining a lot about my life – relationships, the meaning of love, purpose, goals, and being.

I feel like a lot has fallen away through the process: a lot of old ways of looking at things, a lot of old baggage. I even had a concrete metaphor of this –the other day i was undoing my belt buckle and something fell with a clatter into the toilet. For a horrified moment I thought it was my new ipod, but it turned out to be the pewter belt buckle I bought around 15 years ago. This is a pretty massive thing: a little silly and stereotypical wolf’s head with a guy riding a Harley and the caption “Born to be Free”. The casting was titled “Untamed Spirit”.

When I first saw this thing I was in the process of throwing off a lot of old and stale ideas, going through my very own mid-life crisis. I had spent decades living according to “shoulds” instead of needs, and suffered accordingly. As I was making several changes in my life I saw this buckle, and knew I had to have it.
It is very worn, the edges rubbed smooth on successive pairs of Levi’s. This was the second time the buckled had fallen off as the wire that holds it to the leather has worn right through the pewter casting. That buckle has been a badge of both honour and purpose for me for a long time, reflecting my core value of freedom.
It is falling off because I don’t need it anymore, and because I no longer have the same core values. As soon as possible I will respectfully consign it to the depths.

It’s hard to know what I will get as a replacement. A buddy has given me a new one that shows a crescent moon winking at the form of a nude woman. It’s quite the pretty thing, but so overtly sexist that I can’t see myself wearing it. Not really any different from those trucker’s mudflaps that I find so offensive.

The first thing I’ve noticed that has changed is my attachment to Tracy. I’ve never felt more deeply in love and devoted to her. The fence sitting that has been part of my craving for freedom is over. You would think after 31 years of knowing her that my mind had been made up, but in my defence, my relationship with her has been the longest that I’ve stuck to anything in my life, and there were many times I felt the urge to seek distant shores.
But now we’ve started on a new and deeper approach to intimacy in our relationship, which only goes to show that no matter how long you have loved someone, there are still deeper and more terrifying levels to go.

Somehow I’ve become aware that “freedom” is really an internal phenomenon, and that keeping distant from others is not the way to go. 

As well as surrendering an antiquated ideal of masculine independence, I’ve also surrendered a persistent fear of death. All my adult life I’ve been disturbed by the notion of the obliteration of self. It seemed to me that nothing could be worse and that life was in some ways a hideous joke, in that it must end in catastrophe for the same self that one spends a life trying to cultivate. It’s like dedicating your life to one fine, delicate blossom, knowing that in a few weeks frost will erase all evidence that it ever was.

But a new image of death came to me one day. It probably means nothing to others as my image came to me as an aspect of all that I have been –my beliefs, history, ways of thinking - but the image I get is that of a scaffolding holding together my ego, my consciousness. Upon my death the scaffolding will collapse and the ego will disperse. Whether I have a form of consciousness after that I have no idea but it doesn’t matter, as it’s only the ego that cares, and it will be dismantled.
I know my ego is not me. I have no concept or perception of what I truly am, but the question no longer disturbs me. I do know that all that I think and fear and love and doubt and believe is cultural, historical and biological, and so is contingent on time. When time ends for me, so does that scaffolding. I’m curious to imagine what if anything will be left.

I must say it is very freeing to dispense with the belief that what goes on in my consciousness is me. Frankly, most of that is just silly crap, and it won’t be a great loss when it’s all gone.

Tomorrow we move back to the boat. I’m very excited to see where my future takes me from here.

As a quick aside, I recently acquired an iphone and am posting this aboard a BC ferry in the middle of the Strait of Georgia. I found that it wouldn't cost anymore to do all my internet and phoning through this device than when we had an ip phone, roger's portable, and a cell, but would  actually simplify things a lot. I get 500 minutes of daytime calling, unlimited eves and weekends, unlimited text, voice mail and call waiting and call display, and 3 gigs of data. an iphone for $100.00 bucks.

