2010 September Sail Cruise...

The 2010 September Cruise has been moved to:
http://fosterfanningaquila.blogspot.com/p/herman-melville-once-said-lifes-voyage.html
and is now a part of the new FOSTER'S SAILING BLOG. Please check it out...

Installment #7: Jedediah Island Marine Provincial Park

One of my favorite locations in the Strait of Georgia is Jedediah Island Marine Provincial Park located between Lasqueti and Texada islands. It is the largest and most diverse of a chain of more than 30 islands and rocky islets northwest of Lasqueti. Jedediah is home to a forest ecosystem with a variety of tree species, including Douglas fir, hemlock, cedar and arbutus. The vegetation grows throughout meadows, lowlands and rocky outcrops. Evidence human settlements are a homestead including the main house, shed and barn are located at Home Bay. Built around 1905 by the Foote Family, a reminder of a way of life once common along the BC Coast. A second house built in the 1980’s (pre park) still stands in Long Bay. A rich marine environment encircles Jedediah Island, which offers five secluded bays for safe harbour. But mariner beware, each of these bays have their weaknesses. A more detailed island map follows below.

In this photograph by Catherine Brown, the sailing vessel AQUILA finds not only safe haven but a secluded anchorage in Deep Bay with no other boats on this 2nd to last summer evening for 2009. While I have visited Jedediah numerous times this was the first trip for Catherine and the sailing vessel AQUILA.

Jedediah Island is part of a mild climate area centered in the southern Strait of Georgia and encompasses most of the Gulf Islands. This weather zone is influenced by the rainshadow effect of the Vancouver Island mountain ranges. In the summer, periods of drought and high temperatures are common, often lasting up to several weeks. Winters are typically rainy and mild receiving little or no snow.

Ever the beach comber and intrepid tide pool explorer Catherine, seen here perched on the portside gunnel of the dinghy, is delighted at her find in the Deep Bay anchorage off Jedediah…

A species of small fish that will eat right out of her hand…

These 'fry' who normally feed on shrimp larvae and other protozoa are the backbone of the food chain reaching up to the pollock, cod, herring, halibut and of course the salmon.

And speaking of species; when we look ashore the main mammal species occurring on Jedediah Island include black-tailed deer, raccoons, mink, river otter, mice, shrew, and voles. “Black-tailed deer,” as stated in the B.C. Ministry of Environment guide, “due to the absence of predators or hunting, may become numerous enough to have an adverse impact on the island's vegetation.” Hmm… Me thinks the 50+ sheep and 20 or so feral goats may have cornered that market. Again according to B.C. Ministry of Environment guide “The goats may be a unique breed. Former resident Al Palmer believes the goats were dropped off by the Spaniards during very early periods of exploration. Other Gulf Islands such as Saltspring, Galiano and Saturna have goat populations which were introduced as early as 1890.”
An Ochre Sea Star being attacked by a Sun Star, these competing echinoderms are typical of the starfish or sea stars found in the Pacific NW.

Here is a cool link to everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Phylum Echinodermata
Sea Stars, Brittle Stars, Sea Cucumbers, Sea Urchins, Sand Dollars, and Feather Stars: http://www.northwestwildlifeonline.com/Echinoderms.htm

