VicTrawler
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2015
- Messages
- 234
- Location
- Canada
- Vessel Name
- Halcyon I
- Vessel Make
- 1984 36' Universal Europa Sedan
Captain's Log, July 5th, 2018:
We left our anchorage in Nanaimo on June 30th and headed to French Creek Marina (near Parksville) to visit with friends and Eden's family (that's where she grew up). Eden's brother-in-law's uncle has a nice chunk of land and threw a huge party for Canada Day, including a bonfire and an outdoor beer-pong table! Needless to say, we had a great time.
When I sent the last update via HF radio, the transmission went through Watsonville, CA (near San Francisco) and it took eight minutes to transmit, so it consumed quite a bit of power. The radio is wired to the same battery that supplies our bow thruster, so when we were in the process of docking in French Creek, we found out just how much charge was left in that battery (hint: not much). Docking Halcyon in the wind without a bow thruster is very tricky because she has significant windage due to her height, but I managed to figure it out and we tied up without a scratch.
French Creek Marina is "interesting" in that there are no individual slips assigned to transient boaters. When it's busy, which is most of the time, the boats can get two and three wide. In our case, we tied up to an aluminum fishing boat which was tied to a large sailboat.
On July 2nd, the owner of the fishing boat decided he wanted to go fishing, even though it was blowing 30 kts. I knew that if we untied Halcyon in 30 kts of wind, we'd have no control whatsoever. I told him that the only way we could do it is if we first put lines across to the sailboat. We could then untie from him and he could slip out from between us and the sailboat. He agreed to the plan and we got a couple of other guys to help with the lines.
So, fishing boat guy started his engine, and so did we. As we were in the process of organizing our lines, he just decided to start driving away! We had no lines to the sailboat and we were still partially tied to him! I managed to throw a line to a guy waiting on the sailboat and rapidly untied from the fishing boat while he politely shouted "sorry" and continued driving away. We ended up bouncing off of three boats but fortunately there was minimal damage as we had all of our fenders out and so did everyone else. The only casualty was a solar panel on a sailboat that was parked in front of us; our anchor caught the back of the solar panel and it cracked. At the end of the day, given what happened, losing a $100 solar panel was a pretty good outcome. I spoke with the fishing boat owner after the fact and he was apologetic but still had no good explanation for why he did what he did. The owner of the sailboat with the broken solar panel is going after the fishing boat owner for the cost of a new solar panel.
That evening, three sailboats showed up in the marina and had nowhere to park, so Eden and I jumped into action and moved a small sailboat over to make room for them. We would soon get to know all of them and ended up going to South Ballenas Island with them the next day (July 3rd). On the way out of the marina, one of them caught some salmon, and later a friend of theirs came out from Nanoose and a bunch of the guys went spear fishing. They came back with huge scallops and sea urchin, and they also had oysters and shrimp that were bought locally. Of course, one of the boat owners was also formerly a chef, so we ended up partaking in an incredible seafood feast of salmon sushi, bacon-wrapped scallops, breaded oysters, and so much more! Talk about meeting the right people. We finished off the evening with a bonfire on the beach.
Unfortunately two of the three sailboats are headed home (we'll get in touch in the future, they live in Victoria), but one of them is also circumnavigating the island, so we'll probably rendez-vous with him as we head further north.
Today we anchored in a quiet bay off of Lasqueti Island (Boho Bay), and, weather permitting, tomorrow we'll try for Tribune Bay on Hornby Island.
---
The only casualty of the French Creek fiasco:
The feast with new friends:
We left our anchorage in Nanaimo on June 30th and headed to French Creek Marina (near Parksville) to visit with friends and Eden's family (that's where she grew up). Eden's brother-in-law's uncle has a nice chunk of land and threw a huge party for Canada Day, including a bonfire and an outdoor beer-pong table! Needless to say, we had a great time.
When I sent the last update via HF radio, the transmission went through Watsonville, CA (near San Francisco) and it took eight minutes to transmit, so it consumed quite a bit of power. The radio is wired to the same battery that supplies our bow thruster, so when we were in the process of docking in French Creek, we found out just how much charge was left in that battery (hint: not much). Docking Halcyon in the wind without a bow thruster is very tricky because she has significant windage due to her height, but I managed to figure it out and we tied up without a scratch.
French Creek Marina is "interesting" in that there are no individual slips assigned to transient boaters. When it's busy, which is most of the time, the boats can get two and three wide. In our case, we tied up to an aluminum fishing boat which was tied to a large sailboat.
On July 2nd, the owner of the fishing boat decided he wanted to go fishing, even though it was blowing 30 kts. I knew that if we untied Halcyon in 30 kts of wind, we'd have no control whatsoever. I told him that the only way we could do it is if we first put lines across to the sailboat. We could then untie from him and he could slip out from between us and the sailboat. He agreed to the plan and we got a couple of other guys to help with the lines.
So, fishing boat guy started his engine, and so did we. As we were in the process of organizing our lines, he just decided to start driving away! We had no lines to the sailboat and we were still partially tied to him! I managed to throw a line to a guy waiting on the sailboat and rapidly untied from the fishing boat while he politely shouted "sorry" and continued driving away. We ended up bouncing off of three boats but fortunately there was minimal damage as we had all of our fenders out and so did everyone else. The only casualty was a solar panel on a sailboat that was parked in front of us; our anchor caught the back of the solar panel and it cracked. At the end of the day, given what happened, losing a $100 solar panel was a pretty good outcome. I spoke with the fishing boat owner after the fact and he was apologetic but still had no good explanation for why he did what he did. The owner of the sailboat with the broken solar panel is going after the fishing boat owner for the cost of a new solar panel.
That evening, three sailboats showed up in the marina and had nowhere to park, so Eden and I jumped into action and moved a small sailboat over to make room for them. We would soon get to know all of them and ended up going to South Ballenas Island with them the next day (July 3rd). On the way out of the marina, one of them caught some salmon, and later a friend of theirs came out from Nanoose and a bunch of the guys went spear fishing. They came back with huge scallops and sea urchin, and they also had oysters and shrimp that were bought locally. Of course, one of the boat owners was also formerly a chef, so we ended up partaking in an incredible seafood feast of salmon sushi, bacon-wrapped scallops, breaded oysters, and so much more! Talk about meeting the right people. We finished off the evening with a bonfire on the beach.
Unfortunately two of the three sailboats are headed home (we'll get in touch in the future, they live in Victoria), but one of them is also circumnavigating the island, so we'll probably rendez-vous with him as we head further north.
Today we anchored in a quiet bay off of Lasqueti Island (Boho Bay), and, weather permitting, tomorrow we'll try for Tribune Bay on Hornby Island.
---
The only casualty of the French Creek fiasco:
The feast with new friends: