Ugh!  The Haul-out Blues



Nobody likes haul-out. Least me. Years have passed since Anya's  last haul-out in Mexico.  It is time! 

Sunset July 17th at Cowichan Bay

The tide is rising. Cowichan Bay Maritime Center (CBMC) prepares her ways for Anya's arrival.  Like the slow rise of the tide itself, CBMC's ways inch down the rails into salt water.




And then it is nighttime with Anya inching up the CBMC ways and me fretting about my frantic day tomorrow - servicing, bottom-painting and addressing that vexatious and damned profusely dripping packing glan.

I bed down for the evening to this view, somewhat like a cabin in the forest with a waxing moon lighting the night.





July 18 at six bells!

Groggy and grumpy I arise to this vista, my neighbors of last night, the rather charming Cowichan Bay stilt homes and waterside residences - ya gotta love this place!

Then to work in the morning sun.  I steel myself to a day of ass in the air, head in the bilge, a day of dark, nasty, dirty, stinky work.  Then, for a change of pace, there is the toxic bottom painting.  As usual, much of it ends up on me.





Throughout the day, Tony and Jimmy give friendly encouragement and advice.  By dinner I am reassembling things and preparing to put on that last coat of bottom  paint.  Egad! Horror of horrors, I drop a critical bolt into the bilge which precipitates a further half hour of ass-in-the air, head in the grime, bilge diving - the nautical equivalent to dumpster diving for dinner.  




As the sun goes down, she is done.  Ready to ease back into the waters of Cowichan Bay. 

With higher tide and darkness Jimmy arrives.  He sets the ways in motion, slowly sliding Anya past seaside neighbours, down the ways and back to sea.  She floats!  And we are off in the night to our mooring.




No one raves about their haul-out.  But my CBMCentre haul-out is my best such experience ever.  Every minute I was hands-on in a rich, friendly, maritime environment in ways not likely today - a place that smells of craftsmen, fishermen, long-ago adventurers, sailors and explorers.  Culturally and nautically, a magnificent experience.  Bravo CBMC!!

Silence of the Lambs - redux






June 30th, 2012.  Assuming that summer is at hand - even if skies are cloudy, temperatures slouchy and an ambience suggesting early spring -  Lesley inspires me to struggle on, to make the best of the situation, so we ship off to the annual Canada Day Lamb Roast on Saturna Island.

To lift spirits and help our passage we press-gang those formidable life-forces, Sue and Jeff Quinton. Crew onboard off we ship at noon loaded for food and fun - containers of food for Jeff's famous eggs benedict (twenty servings with minosas for Canada Day morning) and one ponderously large cardboard box filled with various alcoholic drinks.

Tacking up Cowichan Bay and nearing Cape Keppel we espy old friend, Abdi, now newly rigged, coming out of the rain and mist with her crew, Fred and Judy, heading off to Winter Cove. 


Anya clears Cape Keppel, then Portland Island and on beyond South Pender, rounding up into Plumper Sound.  Closing on our destination I spy a reef menacing the entrance to Winter Cove.  These rocks became famous late one summer's night when, it is said, a large sailing vessel, the Robertson II, took a hasty short cut, ultimately foundering and sinking on the reef.

 I was the man to handle Reef Robbie II so I took the helm, skirting the reef on my starboard when, eyes popping and pants pooping, I noticed a vicious reef awash close off on my port.  Eyes glued to the depth meter, timidly I groped through a shallow gap and safely into Winter Cove.



  There where we found other Cowichan Bay luminaries - on the left Bill and Sue (sounds like a law firm's name), then Abdi and Barca II all rafted up to the mother ship - Mermaid 1.  Anya rafted up to Barca II, yacht to Barry, a notable local parrothead. Then Anya's captain and crew head for Mermaid I where the party was under way.

Here we found Captain Currie and his
lovely accomplice Shelby hosting the feast and party. Pete rejoices in the background.

After feasting and drinking the sun falls into the horizon and everyone watches what might have been summer's first best sunset.

 
 
Barry's boat, now becomes the  party boat, gathers the late night hard-partiers for one last glimpse of the sun before diving back into the sauce.

And Canada Day collapses into July 2.