On the last day of summer other vessels began arriving in Deep Bay of Jedediah and an anchoring fiasco started to develop. As much fun as it might have been to stay and watch the pecking order establish itself we exercised our prerogative as first boat and a properly anchored boat at that and continued with our plans for the day which were to circumnavigate Jedediah in our WM Zodiac dinghy. In terms of boats, our motor dinghy is a get-up-&-go vessel compared to her mother ship. The 8hp Merc outboard will ‘plane’ the dinghy with both Catherine and I aboard. So where AQUILA has a top motoring hull speed of 6mph, EAGLET (the dinghy) will do 15 mph. Although that burst of extra speed doesn’t come into play in this chapter it was a good time to record such data. In this photo by Catherine yours truly pilots EAGLET on the beginning of our day trip. We took our time traveling around the island. Sabine Channel had two foot, white capped wind waves running the length of it’s long fetch and we enjoyed reaching the point to shelter inside a shoulder of the island and visit with the seals.
“Yes Virginia, there is a Mother Goose Island…” And it’s located adjacent to Jedediah. Although I can’t tell you why the island is thus named (maybe one of the FIREWATER blog readers can). It’s rocky outcropped shoreline is part of the protection forming Home Bay (double click the image to see a larger version). This is a good point to offer a bit of history regarding Jedediah Island. This island is within the traditional territory of the Sliammon First Nation. The Sliammon people are part of the northern Coast Salish cultural group, and part of the Salishan linguistic group. Over the course of time and settlement Jedediah Island came to be privately owned. How it transferred from private landholding to a Provincial Marine Park follows: Albert and Mary Palmer farmed the island up to their decision in 1994 to sell. They offered it to the Province at a price well below market value in hope that the BC Government would purchase the property and designate the island a provincial park. While the government acknowledged an interest in Jedediah, they were unable to fund the entire 4.2 million dollar purchase. The Friends of Jedediah, an organization of citizens from Lasqueti Island, learned of the sale and became committed to seeing Jedediah protected as a provincial park. During the summer of 1994, they campaigned to lobby the provincial government and solicit private and corporate donations to purchase the island. A $1.1 million dollar donation came from the estate of Dan Culver, a BC resident who had died in 1993 while descending K2, the world's second highest mountain. Mr. Culver was the only Canadian in history to reach the summits of both Everest and K2. He had dedicated his climbs to the preservation of wilderness and in his will, had bequeathed that a portion of his estate be used to set aside an ecologically valuable coastal property in a protected and undeveloped state for the people of British Columbia. There is a plaque near the Home Bay homestead honoring Mr. Culver. Jedediah Island was officially established as a Class A Provincial Park in March of 1995.

A photograph of the homestead on the northern shore of Home Bay, Jedediah Island.

Little Bull Passage, between Bull Island & Jedediah Island is a rugged, seascape of tidal waters and steep cliffs. We timed our exploration to be against these south facing rocks during the height of the sun on the last day of summer 2009. Our reward was a warm sunny afternoon. As the tide was an incoming flood we killed the motor of the zodiac and gripping the rough rock surface of the cliffs we sort of pulled ourselves along scoping out the interface of marine life and drying rock.

In this image we see a islet in Little Bull Passage covered in mussels. The orange billed birds working this feeding field are Oystercatchers, their long orange or red bills are used to smash or pry open limpets, mussels, gastropos and other molluscs.

Here is the newer of the abandoned structures on the island. This one located in Long Bay which is a very shallow body of water on the inside or western shore of Jedediah.

While Catherine went off to photograph the wild goats of the island I remained in the dinghy enjoying a quiet and still moment in this wonderful marine park. She snapped this picture of me drifting carefree in the shallows of Long Bay.

I'll close this 7th segment of the AQUILA 2009 Cruise with this interesting look at the dynamics of anchoring in a small, deep bay. To give the attached photo collage context I'll mention one point I didn't note in the text embedded on the collage. When I sat in the dinghy and spoke with the 2nd to arrive vessel, who decided to anchor contrary of the customary cross bay pattern, he told me that he'd seen conditions where the northwesterly winds would blow into this anchorage and force the boats anchored like AQUILA into the rock walls. Thus he said he anchored facing out of the bay, to take the potential wind and waves on his bow. A little later as he was on that bow talking anchoring with the third boat to arrive I asked his wife if they had heard the weather. "Oh yes," she replied, "mild norwesterlie winds shifting to southerly tonight."

Hmm... I thought, so much for potential wind and waves...