I"m a little stunned. I had a big list of things to do and take care of, and one by one they just fell away. I went looking for that water leak and found at least one the first place I looked - right off the water pressure pump. Tightened that up and we'll see if there are any other leaks. Replacing the regulator on the BBQ was a bit of a pain as it seems that crappy tire has changed the size of the fittings for their replacement regulators, as this new one wouldn't fit. I had to drive all over town looking for a small length of threaded fitting to connect the regulator to the gas orifice. It was only after all this wasted time did I think to check and see if Dickinson sells replacement parts.
They do in fact, and I would have gone that route if I had thought of it. Most times I don't even think of using OEM parts, because OEM is short for grab your ankles. In this case it's only twice as much as the crappy tire part.

There were a few other things as well; i don't really remember as the last few days have been a blur. I'm now starting to think about preventative maintenance, which really frightens me; generally the list is a mile long without looking for trouble. But I don't think the steering cable has been replaced in many years (if ever) and that's a cheap repair that can save an enormous amount of grief. But notice I said cheap, not simple. That's gonna be a real headache, which is why I haven't done it yet.

The Dickinson furnace started acting up again but that can wait until the fall, i'm thinking. That unit is badly designed; the electrical connection to the flame detector (for the flameout safety shutoff) is a friction-fit clamp. the heat cold cycles loosen the damn thing and then the furnace won't stay lit. To tighten it back up you have to completely pull the unit apart to reach the clamp. Most safety shutoffs use a heat/pressure sensor and this is the first time I've seen an electrical one, and I'm not impressed.

Next week I'm heading outta town to do another floor. Sheldon and I are become experts at installing real hardwood flooring on cement - what you will typically find in a condo. In the past, people have generally gone with floating laminate floors, but the difference between real hardwood and plastic is striking. This new SIka Accoubond system is a fantastic solution, and it provides good sound insulation between floors, which is also often required in a condo.

One of the difficulties I have in doing this blog – and in any other kind of public discourse – is that any kind of assertion or declarative statement is dependent on faith, my faith that was I’m saying is true. This kind of faith is quite rare in me, believe it or not.

Increasingly my blog is becoming focused on my own experience, rather than opinions. One reason is that if there is one resource the world is not short on, it’s opinions. Debate may be a good thing, but the cacophony of voices out there are so many, diffuse, and antagonistic, it is like one loud, continuous, unintelligible roar. The absence of my own would be no bad thing.

The other is that I’ve spent much of my life with my eyes and ears open, and I’ve come to understand that truth is much more approach and perspective than anything objective. So getting a real handle on anything is like wrestling a greased pig blindfolded. The longer I spend on this planet, the more I realise I don’t know squat, and neither does anyone else. In fact, the stronger I feel about something, the more suspicious I am of my own words.

Asserting anything is a real act of hubris, because it assumes you really know something, when all evidence suggest otherwise. It is very, very rare when I hear an assertion that I couldn’t reasonably follow with, “Perhaps, but what about…”
Even so-called objective truths, the falsifiable facts that science provides us with are very subjective in that they are limited by history and language. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we can only describe things in terms of pre-existing ones.

What can become troubling is even our own subjective states are very subjective. How we know ourselves is contingent on culture, language and history. How I describe my inner world might be very different if I was an Atheist or a Muslim.

Just recently my perspective on relationships has taken a major upheaval. I’ve spent a lot of time in counselling and doing counselling, and part of my worldview involves the notion of “codependency” that was so popular in the 90’s. The idea that closeness is good, too close is bad. Recently I’ve started Reading Sue Johnsons’ book Hold Me Tight. In this book she examines relationships from an attachment perspective, and unlike that earlier paradigm, she has reams of science behind her to back up her assertions.
I’ve been fascinated by attachment theory for many years, and focused on it while getting my art therapy degree. Everything she talks about makes sense from the perspective of attachment theory, what we know of primate bonding, human development, and my own intuitive experience.

Suddenly, a perspective that I have believed in and followed for many years, an approach that guided my own intimate relationships, is shown to be not only incorrect, but potentially destructive as well. I highly recommend her book.

