15 Sep 18
Happy Birthday to me. I won’t say how old I am, but I will say that I am now on Medicare. We were up in the pre-dawn dark and had the anchor up by 06:20. We headed east along Chancellor Channel in light rain, low overcast and light fog. At 10:00, we tied up at the Shoal Bay government dock to wait for the turn to ebb at Dent Rapids. It was time to move on at 13:45, and we motored SE to Dent Rapids, arriving at the Dent Rapids Light at 15:19. We made it through the Dent and Yuculta Rapids without difficulty and saw a herd(?) of sea-lions basking on the rocks at Gillard Passage. We determined that Gorge Harbour was about the same distance as Refuge Cove and, as the restaurant was open, we decided to head for Gorge Harbour. John advised that he was low on fuel and they were going to sail and go slow, but after confirming that he did not want me to hand over our 5 gallon jerry can of fuel, we pushed on through Drew, Plunger and Uganda Passages. We tied up at Gorge Harbour at 19:03, in the gathering gloom. “Massilia” finally got in, in pitch darkness, at 20:45. It rained all day, but we were dry and warm in our cockpit enclosure, unlike John and Laurie, who looked like a couple of drowned rats when they finally crept in. The Admiral and I had gone up to the Gorge Harbour restaurant to hold our table and order a meal for John and Laurie, when they showed up still in soaking wet foulies just before they closed the doors. We had a nice birthday celebration.
50-05.962’N, 125-01.377’W; Log = 57.6, Sum (2018) = 1067.0 N-m
16 Sep 18
It rained heavily last night (8” according to the marina personnel). We bought 87.5 L (23.0 gal) of diesel, and I changed the oil and filter on the Volvo engine. The rain persisted throughout the day until 16:30. We met Jim and Mary from Austin, TX on “Aventura”, a Nautical 35; they keep their boat at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes. The Admiral did laundry and topped up with provisions from the store. I got a coat of Le Tonkinois on the port side toe-rail after the rain stopped. We all went back up to the restaurant for another excellent dinner.