Our summer cruise was starting to wind down, and we now had the most dangerous things a cruising family can have – plane tickets! Seriously, having a schedule can drive poor decisions, causing you to sail when conditions dictate you should stay at anchor. We were however in familiar waters with a typically calm early August in the Salish Sea ahead of us. We also had several days of buffer to get Perception back into Squalicum Harbor where we’d arranged to leave her for a week while we visited Boise.

From Desolation Sound we headed down the mainland coast to Powell River. This is a fairly industrial looking town when viewed from the sea, but offered a welcome harbor and marina where we would finally have enough water to give Perception a good wash down. The dinghy was still in pretty bad shape from our wrestling match with the halibut we caught two weeks prior. We also looked forward to having access to a good selection of relatively inexpensive groceries – perhaps we could replenish our store of peanut M&Ms?

Powell River didn’t disappoint as a stopover for Perception. We didn’t attempt to find much to do ashore beyond reprovisioning, but being tied to a dock is always a welcome respite from the concerns of anchoring and managing the boat’s water and power.

From Powell River, we headed south towards Buccaneer Cove between North and South Thormanby Islands. We had met a friendly cruising couple during our excursion to the LeConte Glacier back in Petersburg, Alaska, and after dining with them in Prince Rupert they had invited us to stop by and see their place. Eric and Wendy have a ranch and a small herd of alpacas on North Thormanby, overlooking the Strait of Georgia. What a beautiful view they have! Grace really took to the alpacas, they looked comical with their bulbous eyes and knobby bodies – like something from a Dr. Seuss book.

Saturday dawned and we headed across the Strait of Georgia to Nanaimo. We were now just a narrows transit away from our very familiar cruising grounds of the Gulf Islands.

We stayed in Nanaimo for two days. Saturday was a solid maintenance day for me – our year-old Maxwell windlass had been having issues pulling the anchor up, requiring me to heave on the chain to help it when we were anchored in more than 50′ of water. I hadn’t yet serviced the windlass since we’d left on our trip, and it was due. It was also something I’d never personally done, as our maintenance company would do it in the off-season while we were in charter.

It was a great learning experience, as with most things that are new to me on the boat. And as usual, it probably took me 10 times as long as it will the next time around. I disassembled the windlass gypsy, re-applied grease (after a second trip to the local chandlery to get the right grease!), and put it all back together again. No leftover parts!

The maintenance itself didn’t fix the windlass problems, but I discovered that there is a simple adjustment to the clutch tension that did fix the issue. I also took the opportunity to educate the rest of the crew on how to use the clutch to manually raise/lower the anchor in case of power loss. Good stuff!

Sunday was an R&R day for us, and we spent some time exploring the Nanaimo area. We went out to the Cable Bay Trail above Dodd’s Narrows and hiked down to the water. And back up, whew! Hard work for an old man of the sea with limited opportunity for cardio exercise. We recovered from our death march by going to the Crow & Gate Pub not far away. This was an old-school English-style pub that didn’t disappoint. We tucked in to a beer and lunch, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Later that afternoon we went on a chartered fishing trip. We’d been attempting to catch a salmon for some time, but other than briefly hooking one at the surface we’d had no luck. Our charter captain took us out in a Boston Whaler which resembled a surfboard with a gigantic motor strapped to the back. We rapidly planed out to the fishing grounds around Snake Island and began slowly trolling through the area with 10 or so other boats.

We were each able to hook and land at least one salmon. Unfortunately, every one was either under the minimum size limit, or in one case a wild coho which we were not allowed to keep. Nevertheless, it was fun and gratifying to pull the fish in, even if we were denied our salmon loaf for dinner!

The next day was Monday, so back to work for the skipper. Our transit of Dodd’s Narrows was left in Melinda’s capable hands. How much we’d changed since coming north when I stressed for days about Dodd’s Narrows. This time I paid it no mind, other than timing the transit for slack tide. Perception and the other boats heading south did have to pause for a barge coming through against the waning ebb current, which caused our pilot a bit of stress. Nothing she couldn’t handle!