The irony is of course that her theories will only stand until a better one comes along. It’s not that she’s “got it”, but that in all probability she is less incorrect than the previous model. Even the very manner in which we love each other is subject to changing times and ideas.
 
Now that’s not to say that you must therefore give equal credence to all possibilities; I am a very critical viewer and not easily persuaded. However, given adequate evidence, I love to have my worldview shaken up. There is nothing quite so wonderful as a new way to look at the old, to be given new eyes as it were.
But every time I write something down here, there are is a voice that says “Yes, but…”

A few images from Sunday's sail.

Just raised the main...




Passing close to Trial island late in the day




Nothing like a toasted bagel and borscht to warm the insides.



Enjoying light winds and a late afternoon sun.




And what a sunset we were gifted with!

I've been waiting to update this blog because I have some lovely pictures taken while sailing with a client on Sunday. The problem is this camera needs a special USB cable, and I keep ending up with either the cable or the camera, but not both. It's an ongoing headache living between two addresses; I just drove from Gorden head to the boat to finish up this BBQ repair (the regulator needs replacing) and realised I neglected to bring a small fitting that I left in the pocket of my other pants.

It was a gorgeous 5-hour sail out to discover Island and back. The winds and tide cooperated at last, and we hit over 7 knots going through enterprise channel. We timed it right to catch the ebb on the return leg and watched the sun go down as we beat towards harbour. A little cool at the end of the day, but spectacularly beautiful on the water.

Things are getting a little crazy here; I just discovered that a propane tank fitting is leaking (the line to the BBQ, which is supposed to be self-sealing), and my propane tank is now empty. I just filled it last week!
It also seems that I have a water leak somewhere as 75 gallons of water has mysteriously disappeared. I'm hoping it's something obvious or else the cabin sole will have to come up (again!!!!).

My spinnaker snuffer is jamming and needs to be looked at as well. It's so good to be back on the boat!

I'm updating my business website. I still hope to focus mostly on the adventure based counselling -the Outward Bound - stuff, but I suspect that my bread and butter will be sail training. The thing is, I believe we can offer a unique experience in that as well, especially in working with women and older folks. I've heard many, many stories of sailing students being barked at by macho skippers, and otherwise being abused, and there will be none of that on my vessel. Even when I took sailing lessons, the skipper yelled at me for making a mistake. And I'm paying for this? Many people already find the experience really challenging to begin with and they sure don't need some lunkhead berated them.

The client I worked with on Sunday was a little anxious, and it was obvious that a hard-nosed or abrupt approach would not be appropriate at all. Support, encouragement, talking a lot and letting the client set their own pace and their own goals is a much more appropriate way to help people learn. You don't need to yell or criticise to have authority, and I would suggest the opposite is actually true.

One picture I did get, but it was taken by my client, not me, so all you get is a mug shot




Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

I checked the Kelp Reef buoy and as it turns out it didn't get quite as bad as they predicted - 33 knots that night. Oddly, it did hit 38 knots at the southern end of the Strait. Still, riding on the hook in those kinds of winds is never fun. We did it last fall off Comox spit, and my companion vessel dragged anchor, leading to one very exciting early morning rise.

The thing is, you never know what you avoided unless you don't avoid it, and then the only comfort you have after the dust clears is the knowledge that your first guess - to tuck tail and run - was the correct one.

I'm sitting on the bed right now looking down on Haro Strait at Zero Rock. I passed right by there a couple of days ago. It's blowing almost 30 right now, a few knots higher than when I came through. What a complete and total difference a mile makes. In think it took me about 3-4 hours from here to make it to harbour, and it took me about 30 minutes to drive back. Here I'm warm and safe and enjoying the view, then I was at risk of hurling. The ride was bumpy, intense and the boat needed constant attention. Now I can just go to sleep. Here my mind can wander and I can lose myself in TV or the internet, there I was fully engaged in what I was doing, fully engaged in life! There was (mild)adventure and here in this bedroom, being married, not so much.

