Today we were scheduled to make a 68 nm run almost straight up the Strait of Georgia.
Except for our dash from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan on the last day of the voyage, this would be our longest run for one day.
See the map snippet below which shows our intended route.
That little stub of land sticking out just above my notation showing the border is actually in the US. It is a little place called Pt Roberts.
When I first took possession of Faraway in mid July 2007 it was in Vancouver BC, just north of Pt Roberts. We ran the boat around from Vancouver to Pt Roberts to check her into the US.
The US/Canadian border takes a sharp turn to the right there where the chart background turns from light blue to white.
No, I don't know why they laid it out this way.
Our destination today was a little place called Secret Cove Marina.
Here is a link to their website:
Secret Cove Marina
Here is a more detailed chart of Secret Cove with the marina location noted:
This is from Wikipedia:
"The Strait of Georgia or the Georgia Strait is a strait between Vancouver Island, and the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada and extreme northern Washington, United States. It is approximately 240 kilometres (150 mi) long and varies in width from 18.5 to 55 kilometres (11.5 to 34.2 mi). Archipelagos and narrow channels mark each end of the Strait of Georgia, the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands in the south, and the Discovery Islands in the north. The main channels to the south are Haro Strait and Rosario Strait, which connect the Strait of Georgia to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In the north, Discovery Passage is the main channel connecting the Strait of Georgia to Johnstone Strait. The strait is a major navigation channel on the west coast of North America, owing to the presence of the port of Vancouver, and also due to its role as the southern entrance to the infracoastal route known as the Inside Passage."
The Strait of Georgia is a large body of water, and as such can experience dangerous sea conditions.
I paid particular attention to the marine weather before starting out on this day's run.
It was to be a long run, and I wanted to make an early departure, so we pulled out at about 6 AM.
Weather conditions were good, but my navigational electronics were not so much.
For the boat geeks in the crowd let me explain a little about how I navigate when underway on a voyage such as this.
From the flybridge helm I have my Windows laptop set up on the port helm seat (piloting is done from the middle seat.) I have a 12 VDC power adapter for the laptop which I plug into an appropriate port on the flybridge helm. I plug in a USB GPS antenna to the laptop. And I plug in a mouse (I hate the touch pads.)
For the application I run Coastal Explorer, loaded with all the US charts, and also the charts for the Canadian waters, for which I must pay an additional fee each year.
I have already built all the routes that I think I will need, but I can build them on the fly if needed.
CE shows the boat's position and allows me to navigate to the destination.
It does not have any way to show the depth of the water.
The charts show what the depth "should be" at a zero tide, but not what it actually is.
I also have a Garmin 3210C GPS chartplotter which shows the GPS charting, depth, speed, radar, AIS, course, etc. It can be mounted and operated from either the lower helm or the flybridge helm. It also has the capability to build and maintain routes. Unfortunately I am told by both Garmin support and Coastal Explorer support that routes built in CE cannot be imported into the Garmin devices.
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| Garmin 3210C |
I also have a smaller backup Garmin device, an EchoMap 54dv. I have 2 mounts for it, one at the lower helm and one at the upper helm. I thought they were both operational, however today I found out otherwise.
The EchoMap 54dv has depth, GPS charting, etc. but does not have radar or AIS.
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| Garmin EchoMap 54dv |
Just a few miles out of Bedwell Harbour the Garmin 3210C failed.
It just winked off.
I powered it back on, and after a few minutes it powered itself down again.
I immediately brought up the back up unit to the flybridge and tried to plug it in.
That's when I discovered that I had never actually finished the installation for this unit on the flybridge. The mounting bracket was there, but not all the required cables were set up.
Ach!
My CE running on the laptop showed my location, so I was not lost.
But it did not show the depth, and I had no way to see the depth.
A boater gets pretty edgy when he/she is not absolutely certain of the depth of the water under the boat.
I left the 3210C powered off for an hour, and purposefully stayed in what I knew to be deep water.
When I powered it back on it worked flawlessly - for about another couple of weeks.
More on that later.
We made our long run up the Strait of Georgia in calm sunny conditions.
I really regretted the decision made earlier to cancel the installation of an auto pilot.
I truly enjoy piloting Faraway, but I have to admit that running almost 70 miles by hand steering does get a little old.
We arrived into Secret Cove at about 3:30 PM, and took on a little fuel before getting into our assigned slip.
We had logged 229 nm to this point.
Here are a few pictures that I took of this marina and this area.
It was a nice place to spend the night.
They had a little store, and rest rooms, WiFi, and trash disposal, and everything we needed for the night.
Apparently the restaurant above the store can be a happening place in the summer, with boats coming in from all around to dine there.
We were lucky enough to be here before the restaurant had opened, so it was pretty quiet, just the way we like it.
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