Haircuts and Haulout

We are now less than a week away from our departure date, which has shifted to Sunday, August 17 for various reasons. It has been a hectic week of packing a well furnished 3 bedroom house into a small bedroom and crawlspace, sorting through clothes to select from 3 bedroom closets what will fit into 2 rubbermaid containers, and working on various boat projects.


We hauled out Ladybug and cleaned and painted her bottom, raising the waterline an inch to allow for Rani's stuff and additional stores for the trip. We waxed her sides and changed the fluids in the outboard. Although there was not much growth after 16 months in the water, her speed under motor increased by 2 knots at the same RPM! It will be critical to keep her clean on the trip and we will be doing a fair bit of in-water cleaning using a snorkel and mask.





We also learned another valuable cruising skill - how to cut each other's hair. See below for some before and after pictures. Our friend, Joanne Rife, was in control (and fixed our mistakes), explaining how to achieve a layered cut, where to leave hair fuller, and how to thin - just using a comb and scissors. We will try a small trim again this week.












Other projects completed this week include curtains (again our friend Joanne came to the rescue and helped us sew these) and installation of the autopilot. The missing wheel clamps for the autopilot arrived from the UK and installation took only an afternoon. We have also managed to squeeze in a couple of hikes, a swim in the Cowichan river, and a morning at the opening ceremonies of the Indigenous Games...

In the Cruising Mode

Last week on the way to the Cal sailboat rendezvous at Thetis Island, I finally started to get into the cruising mode. Despite there being much to do before we head south, the constant flow of jobs on the boat has slowed to a trickle and I can now relax and enjoy things. Lights winds and a change of tide around 10 am put Ladybug at Discovery Island, where I anchored off the abandoned coast guard boat shed. I hiked the trail to the lighthouse and campground beyond, snacking on some early blackberries and photographing the shoreline and passing ships. The shallows between Discovery and the Chatham Islands were full of seals including mothers with their pups. The babies nuzzled the mothers for reassurance as I rowed by in Little Bug'r (Ladybug's tender). Around 2pm, the ebb current had slowed enough to resume sailing and Ladybug drifted slowly to Sidney Spit where I dropped the hook at dusk - about 12 hours of sailing and 20 minutes under motor.

The next morning, Alex from UK Sails met me at the Port Sidney marina to take my spinnaker in to be recut as a cruising chute - this will be much easier to use than the present racing configuration, and does not cost that much. I then sailed to Maple Bay, dodging ferries and navigating Sansum narrows with a light following wind. Rani came on board at the public jetty and we sailed to Kuper Island for the night and then on the next day to Thetis Island marina where the rendezvous was being held. There were nearly 20 Cal and Crown sailboats ranging from a 23' Crown to a Cal 39, with several 29's in attendance. Apart from a barbecue, there were no organized activities and people chatted amiably on the docks or invited each other aboard their boats. It was inspiring to see how many owners had renovated their vessels with ingenious changes to make them comfortable cruising homes. I particularly liked one Cal 34, a slightly larger cousin of our 29, but much roomier, with a separate forepeak double berth, an enclosed head,and a nicely laid out galley. Definitely a classic case of two-foot-itis (or in this case 4 foot-itis as the Cal 34 is just over 33 feet long).

One incident marred the otherwise enjoyable weekend - I slipped on the brand new cedar docks and sprained my left ankle. Thankfully, a kind American woman from a nearby motor yacht saw the fall and hurried over with a huge bag of ice, produced by her onboard ice maker. This and a few other slips and scars led me to comment to one cruiser that I would probably be a multiple amputee by the time we reached Mexico!

I sailed Ladybug back from Thetis Island, dropping Rani off at Maple Bay for her last week of work, and returned to the marina to wrap up a few things. On July 31 Rani and I had a farewell 'open boat' on Ladybug and said goodbye to friends in Victoria with wine and snacks,departing once again for Maple Bay the next morning. I will miss my neighbors, Mary the gardener, with her little house boat, and John - a spry older Brit on an English-built ocean cruiser. Jim, the owner of Hidden Harbour marina, presented me with a Hidden Harbour burgee (flag) to fly from the spreaders in Ladybug's travels.

On the way to Oak Bay, I finished off the solar panel and charger installation that had occupied me during the last days at the marina, and collected a few friends for the sail to Sidney. We polished off the remnants of food from the 'open boat'as well as a few bottles of vino and chatted about life and sailing and psychology (2 of my guests were working on their PhD's in his area). It was another slow sail with light, mainly easterly winds and we only made Sidney around 8pm.
Last night (Aug 2) was Rani's going away party thrown by her friends at work. Loads of people showed up at the Pioneer House restaurant where, despite it being a steak house, vegetarian Rani was able to find a tasty Mexican entree. Rani's co-workers are a great bunch of people and I know she will miss them. They made me feel welcome, too, despite me being the cause for Rani's departure!

We haul out on Tuesday to put on copper bottom paint, service the outboard, and repair a few dings in the hull.

