June 14, 2020. Pearse Islets.
Pearse Islets Anchorage
Today, we tried to take a rest day. We failed.
It started out innocently enough. We began with our usual study of the wind and weather, looking for an opportunity to get around to the open coast before Sara has to go home. Unfortunately, it looks like we only have a couple of suitable days coming up to get around, and then the wind will come up from the south, pinning us in Quatsino for at least a week. That means we wouldn’t have enough time to get down to Tofino, where Sara could fly out from. So, we need to stay closer to Port Hardy, which is the other transit hub. It’s all pretty complicated, but the upshot is that we are going to stay in the Broughtons for at least a few more days, almost a week.
Which isn’t so bad. Our anchorage remains completely uninhabited, and beautiful. We saw a few fishing boats and dinghies coming through the pass today, but for the most part, we are blissfully alone. So, we figured why not enjoy it, and stay the day? After all, this is why people come to the Broughtons. And the idea of a rest day after 4 long days of motoring to get here seemed attractive.
After breakfast, I mentioned a few small jobs that I wanted to get done today, as long as we were sitting still. We started by cleaning out the bilge, which, for some reason, seems to slowly get water in it. I think it is water coming down the mast when it rains, but I haven’t been able to verify that for sure. While I was in there, I switched over the water tanks, and we figured we’d make water, since we were sitting still for the day. So, I walked Sara through the process of making water, which is pretty simple, but takes a while the first time you do it.
After that, we figured we would empty our two diesel jerry cans into our empty forward tank. Now, on our engine panel, there are two fuel gauges, one for each tank. The aft tank gauge is on the right side of the panel, which sits in the coaming on the starboard side, so the aft tank gauge is to the right of the forward tank gauge, which sits on the left side of the panel. Makes sense? I simply assumed that this arrangement would translate to the fill holes for the tanks, so that the filler for the forward tank is on the left (port) side of the boat, and the starboard filler is attached to the aft tank.
So, we merrily went to pour diesel in the port side filler, to fill up the forward tank. Imagine our surprise when diesel came to the top of the fill hole within a couple of minutes. It took us a few minutes to realize that we had the fill holes reversed, and the empty forward tank actually fills on the starboard side. Anyway, we finally got it sorted out, and after cleaning up a bit of diesel, we put what remained of the diesel in the proper tank, although it wasn’t much, given how empty that tank is. We will want to get fuel before too long.
After that, we went to get the dinghy off the deck, so we can move to the more standard cruising configuration of towing the dinghy. Then, we needed to inflate it, dig out the seat and the oars, and get the towing bridle all set up. Sounds easy, but it took awhile.
Off the boat!
Once the dinghy was in the water, I could see under the boat, and saw what looked like a piece of line around our prop shaft. I had been wanting to get under the boat to clean the hard growth off the shaft and propeller anyway, so decided to dig out my wet suit, as well as all the tools and the SeaBreathe diving gear. While I was down there, I figured I would check the zincs, and change any that needed it, so I dug out the spares of those, too, as well as the relevant tools. Then, we realized our anchorage has a solid current running through it, which wouldn’t be slack until 6 p.m. Since I can’t swim at 2 knots to keep myself in place under the boat, we decided to wait.
In the meantime, I caught up on work, since this is likely the last place we will have a Telus signal for a while. After about an hour of that, I took out the SUPs, and inflated both of those, which was the most exercise I’ve had all week. Sara continued to clean here and there all day, which is a never ending task if we want the boat to keep looking decent.
Finally, around 4:30 p.m., our “rest day” finally slowed down. Since we had the dinghy in the water, we decided to row over to shore, to get off the boat for the first time in 5 days. We went for a lovely walk on the deserted rocky beach, and took lots of pictures of the boat sitting all alone in the anchorage.
Exploring the Pearse Islets
We got back in time for me to wet suit up, and jump in the freezing water. My wet suit gear is quite good, and I managed to stay under the boat for half an hour, during which time I cleaned a bunch of barnacles and mussels off the prop and shaft, clean up all the through hulls, and change a zinc. Just before I got out, the current switched, and suddenly freezing cold water flooded the anchorage from the Johnstone Strait side of our little bay. I got out of the water as quickly as I could, and used up most of our newly made water in a warm shower, military style.
It was just time to fire up the bar-b-que and grill some burgers for dinner. Then, we cleaned up all the tools and spares from the day, and we are finally sitting down for our rest day. It’s now 9:00 p.m. I can’t take too many more rest days like this!
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