Jedediah Island Marine Provincial Park: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/jedediah_is/

Welcome to the Sliammon First Nation: http://www.sliammonfirstnation.com/

Dan Culver Follow Your Dream Foundation: http://www.followyourdreams.ca/

And for all my sea kayaking friends: http://www.bcseakayak.com/jedediah-tour.html

The Joy of Sailing, Life & Love…

Let’s start this 4th installment of our sailboat cruise story with a birthday cake. Admittedly not everyone thinks of birthday cakes when we speak of traveling under sail. But if the ninth month of the year is upon us the crew of AQUILA certainly gives thought to birthdays. Mine is early in September, Catherine’s a bit later and Clementine’s is near the mid-month mark. So we start this phase of our story off with an image of a birthday cake. Not just any birthday cake but one created in celebration of the passing someone’s first 17 years. You’re absolutely right – it wasn’t made for me!

Okay, we’ll use this special cake as our compass and take the topics as presented thereon; Sailing, Life & Love…
Sailing in our case, after leaving Patos Island, took the crew of AQUILA down the western shore of Orcas Island and back to Spencer Spit (see map) for a rendezvous with our good friend Richard Emery on his custom 30’ motorsailer CHAK CHAK. In the second image we have our two vessels rafted together while mooring off a state park mooring buoy. Our arrival at Spencer Spit marked a somewhat unplanned, counter-clock-wise circumnavigation of Orcas Island, the biggest ‘rock’ in the San Juan archipelago.

Our joining with CHAK CHAK marked the phase of our cruise I’ll call “Messing About” (see 'yellow' area on the map). Over the course of the next few days West Sound of Orcas Island was our home-base. As chance would have it we managed a rendezvous not only with Richard on CHAK CHAK, but our friends Janet & Jay Berube of the sailing vessel BLUE HERON. As well as another path crossing with Marjean on GRACE, and a surprise reunion with Slavek & Alicja on their Baba. That first night on the West Sound Marina dock our flotilla numbered five cruising sailboats. Jay & Janet are fellow members of Rickey Point Sail Club on Lake Roosevelt who were near wrapping up a six week cruise throughout the southern reaches of the Inside Passage. While we didn’t get a good picture of them under sail this year I’ll use a stock photo I took of BLUE HERON, a Kent Ranger 26, a couple of years ago as image #4.

In the next photo we see Alicja & Slavek approaching the fuel docks of West Sound Marina as a commercial seaplane taxies from the dock in preparation of take-off. Betwixt tides, shallows, seaplanes, other boats, kelp-beds, ferries, dinghies, crabpot floats, and whales, a skipper has a lot of moving parts to keep track of when navigating the islands.

Image #6 AQUILA dock-side and a gathering of sailors. Catherine had coordinated with our firefighting friends, Max & Jeff to stage a surprise birthday party for Clementine at their new East Sound home. As it worked out the day of our flotilla gathering coincided with the party and soon our island friends found their backyard filled with a salty (a few of us were approaching crusty) mix of sailors and firefighters. In the local jargon, “It was Skookum!”
There is a saying in reference to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. It also aptly characterizes the goals of visualization where large amounts of data must be absorbed quickly; “A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS”. And in this case I have merged several photographs into one frame to tell the fun story of that special night in the backyard of Max & Jeff Jones…
But there are two photo images of that same event I will post separately and with little notation. This absolutely fun image of the birthday girl and Max…

And this one of mother & daughter. And thus we have all the elements of the birthday cake; “The Joy of SAILING, LIFE & LOVE…”

As the late, great George Harrison told us, “All things must pass” and so did our shore-side birthday party. The next day found our impromptu flotilla hoisting sail and heading off to varying points of the compass. In photograph #10 Catherine has captured an image of AQUILA hoisting her new spinnaker and ghosting along in very light air. In image #11, Marjean readies the sailing vessel GRACE for a run back to Bellingham.

In picture #12 Slavek & Alicja have the sails up and their beautiful vessel catching the breeze on a sun filled September morning as Catherine & I bid them farewell once again. Jay & Janet pointed their bow eastwards and toward the end of their very fine journey. It was great to cross wakes with them. Richard’s plan was to cruise CHAK CHAK with us for a week or so, into the Gulf Islands of southern British Columbia.

Often we have non-sailing friends ask us, “So what do you do all day long when your out on the boat?” Well along with the above we also row about exploring different bays, coves, anchorages and the like.

