Circumnavigation # 3 Complete

I am back in Victoria now after fulling circumnavigating Vancouver Island for the third time. It's the greatest feeling when you round the corner and can see Race Rocks (one of the oldest lighthouses on the west coast) and you know that you are home again. Trips four and five were both fantastic, compelte with highlight visits to Hot Springs Cove, Rugged Beach and Cougar Annie's Garden!
Trip four in general was quite a calm trip, hardly any seasickness, which is great for a trip down the west coast. This trip is always really exciting because we only get to visit these places once a year everything is so new and undiscovered feeling and there isn't very much traffic either. We didn't have any really stomping broad reach sails like we normally due but a lot of our travelling was done very steadily with the courses, mains'l and main top up. We got so many fish we could hardly eat them all, despite the fish and chips night we put on thanks to Andrea.
Trip five was a different story all together. We got to sail up the island on the first day, which is rare in itself because the wind is usually blowing from the north when we want to head that way to start the trip out (there is virtually nothing between Ucluelet and Victoria). However, despite the sail (which usually calms the motion of the boat) almost every hand was seasick in one form or another. We had a few diehard trainees (most of whom were in Port watch...) who did a lot of dishes and radio watch that first day. We finally made it up the South side of Brooks Peninsula where we thought we would be sheltered from the swell....but we weren't and ended up having on the most terrifying dory experiences I've ever had trying to load people into the dory while buffering my dory against the bottom of the Swift as we got sucked under wiht every other roll! By the time we finally got to shore the trainees were almost kissing the sand and just staring at the trees trying to pretend the ocean didn't exist behind them.
The trip continued on however, and despite a lot of rolling around (penance for such a calm trip four I suppose) everyone had an amazing time. The highlight for me was a a very muddy and hilarious hike through the rainforest to Whitesand Beach (one of the most beautiful on the West Coast) Although I'm not sure everyone found this knee-deep mud experience quite as enjoyable as I did....I now have a new favourite sound though, and it is the sound of squelching mud and you lift your feet out of it take the next step back in.
It's really nice to be back in Victoria with some time to rest hopefully, between organizing everything I need for Offshore. I was getting a little nervouse about my Papua New Guinea Visa going through, but it looks like its all sorted out and that I should be getting it back next week sometime. Just enoough time to send it off to the Chinese Embassy next and have it back in time to leave in early October.
I really starting to realize how little I am prepared at the moment, but I'm slowly ticking off my to do list one by one and am trying to rest at the same time and get over a cold that seems to have taken a hold of me. It usually happens at the end of the summer. I figure my body just go go go's until the end of august and then when I get back from the boat and it realizes it has time to be sick it takes advantage of it!

Trip 3

This was an amazing trip. Leaving Victoria and knowing that you won't be back there again for at least a month is a great feeling. We set off and started the trip with a night run all the way up to Desolation sound making our first stop at Savary Island. Beautiful white sandy beach where we had a fantastic game of soccer, boys against girls...which usually isn't the best idea, but this time the girls were all for it and definitely held there own, although they just couldn't quite seem to score. Everyone was really happy and exhausted afterwards though.
The next few days we spent lolly-gagging in some of the lakes and waterfalls that are abundant in Desolation before started north again on our way up to Port Hardy. We even managed to spend an afternoon at Fredrick Arm where my watch had a lovely dory sail into the lagoon where everyone else was busy preparing for a sauna. This is always an adventure. We build a fire on the beach and heat up rocks meanwhile building a tent out of a tarp and wood with a pit in it. Then we put the hot rocks into the pit we fill the tent with people. Next we pour hot water on the rocks and let the steam collect inside the tent, for as long as we can stand it before we start a tribal chant of "Sauna sauna sauna...!!!" and then everyone makes a break for the cold water lagoon that is close at hand. It was fantastic.
We were thwarted by wind and current and fish as we spent out time trying to sail north, but not making it very far (I spent an entire four hour watch in the same 2 nautical miles of where I started!) We spent some time at many fishing spots that had been lucky the previous year, but not this time. The only fish we've caught this year is a three inch long rock fish of some sort caught off the Port Hardy Dock. We are hoping for better luck on the west coast.
This trip was one of my favourites. Trip three can make or break your summer sometimes being the "hump trip" but we were treated to so many good adventures, some spectacular sailing and whale shows (like within one hundred feet of the boat!) and even more fantastic and very talented trainees. Thanks to Angela for all her fiddle!
Port hardy has been relaxing and the time had gone by fast, but I am ready to leave and get back on the water.
Love to everyone!