Spaghetti Chain, The Full Story

Okay, here's what happened: Heron's anchor clutch wasn't working right and began slipping, which sent close to 300 feet and over 1000 pounds of chain freewheeling over the bow. 
(A nightmare in the small cove where we were attempting to anchor and stern tie between other boats off Hardy Island.) Kim took the helm while Jeff dealt with the windlass... the top image is a photo of
Heron's futile trail as we first lost, then tried to recover chain that had become badly stuck around rocks on the bottom.


Grateful not to have lost any fingers or toes, we knew we had an unsure anchorage and decided to let the rest of the chain go over with a marker buoy tied to it. Having a plan, we retreated to a marina for the night, and hired a terrific diver the next morning, Andy. Andy found that in all our maneuvering we'd dragged the chain under a boulder the size of a car. Jeff and Andy were finally able to retrieve the anchor and about half of the chain... This was a minor miracle, and only possible as Jeff happened to have a pair of heavy-duty bolt-cutters aboard (letting us keep the saved part and let go the rest). Here is Jeff posing with the monster cutters, which were able to cut through 3/8" chain with relative ease...

Spaghetti Chain

What happened here?
Buy us a drink sometime, and maybe we'll fess up...

All Sails Up, Finally

We coasted round the north point of Stuart Island, ready to catch the ebb flow at Dodd Narrow, were we passed through easily this year on a slack tide, riding about 1 knot of current. Whiskey Golf, the Canadian Forces Maritime test firing area was active, so to avoid the torpedoes we detoured north, flying across the Straits of Georgia on smooth seas with all sails up, finally!

This baby raccoon seemed as startled to see us, as we were him on our afternoon hike to Conover Cove. Seafarers have created a “shrine” to journeys past in an abandoned cabin at Conover Cove…

Audit Committee

Here’s a photo of Jeff prepping for his 7 am audit committee meeting. (Well, that’s a slight exaggeration – this is actually cocktail hour, where we were anchored off Stuart Island in the San Juans), but Jeff was able to phone in and lead an audit committee meeting the next morning, armed with an ipad and a pot of coffee. Even more amazing, two of the Committee members were phoning in from Mumbai, India!

Although winds have been light to non-existent, we’ve been blessed with warm, sunny weather – sailing in T-shirts and bare feet. We’ve also seen a minke whale and many Dall porpoises (with their comical dog-like faces, which make us miss McCoy). Yesterday, one leapt from the water less than a foot from our dinghy as we were heading out to hike around and explore Wallace Island Marine Park. We figured he just wanted to remind us who’s boss around here.

The last time we anchored off Wallace Island, the boys were 6 and 9! We are already looking forward to their joining the Heron on Cortes Island this weekend…

Docking Strategies

Heron’s adventures got off to a great (but different) start this summer, as it was just Jeff and Kim aboard as the boat left the dock at Elliott Bay as planned August 1. James drove us down to the boat early Sunday morning, then Jeff said, “Okay are we ready? Kim, why don’t you back her out this time,” much to Kim’s disbelief.

“Are you serious?”

“Sure, this is as good a time as any.”

“This is big, Mom, go for it!” James chimed in encouragingly.

And so with that, Jeff untied the lines, pulled up the fenders, and Kim took the helm, backing the 54-foot Heron out of the slip. Kim figured Jeff had planned this maneuver in advance, as a distraction from having to sail away and leave James standing on the dock. But Jeff swears he actually came up with the plan days ago, thinking it would be a cool way to kick off the trip and also, that Kim wouldn’t have time to think about it and freak out. He was right. Kim pulled the Heron into Friday Harbor later that evening (although Jeff did the docking), and Kim pulled away from the dock again the next morning.

Kim is realizing that while docking is fun, running around doing all the fenders and lines, and leaping onto the boat at the last minute as it pulls away, is actually much better exercise...

Seattle Bound (by way of Vancouver)

On the last night of the trip, we had a chance to set out our crabpots, finally, and would you believe it... with just over an hour and a big old turkey leg for bait, caught TWO crabs! They were splendid shared four ways as an hors d'ouevre before that night's down 'n dirty Seely Scrabble-fest.

Desolation Days