Rikki-tikki-tavi, jib and staysail flying, crossing the Strait of Georgia.
The wind in Pirates Cove whipped up briskly, beginning at about two in the morning. We started out with a stern line to shore, but it became apparent that we were taking the wind on the beam and getting shoved sideways. We let off the stern line and Clark rowed out our Northill as a stern anchor on the same floating polypropylene line formerly securing us to the shore. This anchor stainless steel folding design originally built to hold light, high-windage float planes,. The Northill grabbed immediately and it held us bow into the wind and off the shore for two “breezy” (as Grandpa would say) nights.
During the highest winds, the tide was low, which kept the wind-blown waves out of the little bay. We watched a prawn boat slowly drag, inching toward one of the reefs, then bump it several times. About an hour before one low tide, a sailboat entered the very narrow entrance channel but took the inside corner too sharply. They ended up grounding on the reef, much to their embarrassment we are sure. Their boat remained stuck for two hours until the rising tide floated them off, apparently with no serious damage.
We were just a few yards away from the dinghy dock, but Rikki-tikki’s anchors held well. Clark and I watched our relative position carefully as the wind whistled through our rigging and set the wind generator to whizzing, the pitch of its vibration increasing with the gusts. The Rutland 913 is very quiet on the outside of the boat and does not disturb the neighbors. Only we, Rikki’s occupants, are subjected to its whine while on the inside of the boat. Fortunately, we can’t hear it very well from the forward cabin where we sleep.
Anchored stern and bow in the shallows, Rikki-tikki rides out the NW blow in Pirates Cove. Photo by Marcia Meyer.
Early on the 2nd of May, Juniata and Rikki-tikki motored through Gabriola Passage toward Silva Bay on the last of the flood current. We anchored in Silva Bay just off the Page's Marina. It was windy there too. A high pressure ridge was hovering over Queen Charlotte Sound with a slow drift towards Cape Scott. This was causing persistent northerly outflow winds for the Strait of Georgia, according to Environment Canada weather on the VHF. We stayed two nights, waiting for a break in the wind so we could cross the Strait. Our anemometer registered 20-30 knots during most of the second day, though the sun did peek out for a bit. Clark picked Dave and Marcia up for coffee and zucchini bread aboard Rikki the first afternoon. The second afternoon, Clark’s taxi service dropped them ashore for laundry, showers and Pocketmail. That night when we went to bed I told Clark, “If it’s not windy in the morning, let’s go!”
Dave inspecting a huge aluminum catamaran being completed at Silva Bay.
I awoke at 3 AM to the sound of no wind. It was calm and quiet. I whispered to Clark that if the wind was still not blowing when it began to get light, we should pull up Darzee and the anchor, then knock on Juniata’s hull to wake them as we went by. As we started to hoist the outboard motor onto the deck, we saw Dave and Marcia popping up into their cockpit in their foulies. Dave always likes to be first out of the barn. We wouldn’t need to wake them up! Both boats were out of the Bay before coffee. We found a flat Strait of Georgia glistening in the dawn light.
The winds were light- just perfect for changing our overly heavy mainsail reefing lines. We had been carrying around the lengths of smaller diameter Stayset since leaving San Francisco and now took advantage of the long crossing to put them in place. With all sails up, we dawdled along, enjoying the mild, sunny day. When we reached Welcome Passage, down came the sails and on came the engine- no more puffs to keep us moving against the current. As we approached Smuggler Cove, another sailboat was motoring towards us from the north. It looked very familiar but we were so focused on getting through the narrow opening and beating them (we admit it) to the inner cove where Juniata was already anchored, that we failed to identify Talisman. As the distinctive dark blue Pearson 424 ketch pulled in behind us, recognition suddenly flashed in our brains. It was Dean and Diane, whom we’d met at Port Ludlow! What a great surprise!
Juniata, Rikki-tikki and Talisman in Smuggler Cove.
Diane had never been in a kayak, so we lent her one of ours. Clark helped her get in using my technique off the stern steps. No problem, she was a natural and had much less trouble getting balanced than I had in the beginning.
Diane got settled into the kayak in no time.
We gals paddled around the cove, then out into Malaspina Strait along the shore. Next morning, we noticed that Juniata was all decked out in red, green, and white balloons with streamers. Something was up. Clark called Marcia on the walkie-talkie. She suggested a Fiesta aboard Rikki-tikki for Cinco de Mayo, a party! She paddled over to all the other boats that had come into Smuggler and invited them to come aboard the “big green trimaran” at 5 PM. We’d already planned to scrub Rikki’s bottoms, so we donned our drysuits and went to work. When it came time to relax after our labors, we picked up Dave and Marcia for a hike on the trails around the marine park. We returned just in time to greet guests for the Fiesta, with the iPod on the dashboard playing Latin music.
From September Time, we met Ernie and Elizabeth, who was also celebrating her birthday. Thirty-five years ago, Ernie and Liz had visited Smuggler Cove- this was their first time back! We also enjoyed meeting Illa and Les, Canadians from a sailboat named Illahee. Both couples have cruised extensively. We ten sailors had plenty of great stories to share on that warm evening.
Cinco de Mayo party aboard with new friends.
Talisman decided to move on but assured us they would be in Princess Louisa for Rikki-tikki’s birthday on May 10th. A day of continual rain soaked a family from Scotland that paddled into the cove late in the afternoon to pitch a tent for the night. Their four-year-old daughter sat in the FeatherCraft kayak center seat. In addition to the gear required for long distance paddling, the lightweight boat was packed with her books and toys. They told us that SE Alaska was their goal, that they had paddled Thailand and other exotic places, and that it had been a bit easier when the baby was small! They didn’t have to carry all her books and toys. People do the most amazing things.