We visit different ports of call, like our excursion for homemade ice cream at Deer Harbor Marina (and what a nice looking crew AQUILA has been gifted with).

We visit with friends, take the time to have in-depth conversations, and often make new friends along the way.

And some evenings we play music. But rarely, hardly never are we bored...

That ends the "Messing About" phase of our cruise. In the next part of our adventure CHAK CHAK & AQUILA head north to clear Canadian Customs and the big question is, "What are we going to do with all this booze?"

Hope you join us then...

Foster

Here are some links to the places visited in this portion of the journey;

West Sound Marina: http://www.boattravel.com/westsound/

Deer Harbor Marina: http://www.deerharbor.org/category.php?category=03

“It Takes A Lot Of Work To Have This Much Fun!”

As promised to a number of sail cruising friends and family here as a brief account of the 2009 September cruise of the sailing vessel AQUILA, our Allied Yachts, S-2, 30 foot center cockpit sailboat. This year’s journey was through the San Juan & Gulf Islands of the Pacific Northwest. A fantastic archipelago located in the southern reaches of the Inside Passage. More on the area in just a moment. Our cruising platform, the S/V AQUILA was in prime fitness having just undergone somewhat extensive repairs following last years trailer accident where the hitch failed allowing boat, trailer and intrepid sailor (and partner) Catherine, an uncontrolled plunge into Lake Roosevelt. Fortunately Catherine was unscathed, AQUILA was not. While I’ll start this posting with a in-the-boat-yard image of the boat the follow up with be the composite image of AQUILA before and immediately post accident.

The comopsite photo is from October 2008 after the recovery/trailer accident:

I chose to have the repair work contracted at North Harbor Diesel in Anacortes, http://www.northharbordiesel.com/ and for the most part they did a fine job. There were some details like a backing plate left off our anchor rigging and a sheave neglected to being fitted to the rudder shank they later fixed; but all in all I was pleased with their work.
My September '09 arrival in the shore side town named after Anna Curtis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacortes,_Washington happened on the first day of the ninth month and throughout the next four consecutive days I worked on, purchased for, loaded, stowed, prepped, rigged, and cleaned the boat. The 3rd image is of AQUILA being hauled down one the marine access streets of Anacortes for launching on 09.05.09 it would have been a grand occasion except that the above mentioned sheave for the rudder caused an immediate reschedule of a haul out and repair for early the next morning. About the time that was completed a southerly packing 30 to 40 mph winds blew into the harbor and another couple of days were spent working on the boat. It was during a very brief lull in that blow I managed to navigate the ‘ditch’, a marked, dredged channel linking the southern boat yards & marinas to the boat basin in the shallows off eastern Anacortes. There’s a sailing saying my cruising friends have all heard but I’ll share with the rest of you, “owning a cruising sailboat means you get to do boat maintenance and repairs in exotic ports of call”. Catherine and I can attest to the truth of this wisdom. I ‘hove-to’ at Cap Sante Boat Basin for the next three days finishing minor projects and awaiting the arrival of my crew. http://www.boattravel.com/anacortes/

Image #4 is my resident neighbors just as the weather was blowing in. I think they enjoyed the fact that the joke was on me and the weather had AQUILA pinned to the docks for several more days. Image number 5 is the dawn of the breaking of the summer storm. The first of many Labor Day weekend sailboats putting out with the coming of fair weather.
Of course the arrival of the crew meant more gear, food, clothes, and sundry other items to be sorted and stowed. By the time we had completed that series of tasks another late summer day had passed and we had the choice of venturing out into the late afternoon and make a twilight run for an anchorage or settle into a glass of wine and the berths for an early wake-up, shore side showers and an early morning run. We chose the later. “Oops” the early morning run went south with another venture to West Marine, Safeway, the liquor store and fueling the boat. That’s okay, after a calm early afternoon crossing of Rosario Strait we made James Island, http://www.stateparks.com/james_island.html and took a buoy for our first-night-off-the-dock portion of the cruise. James Island is one of the islands that are part of the Washington State Parks (see link provided above). Somehow over the course of ensuing years we had forgotten the ferry wake rolling into the buoy field on the northern side of the island. It was a rollickie night!