Getting Ready - Part 2: Gaining Experience

Compared to getting the boat prepared, gaining the necessary experience for a longer cruise has been an extended and incremental process. A few of the steps we have taken in this direction are:

• Building our practical sailing experience by day sailing, short cruises, and a couple of longer ones
• Learning to live aboard both at the dock and at anchor
• Learning to live together in confined spaces
• Sailing overnight
• Sailing in heavy weather

My longest cruise to date is around Vancouver Island, when in 2005 I sailed Optima, another CAL-29 counter clockwise from Victoria. I cruised with different crews every week or 2 and, interrupted by a bout of double pneumonia and running aground, completed the trip in 3 months. Other notable cruises include 3 weeks in Barclay Sound last summer that included 2 overnight passages, and some extended cruises in Nova Scotia ranging from a week to nearly 3 weeks.

I have lived aboard Ladybug for nearly 18 months, surviving a mild west-coast winter. Most of this time was spent at Hidden Harbour Marina in Victoria - a friendly little place near the mouth of Victoria Harbour. It has been a bit of an adjustment moving from a 1400 square foot house to a boat with about 150 square feet of usable area. Taking a morning shower requires a trip along the docks, up a ramp that can be quite steeply inclined depending on the tide, and across an acre of gravel to the lone shower/bathroom. Usually I am successful, in that no one else is using the facilities at 6:30 am, but I am occassionally foiled and end up sponging off in the boat. Laundry is a similarly distributed affair entailing a kilometer hike up hill to the nearest laundromat.

In the winter the boat becomes a walk-in cooler, so refrigeration is not the issue it becomes in the warmer months. I do not run a refrigerator, nor do I have a TV or phone hookup (I use a cell phone) reasoning that these things will not be available while cruising. I use propane for cooking and an electric space heater and bubble wrap insulation to keep warm (a kerosene bulkhead heater was used during last Christmas's cruise). [Note - I don't wear the bubble wrap - it was taped to various bits of the boat to reduce the conductivity of the thin fibreglass walls]. The boat is a neatly contained bachelor apartment and very easy to clean, but it does require a habit of neatness because your dining room is also your bedroom, living room, storage closet, and kitchen...

Rani and I have been practicing the skills of living and cruising within the confines of a boat during a brief winter cruise and a series of increasingly longer spring and summer trips. We also went winter camping in the mountains, living in a small tent for 3 days - a true test of our togetherness. So far, so good, but we are only up to 4 days in a row on the boat. The 2 week shakedown cruise planned for August 15 will be a good test of compatibility!

I have done a few overnight sails across the Strait of Juan de Fuca (busy shipping lanes) and out to Barclay Sound and back as well as a few nighttime trips in Nova Scotia. We do not have any multi-day bluewater experience. This will have to wait for our shakedown cruise or possibly the initial run down the Washington Coast.

My experience in heavy weather is limited to sailing through a few landsman's gales (30 knots or so), the tale end of a hurricane (downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached us), and a couple of brief gales where the wind hit 40 knots in the gusts (enough to lay over the Cal-29 with a double reefed main and no jib). I have had Leitch McBride make a heavy air jib (reefable) and have tried this out in winds to 30 knots, with great success. It remains to be seen how we and the boat will deal with our first real storm...

Getting Ready Part I - The Boat

We will be taking Ladybug, a stock US-made Cal-29 on this trip. Upgrades that have been done or are in progress include:

• New lifelines and running rigging
• Solar cells (2 X 65 Watt cells that are specially designed to fit between the stanchions and pivot to catch the sun)
• A slightly used wheelpilot (Navico WP5000) to give us a break from hand steering
• A forespar whisker pole for use in downwind runs
• A new 100% jib that reefs down to about 60% (the foot being rolled up in the same way that a mainsail is reefed). The jibs that came with the boat are original and a little tired, so this will be used in heavier airs.
• Additonal tankage for water installed where the diesel tank used to be (under the cockpit)
• A new 9.9 Yamaha high thrust outboard in a cut-out in the transom. This frees up a lot of space under the cockpit where the diesel used to live. This area now contains tools, spares, books, camping gear, and the extra water tank. The outboard has the advantage of being simple, accessible, and its position immediately behind the helmsman encourages one to sail
• A new dodger (currently under construction from a SailRite kit with the the help of my friend Jamie and his trusty Pfaff sewing machine)

There are a hundred other little things to attend to (including storm shutters for the windows, loads of spares, new oars for the hard dinghy...)

Everything comes together

I have dreamed of cruising South for nearly 20 years and have had concrete plans to do so since 2000. Only now have cirmcumstances converged to make this a reality:

1. I have just completed a 2 years Masters degree and am officially unemployed as of July 1
2. I have met a lovely woman who is a keen adventurer, does not get seasick often, and grew up without indoor plumbing (all valuable cruising traits!)
3. I have recently sold a house and have put away enough to do some extended cruising
4. I have lived on a boat for more than a year and accumulated a modest amount of cruising experience over the last 10 years - enough to risk trying a longer passage.

I would be crazy to turn away from this opportunity...

Cruise to Mexico

This blog is to keep friends, family, and anyone else who is interested up to date on how things are progressing on the planned sailing cruise to Mexico. Ladybug is the name of the boat (see picture). Rani and I plan to leave in mid-August 2008 and do a couple of weeks cruising in local (Vancouver Island waters) before heading south...