sailing away again...

its time to go sail out on the pacific ocean again. we have worked hard to get ready and now we are waiting for the right winds in victoria. i will post some pics from the past winter with this post plus a recent one of leaf and his new/old guitar.

more pics...

early summer 2011

this last winter was challenging and rewarding. we shared winter with several communities on the west coast of vancouver island. we went to schools, markets and potlucks. i caught several rock cod, a nice big ling cod and lots of crabs. we made new friends and discovered a few old ones. we survived many harsh winter storms in remote harbours. we anchored right out front of uclulet and tofino in storms over 40 knots. we felt strong and survived with no damage. 300 feet of 3/8 high test chain, 1500 watt bronze italian windlass and 70 lbs cqr style anchor made by steve trembley has given us a great deal of security.

we are now selling our jewelry in galleries and sharing this blog with our customers. so welcome and thanks for your purchases. in this blog you will find many adventures from our past. it is never up to date because we dont want anyone to worry if we are ok or not. we just want to share some of our adventures and make a link with those who share and support our dream of life long cruising. and although this blog is often neglected it is never forgotten. i hope you enjoy our blog.

November 19, 2010
Banfield B.C.

It’s been over a month since we headed out to sail to Hawaii but we were blown north up to Barkley Sound. It was quite a challenge to find a safe anchorage at night in a place that we had never been before. Barkley sound is one of the most beautiful places we have ever sailed to but coming in at night into the sea of rocks called the Broken Islands was very challenging. We were glad for our high-powered flashlight, radar, depth sounder and our g.p.s. showing our place on our computer charts. It was a dark cloudy night with no moon or stars to help us. It was with great relief that we dropped anchor in a nice safe harbour.

At dusk we were still about an hour from the islands and a large whale swam right toward us. We had seen it a couple of times spouting but it had been far away. The whale seemed to know well were we where and swam right to us. We steered to port to try and miss it. For a moment it seemed it was going to ram us but at the last moment it dove under our boat right in front of us flashing its giant tail and gave us a great thrill. To us it seemed to say welcome to the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

We have had a great time discovering the area and have been sailing all around here for the last several weeks. The weather has been all over the place including many storms with winds reported up to fifty knots.

Uclulet offered great walks along wild Pacific beaches, interesting shops and good anchorage through several storms. The Broken Islands are a huge marine park with safe anchorages, ancient village ruins and incredible hikes. We also have visited the Deer Group Islands and Poetts Nook.

After passing through a narrow passage through the Deer Islands called Robbers Passage we dropped anchorage for a lunch break and a walk to the beach only to find that our zodiac was missing. We immediately raised anchor and retraced our path back through Robbers Passage and luckily found our dingy floating out in the open sound, but it was floating over a dangerous reef. We took our chances and steered out over the reef watching our location on our digital charts carefully. We hooked the painter with a boat hook and motored off the reef. It was a bit frightening as we could see rocks only a few meters below.

We tied up for the night on a dock in Robbers Passage and spent a couple of days exploring this wonderful area including seeing a big buck right on the trail just two meters away who looked at us for awhile and then calmly strolled away.

We are presently in Banfield, a nice village that has a school with about 20 children. Leaf has been going to school almost every day for half a day. It is a great break for him from our isolated lifestyle. The teachers are welcoming and the children seem to enjoy meeting a new boy. There is a little public library which we have been enjoying including watching a few DVDs.


November 24, 2010
Banfield

Our starter motor broke and needed replacing. The local marine shop helped us locate one and shipped it here. We were very handicapped without an engine and there has been a series of issues that has made a very challenging week. A cold snap and severe storms have made living without an engine at anchor frightening sometimes. Our dinghy’s motor was stored in the hold for our hopeful offshore passage, the dingy motor could have helped us get to a dock if we needed while our main engine was inoperable, but being so cold and icy we didn’t want to bother to put the engine back on the dinghy. So we sat at anchorage through some severe blows with not too much lee if we dragged anchor. The bay filled with white caps as the storm blew at the exact worse angle. Without an engine we could not recharge our batteries and our solar panels are not too efficient when there is no sun. So we had limited lights at night and a few other inconveniences.