By next afternoon, the rain had cleared, so Clark and David decided to adjust the valves for the first time on our Yanmar diesel. That done, Clark rowed over to pick Marcia up for another hike on the park trails. I found a tiny fallen bird’s nest, carefully woven with twigs, hair and threads that looked like they came from a worn out plastic tarp. I carried it back to the boat. Clark brewed up coffee at the end of the hike and, while we sipped it enjoyably, he spotted a tick crawling on my neck. The rest of the afternoon, everyone had imaginary sensations of the tiny critters crawling inside clothing. We decided that the tick had been in the bird’s nest, so we put it into the freezer in a Ziploc bag and shook out our clothes.
Rikki-tikki, Juniata and Talisman anchored in Smuggler Cove’s inner bay.
Next morning brought more drizzling rain, this time with lots of wind out around the corner- 26 knots at Merry Island. We were very comfortable in Smuggler Cove, but Dave and Marcia decided to move on up to Pender Harbour. We agreed to meet them in Madeira Park on Monday as we both wanted to hit the grocery store. The wind was whipping a bit into the inner cove so Clark and I decided to pull up the anchor and move farther into the center of the little bay for more room to swing. Clark turned the key on the Yanmar and the engine gave a big, congested “harrumph!”, like someone trying very hard to blow up a big balloon with no elasticity. I said, “Don't try that again! Something's very wrong!” Clark turned the key once again. The ominous blocked sound signaled a very grave situation and by this time Juniata was likely already in Pender Harbour.
With anxiety evident in my voice, I called Juniata on the VHF high power setting hoping they could hear, while Clark rowed over to September Time to see if they had a cell phone he could use. When Dave answered the VHF, my knees started to feel like jelly. He said they had just dropped anchor in Gerrans Bay. I said, “Dave, we have a very serious problem. Our engine won’t turn over.” At that moment, Clark reached Dave by cell phone and explained that he’d found water dripping out of the intake manifold. Though we had never experienced it, we felt we knew what the problem was. Our engine was filled with water- A VERY BAD thing. It was already 5 PM but Dave said, “Don’t do anything. We are on our way.”
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Marcia’s own account of the next several hours:
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“We were confronted by wind-driven rollers as we exited the harbor and turned our bow south. The forecast winds were up indeed in Malaspina Strait this evening and we had a rolly ride from the fetch. The wind oscillated between 15 and 27 knots most of the time and we splashed along with the jib and mizzen and the motor assisting to keep us around 6 knots of speed. When the wind dipped a little and we slowed down, we'd use more throttle, or completely back off when a gust drove us up to near 7 knots. We were rolling heavily with the waves and swell as the wind was just off our beam most of the time. After an ugly succession of waves, I backed off the throttle as we bounced through them. The engine died. S---. David jumped below and took off the engine cover and quickly bled the fuel line. All that bouncing around caused an air bubble to get to the engine from some hidden location in the fuel lines. I am so thankful he always knows what to do.
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We continued on and later got hit with a blast of wind that peaked at 36 knots which rounded us up rather quickly and I struggled to keep the bow from going too far and flogging the jib to death. The basket of utensils that live on the engine cover had been removed when David bled the fuel lines. It clattered all of its contents across the sole of the boat. We got back on course and continued, the seas abating some as we got closer to Smuggler Cove.
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We rolled in the jib and rounded up to take down the mizzen sail. We pointed the bow towards the narrow and rocky entrance. We had left this morning when the entrance was glassy flat. Now the narrow corridor had small rollers surging into the cove. David let Clark and Nina know we were at the entrance and on our way in. It was a relief to be here. Shortly after 7pm we had the anchor down in the same spot we’d left this morning, but had to set it a second time because it didn’t grab well enough on the first try. Clark immediately picked up David in the dinghy and rowed him to Rikki. It blew 20+ in this protected little cove, with gusts up to 26 for the next several hours while they troubleshot the engine problem.
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All the way down, David’s mind was turning over possibilities. Meantime, Clark and Nina were reading Nigel Calder’s books about diesel engines and they had a good idea what they felt the problem was, but couldn’t pinpoint a cause. Nigel didn’t really explain what to do about it either, Nina frustratingly pointed out. Thirty some years ago, David worked at a marina on North Shore Lake Tahoe. They had to revive many boat engines when boats got swamped at their moorings and sank.
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At one point I poked my head out to look at some dark clouds passing over and check the anemometer. I heard Rikki’s engine starting up with a large puff of gray smoke trailing in the wind behind him. I guess they figured out what was wrong and got it fixed. Whoopee! What a relief.
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It didn’t promise to be a good night for sleeping with the wind in the rigging, but if we all had to go to bed with Rikki’s disabled engine on our minds, I was sure none of us would sleep at all. The culprit was a clogged anti-siphon tube in the engine cooling system. When plugged with debris, it allowed seawater to siphon back into the engine- a simple item that can wreck an engine if it doesn’t work properly. David got back to Juniata about 9:40 PM with a couple celebratory rums under his belt proffered by Nina. It was dinner, and then bed.”
What precipitated the siphoning of water into the engine? One, the anti-siphon tube had become blocked and two, when Dave and Clark hand-rotated the engine to align the valves, the siphon action was started. They didn’t start the engine after the valve adjustment. This is when we would have noticed that the engine wasn’t properly getting water into the exhaust cooling system. Slowly overnight, the exhaust manifold filled with seawater and then began to fill the engine. If any cylinder in the engine had fired with water inside, our little diesel would have been completely destroyed. Fini. Done. No rescue possible. We were lucky that the engine valves were not in a position that made firing a possibility! We learned another very valuable lesson– again with no damage done (at least physically!).
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dave and Marcia!
May your engines always run well,
Nina & Clark