Sorry for no blog yesterday.  We had some internet issues.  Our day ended in Canadian waters.

I just made a pot of coffee in our french press on board.  Tea kettle heated on the stove to a whistle, and then hot water in the press.  Yesterday was a little strong but better this morning.  Right now the wind is howling outside as we had a storm pass over last night.  But more on today, when I finish about tomorrow.

Friday night’s sleep proved to be a problem.  We finally got our boat at 8pm, then the walk through at 9pm.  We had a lot of questions and some open issues that did not have answers.  Then in the night, some boat alarms kept going off so we were constantly up and trying to correct the problems.  All good learning stuff about our home for the next 3 weeks, but very annoying when we want to depart on time and still be safe.

We finally left Bellingham yesterday at 11 am (90 min late), after numerous boat issues.  We knew we had to be at Poet’s Cove on South Pender Island by 4:45pm to clear customs before they close at 5 pm.  If we did not get there, we would have to divert to plan “b”, and sail south to Stuart Island for the night, then catch up with the group after clearing customs.  We got out of the harbor and through Hale Passage into the Strait of Georgia in about 90 minutes, then raised the sails for the first time.  Naturally on the first time up, we had some issues, but learned a lot about our boat and how it all works.  Finally turned off the diesel engine and “we were a sailboat”!  The wind was 12 to 15 knots, so perfect for starting to get the feel of the boat.  As we rounded Matia Island the winds came as forecasted, 20 knots.  That was a thrill and the boat reached 8.5 knots of speed.  Within 30 minutes the winds gusted to 25 knots and we were on a great ride with the boat hitting 9.8 knots.  We were flying through the water and making great time.  It wasn’t long that we did “the math” on our scheduled 32 mile trip, and knew we would easily make it for the customs deadline.  We sailed through the major international shipping channel for 2 plus hours, but we were lucky to only see one ship (see picture).

We arrive and cleared customs but that was interesting……..Only the captain gets off the dock with all the paperwork etc.  Dianna has to stay on the boat until we are cleared.  They have phones where you call in and speak with a person that does the clearance.  The alcohol policy is fairly limited and strict, so what I thought was going to be an easy proceedure, turned into more.  After buying three 1.5 liters of various liquors (vodka, gin, whiskey) along with beer and 12 bottles of wine at Costco, we discovered that they are kind of serious about this when clearing customs.  In our Friday night meeting they said to tell the Canadian customs people the truth, but to say the liquor bottles were open and not full.  So we did our best on Friday night to work through a bit of the stock 🙂    Anyway, I told the person on the phone about our amount and he said you are well over the limit and put me on hold for 3 minutes.  I tried to explain that this was a 3 week trip, but he was not having any of that.  I was getting tense…….. Then he came on and said, “I have decided to send you on your way”.  I tried to keep it brief and said thank you.  Then he said one more thing that floored me.  He said “Merry Christmas”………….

At the dock in Poet’s Cove there is a beautiful hotel, restaurant, pub, pool, etc.  I am attaching pictures from last night and this morning.  We had a wonderful shower on board, then a cocktail with a couple that is on the trip, followed by dinner and wine at the pub.  We had a bottle of local Pender Island red wine, “Sea Star” that was really good! What a great evening after a really great day of sailing!!

As I write this, we are in a protected cove at Poet’s Corner, but I am looking out at the open bay in the distance, where there are white caps and wind around 30 knots.  Today we are scheduled to sail 42 miles to Nanaimo in very strong winds, so this will be quite a day!!

More later, but looking forward to day 2 on our adventure!!

Pictures sent from my phone on separate post!