So we sat for a over a week out in the bay doing little but surviving and praying things did not get worse. The first starter motor we ordered was the wrong one so we had to wait for a new one, then the parts company forgot to put the replacement on the freighter that serves this area but eventually it came and it all worked better than new. We are all grateful that our boat if fully operational again. I am very connected to the boat and when it not working well I am not at my best either.

In Banfield the locals telephone in their food orders to a supermarket in Port Alberni who deliver it to the docks where a freighter makes bi-weekly trips up the inlet to remote communities. We just made a large food order ourselves. We are still enjoying the area and we are planning to go to a craft fair on Saturday to sell some of our crafts. Yvonne and Leaf went to a community potluck a few days ago and had a great feast and everyone loved the cake Yvonne made. Leaf has been entertaining the local kids with balloon sculptures and magic tricks.

We are still open to sail to Hawaii, this area being a great jumping off point for the crossing. It is more dangerous and cold to go so late but we will go if the winds are favorable. It is more likely that we will continue winter cruising on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island. This too is a bit dangerous but we have five years of winter sailing experience and we have been enjoying the adventure and the beauty of the area. We have seen very few other boats about except local fishermen. Although the area can be very rough to sail it also offers many safe anchorages and we have good weather information to guide us. We are planning to head further north to Tofino and explore the Clayquaot Sound if we don’t sail to Hawaii, which becomes more unlikely as winter approaches. We are especially looking forward to the hot springs north of Tofino on Flores Island that has a safe anchorage.

ucluelet?

we sailed off the coast of washington but got no wind and the forecast was against us, so we sailed up to ucluelet and we are now enjoying the west coast of vancouver island 'till the winds change to our favor. we anchored at night in a sweet bay on effingham island. it was challenging anchoring at night in a unknown bay but all worked out fine. it feels lots better than fighting the wind or slopping around with no wind. there may be a change in the weather in the next week or so. we use passageweather.com for a guide.

sailing to ukulele islands

today we are going to leave victoria and head out to the pacific ocean. we will stop at a bay or two on our way out of the juan de fuca strait. thanks for all your good wishes and we hope for a fun and safe passage. fairwinds to all.

new sailing stories to come...

we have been busy in the last year since we returned to canada. leaf has been in school quite a bit and we have also been selling our crafts and beads on the sunshine coast the last two summers.
we have also been working to maintain and upgrade the boat in many ways.

some improvements and maintenance includes a new chain and windless, a new (used) radar, furling gear on the head sail, lots of sanding and painting (endless), two solar panels and a new wind vane on our auto helm (the old array on the radar worked great for this, pics coming), i also replace the old broken winches on the davits for lifting the dingy with the old wire winches from the maisail and jib that i removed in san francisco, sails repaired and lots of other small but important repairs and improvements.

we are hoping to sail to hawaii this fall. i will post more info when we get there.

CANADA!

we made it. an awesome sail lasting 28 days. great weather. great sailing. no major problems, just some wear and tear on sails and ropes. one broken shackle. we had great meals and our fresh food lasted until the last day.

thanks all for your prayers and blessings.
i will post more later about this passage and our whole voyage.

best wishes

good bye hawaii...

heading on our last leg of this voyage back to canada tomorrow.
we will probably be sailing for about a month. maybe our most challenging sail yet.

leaf bought himself a ukulele as you can see in photo.

thanks everyone for your best wishes and prayers for fair winds.

wishing star crew

hanelei bay

we are anchored in beautiful bay. voted number one beach in u.s.a.
it is also the bay in which peter paul and mary wrote about in the song puff the magic dragon, hanali. because it is beautiful and the mountains are the image of a recumbent dragon.