As I was whacking through the surf, at first felt somewhat peeved at having to motor home. I then realised that I often feel robbed somehow when the wind is from the wrong quarter or non existent. After all,it's a SAILBOAT, right? But then it occurred to me that my thinking might be totally wrong.
I like most sailors, have a disdain for power vessels, dismissing themas stinkpots. Looking more closely at it, I think at least part of the prejudice comes from the wealth of foolish men out there that can so often be found at the wheel of said craft. I've personally only had to shake my fist at one sailor in all my years on the water, but until thecost of fuel went through the roof, it was almost a daily occurrence when cruising.
The other part of it is of course that sailors love sailing, and motoring is just boating, which is also something different. Yet it isn't so bad; our auxiliaries allow us to get to places we otherwise couldn't go, and they sometimes even save our keesters. I've at times felt that motoring was almost cheating, or taking a short cut. The easy way. The funny thing tho, I don't feel that about propane heat, GPS,VHF radios, or any of the other dozens of modern conveniences aboard that make sailing safer, more fun, and easier. Maybe I should throwaway my lazy jacks and roller furling and windlass and head and water pump while I'm at it.
My engine sips fuel so it's easy on the environment. It allows me much greater choice. And most of all, it gets me on the water despite what the weather might be doing, and that's very important to me.
I suppose purists who do sail without an engine feel that there is something gained by it. I can understand that, I think. But what it would require would be an almost complete disassociation from land-based intercourse, because as we are all aware, when ashore, time is king.
I dream of a life when there are no reasons to go except a simple desire to, and if the wind does not co-operate, you simply wait until it does. But my current life does not permit such flexibility, and  Isuspect that's the case for most people.
I also suspect that going sans motor is far more reasonable for bluewater cruisers, who use the much more consistent offshore winds. As most of us know, the south coast is a maze of islands and reefs and headlands, and as demonstrated earlier, winds can vary an enormous amount even in the same body of water. We have salt water rivers meandering through archipelagos, with crazy currents in many places. I have deep respect for those who originally charted these waters in sailcraft, but it shouldn't be forgotten that a great deal of the actual surveying was  done in small, rowed vessels, and a rowed vessel is simply a power boat with a person(s) as the motor.

At any rate, I felt grateful for my little 30hp tractor diesel, and I'm going to make a concerted effort in the future to remember that any day on the water -even a motoring day -is a good one.


Here's an interesting website of the City of Adelaide, sister ship to the Cutty Sark . I find it amazing that this is considered a project of preservation rather than restoration.  Look at the picture of it...


Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

That was quick. Quick and intense.
Yesterday's sail was a nice 15 knot downwind run to Sidney Spit. I was even able to fly the spinnaker. The first leg along Juan de Fuca Strait required me to motorsail as winds were pretty light and I had  26 miles to make up by dark, and I left at noon. But once I cleared Banes channel the wind veered to the southeast and I was able to sail the whole way.
Unfortunately, I was having problems with the storm jib jamming. When I first left Vic i had no problems, but after stowing it so I could run the spinnaker, when I went to pull the jib out again (winds became too strong for the chute), it would only come out half way.
I was very fortunate that I got 99% of it furled again before it jammed in the other direction.

The mast head is a long way from deck and it was getting late, but I could see what the trouble was - I had a halyard wrap across the top of the foil. Because the luff of the storm jib is a couple of feet shorter than the genoa, the halyard extends down parallel with the headstay and foil. Not good. The halyard is supposed to intersect with the furling head unit at an acute angle so this can't happen. There is a lot of friction inside the head unit cause by luff tension, and the tendency is for the halyard to wrap around the foil rather than allow the swivel to work. It actually has positive feedback to do this, because as the halyard starts to wrap, it's effective length shortens and so it pulls upwards on the head of the sail, increasing friction inside the swivel. Eventually it jams because swivel fiction is too high.

In order to fix this I need to unfurl the sail and raise the tack at least a couple of feet.