The Clementine-in-the-forest photo is the view through the lens of my partner Catherine as she & teen-daughter-woman-child frolicked through the forested slopes of James Island, climbing trees and chasing slugs. At this stage in the cruise there were still boat-chores consisting of stowing miscellaneous goods, trying to find a leak in the water system, and the like. These tasks combined with long work weeks leading up to the early moments under way and long hours of prep took their toll. Another free saying for you, this one from me, I’ll give you the acronym first; I.T.A.L.O.W.T.H.T.M.F! I say it before and after each cruise. There is so much innate truth in it my fortune may very well be made in T-shirts and bumper stickers from this saying – “It Takes A Lot Of Work To Have This Much Fun!” That being the case, it may come as no surprise our next anchorage was no more than two nautical miles from our first. Spencer Spit… http://www.stateparks.com/spencer_spit.html Which is where this next photo, image #10 was taken. A quiet afternoon on the state park buoy. A cell call to our dear cruising buddy, Marjean Mathews, a solo sailor on the sailing vessel GRACE revealed she had just seasonally laid-ff from her job at the San Juan County Parks and was sailing toward Sucia Island for a much needed on-board break from work. Catherine and I went to berth with that thought in mind along with a bunch of other psychobabble of brains struggling to disconnect from the Matrix.

Predawn promised a clear, late summer day. Catherine and I awoke at nearly the same time and with the same thought. Lets go to Sucia! There were a number of reasons not to. An impending rendezvous with another good friend who was planning on cruising with us for a week or so. A pre-planned but surprise birthday party for the upcoming 17 year old who has spent the last 6 birthdays under sail in remote anchorages with very limited (but unique) party activities. And more. But the call of the dawn and our spirits rising to a new adventure prevailed and soon we were motoring our 16,000 pound loaded displacement, 30 sailboat out Peavine Pass and back into the embrace of Rosario Strait for an early morning run (see image #11). The winds of change had been whispering down East Sound of Orcas Island as we motored out into the strait. It was a portend of things to come. We were running with a flood tide giving AQUILA a lift but a northerly breeze was building, though in the early stage of the run the eastern shoulder of Orcas Island and Mount Constitution blocked the winds. By mid morning we were set to round Lawrence Point. Our approach revealed a continuous stretch of foaming, white water, wind waves being stacked up against the running tide. It was an impressive sight. Word had come up to me from the galley that breakfast, more of a brunch actually, was about to be served. I looked into the line of wave after wave, white capped and rolling toward us just around the rockscape of the point and knew there was no where out there where breakfast could be easily managed. I chose to heave-to (hold the boat in place) just at the abrupt edge of calm waters meeting the frothing churn of the wind whipped waves. Breakfast was good and relaxed. Then it was time to reef the main and sliver the jib. We motored into the maelstrom of the channel, out from the protection of the point and the rodeo began. Well, hmm… Almost.

Nothing untoward happened. AQUILA held her own footing sweetly. No bilge warning lights flashed of impending water filling the boat. The rail wasn’t blown under. We simply heeled a bit and continued on under way sailing along. It was great! It was the 1st time since the ’08 accident we had put our vessel to the test and she was rather nonchalant about it to tell the truth. “Oh, this?” she seemed to say, “yes, remember, we’ve gone through much worse.” I hadn’t really put my finger on it but after many miles under sail and motoring through many differing conditions, some quite adverse, I was nervous. Not due to lack of experience but to the fact that this boat had undergone a near serious accident and I was uncertain how she would handle rough conditions. “No problemo mon,” the voice in my head told me and a large, probably silly grin spread across my big, bald dog face.
“Having fun?” Catherine asked coming on deck in her warmies to share this part of the passage with me.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Lots of it!” And we romped and we ran, AQUILA shoulder tossing aside white foaming bow waves with nary a glance. The sails drawing, the boat making good time on her close hauled tacks in the general direction of our destination. It was GREAT!
The next photo; “Piloting into the sun” is a short while before rounding Lawrence Point into the run of the waves and tide.