a wonderful place surrounded by dramatic emerald green volcanic mountains with waterfalls cascading down cliffs almost starting almost impossibly high from the tops.

the beach is long and and the sand is soft and the colour of light brown sugar.
the water is warm (27 degree)and the surf is large enough for serious surfing out by the reef, but inside the reef along the beach has a gentle swell making it lots of fun to play in. a real paradise. there is little development and the beach is so long that hundreds of people can enjoy it without seeming crowded. the surroundings are jungle like with banana plants and coconut palms and many other lush green plants and flowers.

this may be our last stop before heading back to canada. it is a real great finale to this voyage.

we have been spending our days exploring in the small character town and swimming.

birthday cookie recipe and radio link

yvonnes birthday cookies

1/3 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 egg
2t grated orange rind
2 cups flour
1/8t salt
2T orange juice
2t baking powder

mix sugar, juice, eggs and oil
stir in sifted dry ingredients
adjust flour or juice to make nice firm dough
divide into about 30-40 balls rolled in hands
balls should be about walnut size
squish lightly with fork in two directions
bake on lightly greased tray or parchment paper
bake @ 375 until light brown about 15 minutes

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we found we could get internet in the bay and guess what? cortes radio is now online, it is so fun to hear it so far away. here is the link so you can listen too...

http://www.cortesisland.com/tideline/show21s/Cortes_Radio

we made it part 2

we have been in hawaii for one day now and we are really enjoying ourselves.

we met another sailor who has a car here and showed us around the island we are on (kauai). the highlight was the farmers market and we got some nice fruit and veggies.

leaf got a new boogie board and spent an enjoyable afternoon playing with it in the surf on a brown sugar beach on the bay we are anchored. he loved it.

our passage from mexico was what one sailor told us it would be, a little of everything, storms, doldrums and perfect sailing weather. fortunately the weather was mostly very kind and it was a classic downwind run with warm steady tradewinds on our back. we got lots of rolling swells and we got seasick a bit. however, once we got our sea legs we were cooking great meals and making the most of the challenge.

we caught at least five dorado (mahi mahi) these are delicious white fleshed fish and we made great meals out of them, two i soaked in soy sauce and dried on the hand lines, they turned out great, sort of like fish jerky. we caught some barracudas but we didn’t know if they would taste good so we threw them back. we also threw back many tuna as they are not our favourite and we can only eat so much seafood.

we all read lots of books, leaf read over thirty all by himself, yvonne and i probably read a couple of dozen between us. many of the books were sailing stories so we got to share the lives and stories of other sailors who went before us like robin lee graham on the dove, bernard moitessier, triston jones, tania aebi, magellan, herman melville, joshua slocum and others. with these sailors on board, we were we in very good company.

we also played lots of board games and cards.

in one big storm, our largest headsail ripped in two along a seam. it will be repairable. we have a large inventory of other headsails so it did not slow us down too much and that was about our only problem equipment wise. not bad for 33 days of non-stop sailing.

our wind vane autopilot (lucky the monkey) worked perfectly. all the upgrades in the last while all worked out well too. the electronic addition (her boyfriend, rob the robot) on our autopilot made her steer perfectly in even the gentles of breezes or when we motored.

we had very few squalls and in the whole time out, we only changed our sails four times. we never reefed our sails. the time our big head sail ripped, i should have dropped it earlier. we sailed for weeks sometimes with no need to adjust our sails.

cooking was big highlight on board and once we got our sea legs, we ate very well. best meals included fresh hummus with homemade pita bread, mahi mahi coconut curry on rice, curried fish soup with fresh limes, mahi mahi in camelized onions, salad rolls with peanut sauce, fresh tortias with chilli and rice. we often had california wine with our meals that we had bought in san fran. every day we had at least one big glass of fresh orange juice (we brought 100 kgs of oranges with us). our fresh food lasted until the end. we brought 8 dozen eggs with us and they lasted all the way. for breakfast, we often had pancakes or apple oat porridge with soya milk. yvonne made lots of bread along the way too. someday cooking was not too easy but those days we often did not want to eat too much anyway. leaf made yvonne orange almond cookies for her birthday, they were great!

