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On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, at 06:40 PM, Royer, Doug wrote:

> Did you spend 5 days and nights on the water transiting the distance
> or put into shore during this time?

We ran in the daytime at between 5 and 25 knots.  We camped each night
ashore, staying in Coupeville WA the first night, Nanaimo BC the second
night, near Comox BC the next night, then Cornet Bay WA on the last
night before returning to Seattle.

> What were the sea and weather conditions?

Not a cloud in the sky for 5 days, with temperatures up to 90+ degrees
Fahrenheit!  The winds actually were 15-25 knots in the mornings and
eased up to 5-10 knots in the afternoons.

> Did you get to navigate, using conventional methods of coarse and what
> were the results if any?

It was GPS and charts, no celestial.  It was an 18' open Stabicraft
with a Honda 90, and with 3-5 foot chop during some times the use of a
sextant was not possible.  We never were far from shore, so celestial
was not needed and only once did I see the horizon sufficiently far to
use a sextant.

> Most importantly did you get a chance to fish for or catch any Salmon
> or Steelhead on this trip?

This seems to be the question asked by most, but I am not a fisherman!
  Neither was the captain, so no fishing to report.  We did see many
other fisherman out in the Strait of Georgia and around Campbell River
BC.

The most interesting part of this trip was that is was supposed to be
all the way to Alaska, but the camping did me in!  The captain of this
boat has taken it on 5 round trips to Alaska, over 1000 nmi each way!

He is from Alaska and uses a "loop line anchor" system that allows him
to pull into a bay, run the boat up onto a beach, unload the boat, and
then drop an anchor (if it was low-tide in this case), and tie the boat
to a tree far ashore.  Then as the tide comes in the boat stays put in
the water and when it is time to leave you can pull the boat in via the
looped line to shore.  Then the boat is loaded up and then the line is
pulled in until we are atop the anchor, and it is pulled up.

We did this!  I felt like George Vancouver or one of the other early
explorers around these parts.  It was a lot of work and it was the
immense amount of work for someone out of shape (me) that caused me to
not be relishing this work for a total of what would have been 30 days
of travel.

We may take the trip again but aboard my boat, which is large enough to
not require camping ashore.

It was a great experience though, and the real moral of the story is
that one does not need an expensive vessel to do real exploration.

Dan

   

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