We attempted to go to Wallace Island for the night, as I’d always wanted to visit this intriguing sliver of land among the Gulf Islands. Sadly, the anchorages were packed, and we weren’t interested in trying to crowd our wide cat in amongst the existing boats. Another place we should have spent time visiting in the shoulder season!

We motored on to Montague Harbor, a nice wide/shallow anchorage with good holding. It would be our third stay in the bay, and just kicked back on the boat for the evening.

Tuesday we went a short distance further south to Lyall Harbor on Saturna Island, a place we’d never before visited. Once again we found a nice, roomy anchorage with good holding. Things are comparatively so very easy in the Gulf and San Juan Islands, assuming you aren’t crowded out by other boats… I can see how Lyall might build up some uncomfortable chop in northwest winds, but for our stay it was just fine.

We went ashore in an attempt to avoid cooking dinner, but found that the Saturna Lighthouse Pub wasn’t serving dinner on Tuesdays, staff shortages and all. We settled for a drink, then settled back onto Perception for the evening.

Wednesday saw us heading south again in the Haro Strait. We dodged outside the shipping lane to avoid a large cargo ship near Turn Point, causing us to hold to the Canadian side of the border instead of cutting in through US waters. Foiled! It would be several more days before we would cross the border from Canada.

We made it in to Victoria mostly on an ebb tide, making good time until we turned into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There we fought back-eddies and the start of the flood to get the last few miles in to the harbor. Victoria is old-hat for us at this point, and we are very familiar with the harbor entrance rules. We were somewhat amused to see a couple different boats get chased down by the harbor patrol for speeding in the 7-knot zone. One rarely sees an auto get pulled over for speeding, let alone a boat!

We were disappointed to learn from the harbor authority that we wouldn’t be able to take our normal (promised) spot on G-dock of Causeway, which is really the best view of the city. Strangely they had parked a number of monohulls there rather than reserving it for beamy boats like Perception. We were shunted to Ship Point instead, which would have been OK but for the superyacht docked next to and over top of us! The thing blotted out the sunset and our view to the west. I was a bit nervous even being around this monstrosity lest I incur the wrath of someone who might sue us into oblivion if we dinged their boat.

To make matters worse, another, albeit smaller superyacht soon parked on the opposite dock removing our view of the Empress Hotel and Parliment. It was like docking in a canyon! Actually not all that bad, we shared a drink with the very friendly crew of the newly arrived superyacht and were given a tour of their vessel in return. It was quite interesting learning about their jobs and life as crew to the very wealthy. We were stunned to learn that no one besides crew had ever spent the night aboard the vessel – the 5 luxurious state rooms had never been used…

Late Friday afternoon I closed my laptop and Grace and I headed off to the Royal BC Museum to see what they had on exhibit. We found a great, educational exhibit on Angkor. Fascinating to learn how the people build a stunning city and religious complex that was then effectively “lost” to the jungle (other than locals who always knew its history).

Saturday rolled around, and we started back to US waters late in the afternoon to catch the flood tide. We crossed the border under sail, buzzing right up the Haro Strait on a nice broad reach. Motoring through Mosquito Pass to Roche Harbor almost felt like returning home…

It was Grace’s birthday, and we celebrated with a visit to her favorite place in Roche Harbor – the sculpture garden. It had grown considerably since our last visit with enough new pieces to make it quite interesting to walk through again.

Sunday saw us making the familiar old trip from Roche Harbor to Jones, and then on to Bellingham and Squalicum Harbor. As we walked the forest path across Jones Island, it seemed surreal to me that we’d nearly completed our journey. We’d been out and about for nearly three months, covered almost 2,400 nautical miles, and visited over sixty unique anchorages and marinas along the way.

Our final miles were bitter-sweet for me, thinking on our long travels as a family. We squeezed through Pole Pass, made the turn in Obstruction Pass, threaded between Cypress and Toehead, and finally pushed between Lummi and Eliza Islands, and on into Squalicum Harbor. Perception had returned!