our biggest challenge over all was probably boredom but mostly we handled that well. we missed radio a lot. we had a ssb for listening for weather but it offered but little in entertainment or news.

we had lots of dreams of family and friends, they seemed very real. we really felt the prayers and blessings from them.

we are going to rest awhile here and figure out what comes next.

blessings to all.
wishingstar crew

HAWAII!

WE MADE IT!!!!! 33 days at sea from mexico to hawaii.

we had a great voyage. no real problems, one ripped head sail on seam, no big deal.

lots of reading and fishing.

the people here are friendly and we are so happy to be at a safe anchorage.
thanks friends and family for all the blessings, we had so many dreams and good feelings of many of you and on this voyage, you were really with us!

blessings to all!
i will post more later,

a few more pictures...

boat yard blues...

we have been having lots of adventures. we started back south along the baja coast and stopped at a few fishing villages. we explored old drying beds for making seasalt. we did some repairs on the playground equipment in agua verde (green water), a favorite place of ours and many others.

north of aqua verde we hit a rock! it was scarey but everything is alright. we developed a small leak and had a diver check it out. we decided we had better haul out and that we did in la paz (the peace). a nice city with a big protected harbour.

the damage was minimal but it was a bit difficult to repair. we needed new bottom paint and zincs anyway so we made the best of it. we were in the boat yard for a week and had good service from the yard.

the cruising club here in la paz is great and we met lots of cruisers and used thier book exchange and video library.

we are floating again and almost ready for our pacific crossing.

best wishes everyone
wishing star crew

hidden ports

one of the stops along the way was poerto escondido {hidden port}, it is a beautiful hurrican hole with many boats moored. some are sailors but many are just floating condos for americans and canadians so they have a cheap place to spend the winter. almost everyone here is retired and few are sailing anymore. some like us just pass through and stop to get food and supplies at the nearby city of loreto, the oldest mission in the baja.
we met many nice people here and we went for a sunday brunch at the local saiors club. one nice guy gave us a couple of rides to loreto and helped us in other ways too.
we went on an awesome hike up a canyon near here with caves, palm trees, waterfalls and pools for swimming.
we are continuing on our way to other hidden bays and valleys along the way.
i left a piece of my art here as you will see in the photos.

keeping our hooks sharp, sails trim and dingy inflated.
fair winds and flat seas my family and friends...

sailing around mexico

well we are sill having a great time in the sea of cortez. lately we have been visiting small fishing villages. leaf has been playing sports with the children. we have been making and giving beaded gifts to the people of the village. the kids are so fun and really seem to enjoy leaf. he shows them new ways to play old games and they all laugh alot, they call him by name and invite him to play when we come to visit.

salmon burgers

we are presently sailing around the sea of cortes.

it has been windy and the sea can be like the georgia straight in canada sometimes, with big steep waves. not fun if they are against you.

we have been hanging out in small bays and meeting campers and spent a few weeks in la paz. a beautiful city founded by cortez.

we are planning on an offshore voyage to south pacific in the next couple of months. this will be our longest passage yet and we are both scared and looking forward to it. we are working on repairs and some upgrades to make this passage safer and more enjoyable.

leaf has met some other boat kids and is having lots of fun making crafts and reading.

we are planning to be exploring more around the sea of cortes for the next few months, we may even go over to mainland mexico.

here is a recipie we enjoy onboard often.

salmon burgers

one can of salmon including liquid
two eggs
chopped onions
one half cup of flour
one half cup of rolled oats
one teaspoon of salt

mix all well.