Anyway, I arrived at SIdney Spit late in the afternoon. The wind was still blowing pretty good but miracles of miracles, there were a slew of mooring buoys to choose from! In the three years we have owned Fainleog, I've never been able to grab one of these. I'm a start late and arrive late kinda guy. The mooring ring was very corroded and I didn't like the thought of my mooring line rubbing against that rough surface all night, so I unshackled my anchor chain and used that instead. It was nice to know that I was as as secure as if tied to the dock, but man, that chain made a lot of racket last night. A sailboat is like a drum when anything bumps or rattles on the surface.
I've had a woman friend stay aboard for the last week and the place really smelt like perfume. Normally I'm not too keen on the stuff and Tracy never wears it, but in this case I found it quite compelling. It really "feminised" the place.

I was also quite surprised to see another sailboat moored in there. In fact, I saw a few out even though the weather was miserable. Sailors really are a breed apart.

It felt so very, very good to be in my boat again, bobbing with the waves and listen to the moaning of the wind. It was very hard to get out of the V-berth this morning as it was just so comfortable and cozy.

My plan was to head further north but the weather had other ideas. I agonised over the decision, but eventually decided to cut and run back home. You see, they had increased the forecast to a possible 40 knots SE-E, and nobody wants to be in such an exposed anchorage in that kind of blow, mooring buoy or not. I wasn't afraid of dragging but that would have been very uncomfortable with my ass hanging out like that. I was planning perhaps 3 days - Montegue and Ganges. I thought of making a run for Montegue but my headsail needed fixing and the wind would be against tide and they were calling for 25 knots. And only an idiot or a desperate man would try docking in Ganges with that kind of forecast. Very often winds are even stronger in there than outside the harbour! Montegue would possibly have worked, but they are calling for strong S or SE winds until Monday, and nobody likes banging upwind for that length of time it would take to get from Montegue or Ganges to Oak Bay.

I checked other anchorages and most in the southern Gulf Islands are open to the E and S.

It seemed that the prudent choice was to stay put or head back. Staying put would have been a rodeo and head further north would have put me into a hole until next week, so turn about seemed the correct option.

In a way I'm not disappointed. I enjoy it when things don't go as planned because it forces me to think on the hope and decide the best course of action. There were many things I could do, but which is the safest and most prudent, given all the above factors. If even one of those important details had changed -sail condition, wind strength, wind direction, anchorages, I would have made a different choice.

As I expected, the sail back (motoring of course) was a real rodeo. And for the first time I was forced to take a Gravol. It might have been because it's been 6 months since I've spent significant time in those conditions, or I might be coming down with something. Either way all the bouncing and rolling had me feeling a little green so i took the pill  just in case. I figure it was about as bad as it got on our trip to Cape Scott and back last fall.

The funny thing though is that once I came round Cadboro point, the wind died completely  and the water was very smooth. Coming out of Enterprise Channel, I found the wind had veered 180 degrees and was now coming from the North! It's hard to believe that wind could be blowing 2o-25 knots SE up Haro Strait and yet be blowing 4 knots N in Juan de Fuca.  The wind around here is amazing.

You know, I've been mocked before about these little cruises I go on, and yet to me they are invaluable experience for offshore sailing. It doesn't matter that the CG is right there on the radio, or I'm only a few miles from land. The point is that when I'm out there, I have to deal with whatever comes up on my own. It's all there - wind and waves, options to consider and choices that must be made, equipment that must be fixed, hazards to avoid. The big difference that I can see is that if you make a mistake offshore, there's nobody around to pull your chestnuts out of the fire. But even here, you still need to make choices that prevent you needing someone to pull your chestnuts out of the fire!

Come sail with us. www.selfdiscoverysail.com

Well, the tide's foul, the wind's foul and the weather is miserable, but I'm going sailing. It seems like you can wait for ever for the stars to align themselves and I need to go. Life ashore is always so complex and busy and the most important things always seem to get pushed aside.
heading to the Gulf Islands. Catch you all on the flip side.