Sailing to Montague Harbour

I went to Montague Harbour for the 23^rd and 24^th of May and had a fantastic time! I set out Sunday morning and after p*ssing about in the “Coal Hole” (a bad current right outside my home harbour entrance) for a bit, I replaced my blind optimism with reality and motored a kilometer up the channel into cleaner waters.

I sailed for an hour and was into Swanson Channel (where the ferries and shipping traffic are) making an average 5.5kn in a broad reach. It was windy and when I got toward the top of Pender, I decided to change out my head sails as I felt I was a bit overpowered. That took 10 mins and I was underway again tearing up to my destination.

I crossed Swanson and rounded Prevost in short order and all that was left was a trip across Trincomali to the entrance of Montague Harbour. I fired up the motor when I got close, but due the chop, current, and wind I almost idled all the way into the entrance as I was worried about my dinghy line fouling my prop. (note to self, towing the dinghy is worse that it seems like it should be, so find a different dinghy!)

I found Quintessence anchored in the middle of the harbour so I headed for them to raft up for the day. The wind was up pretty good so my first approach was wide and the wind carried me off quickly. I rounded and came in again for a much better approach and withing about 3 or 4 minutes we were rafted up together.

GPS track of the trip

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The harbour it turns out can make a fair bit of wind all by itself, so we were in a good blow for the whole time we spent there, but we could drink, eat and visit so that made us warm. The drinking especially.

We continued this way for the rest of Sunday…

I should probably mention a couple things here. First, I decided that even though there was 12knots of wind on in the harbour when I arrived Sunday, I decided (after a few drinks) that we should check out the fit of the spare mainsail Kaj had, so I went over to my deck and proceeded to take down my mainsail. I ripped the leech on my main in the process and all I thought was “cheap sail”.

It wasn’t the booze talking. Really… ;)

Well, I stuffed it into the cabin to repair later on and got the other main to run up. The tack wasn’t going to fit into the gooseneck as the grommet was over-sized, but me, full of liquid courage, decides a wrench will help it in nicely.

Yes I broke it too….

Stop laughing.

Anyways, I said to Kaj “We should probably go back over to your boat before I sink mine…”. he agreed and we retired to the cabin on Quintessence to eat, drink and ponder existence.

The evening saw us empty some beers and some bottles of wine after which we all retired to our respective cabins. I stumbled over to Scotch Mist and found the lights, the heat and the berth. I awoke at 4am to find all my cabin lights on and realized I hit the pillow and never looked back. Ahh well. I was IN the boat so I counted it a plus. I had a smoke in the cockpit, drank some water, and went back to sleep.

Scamper being the queen of the boat

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I woke up close to 7 and made coffee, looked around at my really messy boat with sails covering the main cabin and remembered that I have some repairs to make. I made coffee, cleaned up the boat, nursed my head, and examined my sail. Small repair thankfully.

When we got up on Monday, the Bakery boat was still off our starboard quarter so after organizing the boat a bit, I jumped in the dinghy and rowed over to buy us all some fresh, homemade cinnamon buns (for which they are famous for).

We sat on Quintessence getting sticky fingers and they certainly lived up to their reputation of being delicious :-) We planned our trip back and decided to head out around 2pm to go with the tides, and we would transit Captains Passage for the journey home.

The bakery boat

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It was about 10:30 and we had a few hours yet to spend anchored so we all went to shore. Kaj’s clan piled into their dinghy and I mine, and off we went to the Dinghy docks. We spent an hour and a half wandering through the campground, and across the shell beach on the north side, and then finally returned to the dinghy docks to head for our boats. It was beautiful as the sun shone and the wind settled a bit.

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We sat around in the sun on the Shel beach for a while while the girls explored, the dog ran, and the clams spurted from their holes. Fun was had by all.

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We departed promptly at 2 and by 2:30 we were both crossing Trincomali channel heading for the top end of Prevost island. It was awesome to finally be out sailing with Kaj and Marion.

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We were beating and it was splendid.As we made our way past the entrance to Long Harbour, the Ferry came by and I was quite thrilled as I was about to realize a dream I had almost forgotten.

I think I was 21 or 22 when I had first come to Vancouver Island, and I remember watching a sailboat from the deck of the ferry and waving at them along with everyone else as we passed them. It was blissful and I remember thinking one day I would be on the other side of this scene living “the dream”, with gobs of people on a ferry somewhere dreaming of what I represented, and waving and cheering and whistling jovially at me.

it was 3:45pm when I found this old dream in the back of my mind, and it came rushing out amidst the whistles, screams, cheers and frantic waving from those on board the passing ferry. As with many of the moments in my life I have shared with only myself, I will not tell you if I shed a tear just then, but suffices to say it was a most excellent moment for me, alone on the ocean, with friends not far ahead, and the wind not far behind.

I spent the next 3 hours transiting Captains Passage not caring about much at all. I was where I wanted to be and the direction or speed or destination really didn’t matter to much to me just then…