tablespoon into hot oiled frypan and flatten burgers to thin round shape with flipper.

flip as it is browning a couple of times till firm and cooked.
served on a bun or with pasta is our favorite way to eat them.

we sometimes use cooked fresh fish or canned tuna or even leftover chili instead of canned salmon.

best wishes

cape condo

John Steinbeck famously wrote in his book "sea of cortes" about his privately chartered science expedition from California around cabo san lucas and north along the baja peninsula that the little place called “cabo san lucas” was little more than a bar with locals hanging around hoping someone would buy them a beer.
In less than a hundred years “cabo” as they call the whole cape section and all its golf courses, hotels and condos has grown, one could almost call it “cape condo“.

But the beauty of the land and kindness of the local people cannot be tarnished by this crass condo crisis. Many condos look like palaces and small utopias designed for tourists to get a few weeks of relaxation from the endless grind. Some of the architecture here is in a style and quality that is amazing. We have seen condos covered in sheets of onxy, crystalline and castlelike is the over all effect. grand pools and golf courses in a dessert where in the past locals could not afford a beer, now they drive sport utility trucks and shop at walmart and cosco just like americans in the north. The conundrum of growth in mexico reaches paradoxical extremes. Locals seem to agree, growth is good and bad.

chiclet gum selling momas begging outside of the high end malls where you can buy a harley motor bike or a rolex gold watch is an example of these extreems.

The cape if famously expensive and very limited for selection of fresh food, but we find endless ways to use, peppers, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, avocados, bananas, and limes. together with our dry stores, fresh tortillas and all the fish i can catch we are enjoying many fine meals.

Sailing has been good and bad too, everything. Sometimes motoring all day, sometimes sailing in warm winds that make it all worth while.

Family time has become our entertainment. Daily we make our meals, stories, games and songs.

on a bay called Los Frailes we met a nice fishing guide who was camping with his family. He and one of his sons could speak good English and we spent an evening by the campfire with them. the kids played games, flew kites and went swimming for most the next day. They gave us lots of fresh seafood including a huge piece of marlin. They were very kind and shared their views on progress in mexico.

We have met other sailors on our travels and friendships are quick and everyone gives advise and directions to favorite places and services.

One sailing family we met today had a little boy, he was only one and a half but leaf and him became friends. after we said goodbye he ran down the beach crying after us to say goodbye one last time and gave us a huge smile as we all waved back to him.

Fair winds and flat seas to all our family and friends.

yahoo! i caught a wahoo!

we made it to cabo san lucas!
the sail from bahia santa maria to cabo was a little of everything, storms, calm, and lots of good stiff breezes with perfect sailing most of the time.

cabo is amazing, horrible and great.
the marinas cost $185 dollars a night but anchoring out is free so that is our choice.
dingy dock is only $3 dollars a day and it has security so that is great.
the town has grown so much that you really can hardly know the place from even ten years ago, really it is ten times as big at least.
it is like a new acapulco or something.
with big malls that sell everything from harley davisons to fancy clothes etc.

we will stock up on food and stuff for our further adventures.

on the way down i caught lots of tuna which we all threw back since we are tired of eatting them.
but a big wahoo has made some fine meals.

we didnt get seasick on this last two day sailing trip and that is the first time on any leg so far.
the water is warm and leaf and i went for a late night swim off the boat last night.
i will post more stories later.

keeping our sails trim and our hooks sharp.
best wishes

here i am sewing up the genoa. just a few small rips and a seam came undone. leaf whipped some ropes and yvonne baked some bread and banana bread. we had a great dinner of fish tacos with the sea bass i caught. leaf is decorating the boat for christmas and then weather willing we will sail on to magdelana bay where the grey whales go every year to calf.

i will post a few more pictures from san fransico including one with leafs new ¨magic hat¨.

the good wishes and help from family and friends around the world go along way to make our adventure happen. thanks to all of you, you really are part of our crew.