23 Jun 22

Another glorious morning in paradise; that makes two in a row. I think that summer may finally nearly here. I stupidly left the trash out in the cockpit last night and some vermin got into it and scattered it around the cockpit; I sure hope whoever it was did not remain on the boat - at least there is no other evidence of that. We went up to the laundry in town (the marina’s laundry being out of service) and did the laundry. While Terri was in the laundry, I walked over to Method Marine and bought a couple of new walky-talkies, since my old ones are not working too well. Then, we went up to Sobo for a late lunch, followed by a major grocery shop. Later, we joined Laurie and John for happy hour, then went up to Shelter for dinner. We were all too tired to stay up to see the jazz, so we called it a night about 22:30.

24 Jun 22

Another glorious day in paradise was awaiting us when we woke up; that makes 3 in a row. John was waiting on parts for his anemometer, which are being flown in from Victoria just after noon, so we decided to stay another day in Tofino. I did a bit of routine maintenance while Terri made a top-up run to the Coop. After lunch on board, Terri and I visited the Eagle Aerie Gallery, which is a gallery committed to Roy Henry Vickers’s works, followed by a brief visit to the Tofino Heritage Museum, which was very interesting. On the way back to the boat, Terri stopped in the Mermaid Tales Bookstore, and I stopped into the Shed for a beer. Laurie caught up with us there and we walked over to Gaia for some more groceries while I stopped in at Wolf in the Fog Restaurant just as they were opening for the evening; although they were not accepting any more reservations for the night, they did have an immediate table for 4, so I snagged it. We had an excellent meal and then retire back to the boat for a medicinal whiskey.

25 Jun 22

After another good night’s sleep (Terri claimed the jazz at the bar carried on until 01:00, but I never heard it), we awoke to yet another glorious day - 4th in a row. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the cockpit. Then, Terri ran up to the drugstore for some last minute supplies, while I attempted to clear a blockage of eel-grass from the raw water inlet of the HVAC system. We had been completely filling the raw water filter with eel-grass while at the Tofino Marina, but now it was plugged at the through-hull valve. I finally had to take the hose off the fittings to be able to force a piece of wire around the corner to the valve, but I think I got it. I realized after the fact, that what I should have done was fit a water hose to the through hull fitting and blown the blockage out of the fitting and valve backwards. Then, I topped up the water tanks and got ready to go. It was 11:30 before we got away from the dock, as we were waiting for “Massilia” to top off fuel and propane tanks at Method Marine. After motoring up Deadman Pass, the sails were hoisted and engine stopped for a few minutes heading up Maurus Channel. We had a good sail west along Calmus Passage and then north along Millar Channel all the way to the entrance to Matilda Inlet. We motored past Ahousat General Store and Marktosis (First Nations village) all the way to the head of Matilda Inlet, where we anchored in 6 m of water. After we anchored, the Admirals and I rowed over to check out the tepid spring; Laurie and I dipped our feet in it, but did not go further. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the eagles and trying to stay in the shade. After happy hour and dinner on board, we enjoyed watching the sunset; I got some flying time with the drone and got some pretty good, late-evening-light videos of the two boats lying peacefully at anchor.

49-16.332’N, 126-04.431’W; Log = 16.8, Sum = 269.8 N-m; Eng. hrs. = 2.3, Sum = 2927.6

26 Jun 22

It was warm enough last night that not only did we not have to turn on the heat, we also cracked open the fore-peak hatch a bit. After breakfast, we hung out on the boat while John worked on trying to get his anemometer working, without success. While that was going on, I did a bit of prep work on the dinghy foot rests, oars and a couple of dings on the inside of the boat. After lunch, we decided to visit the purportedly beautiful white sand beach at White Sand Cove. The trail leads from the tepid spring and we set off, but after 30 minutes of hard slog (we were about 2/3 of the way along at the time), we encountered a big windfall that we could not surmount or find a way around. The trail has, we suspect, been underused and under maintained during Covid-times and it did not look like anyone had pioneered a new way around the windfall this year. So, we came back and dipped our feet in the tepid pool again for awhile, then came on back to the boat for excellent solar showers. Happy hour and dinner aboard.