Sunday July 20, 2008

This place (Johnstone Strait) looks like something out of a Jurassic Park Movie.
We found a shark in our crab pot. I guess he ate our crabs.
We spent a quiet day at sea as we make our way to south. Jim did laundry and Lara baked. Feel free to comment on how fat we are when we get back; we will need the motivation to get back to the Gym.

We are obviously entering civilization again with numerous small fishing boats marking our way.
We anchored in Sturt Bay (off Texada Island, off the mainland BC). Once again, we found all marina’s full on the mainland. We failed to make reservation – still have not quite figured out how to make a reservation when our phones don’t work and we don’t really know where we will be from day to day. Anchoring is free; however it is remote. What an interesting anchoring it was. There were already four sailboats in position, taking up the shallow parts of the bay.

We must have looked like a monster coming in “their” small and already filled bay. Our first anchoring attempt did not catch and we were dragging toward the larger of the sailboats (they were on their deck giving us the “stink eye”).

Jim cleverly uses his laser range finder to determine if we are dragging. The range finder is hand held, battery driven, monocular, and measures distance (that Jim has from his hunting collection). With the water moving, the boat spinning on the anchor it is somewhat difficult to determine if you are, in fact, dragging the anchor or just stretching it out a bit. The second try caught and we put out the back deck chairs to enjoy a drink and to watch the sun dim (still it does not really go down).

We were rewarded with another sailboat arriving after us and their attempts at anchoring were entertaining. We were in position on the back deck with our drinks in hand. Jim gave them “the stink eye” – it’s all a part of the fun. After an hour and five attempts they got their anchor to stick.

Goofy Boat Names: Boy Toy, Hey You and YoYo. Say the boat name three times followed by “this is the Coast Guard”. All three of these boats were in trouble and talking to the Coast Guard.