Our first venture into foreign waters

In the company of the Byrnes on  MON AMI, WHISPER heads straight into a moderate SE; past Moresby and Stuart Islands. Here is a boooee (note US pronunciation) that has a wailing horn on it. We came across another off Patos Island a few days later.

We report to customs at Roche Harbor (note spelling). American oranges and Cuban cigars are not allowed into the US. ("We're still mad at them down here."). Neither are Idaho potatoes. A bag of these, purchased at Ganges, were confiscated. Probably something to do with NAFTA.

Roche Harbor is operated by a resort company that charged $38 for mooring our Catalina 27 plus an additional $2.80 for showers. There is a hotel with restaurants, T shirt shops and manufactured 'crafts' boutiques of the sort that women like to spend time in. The hotel logo on all the cardboard coffee cups is suspiciously similar to that of Starbucks Corporation. The walkways are paved with bricks, many of which, according to their markings, were made at Clayburn, near Chilliwack.

Tied up at the docks are lots of huge plastic gin palaces with their helicopters wrapped in designer coloured canvas.

At nine o'clock there is a 'lower the flag' ceremony performed by three wholesome looking young people wearing the hotel uniform. The ceremony involves a lot of marching in place; but we are assured by the hotel brochure that there is nothing militaristic about it. First the state flag comes slowly down. Next is the Union Jack. The lady standing next to me explains that this is 'out of respect for our neighbours to the north'. Next the Canadian flag. The natives now place their right hands on their left breasts and the Starspangelled (is that one word or two?) Banner is lowered. At this point a fairly loud cannon is fired. Humphrey was not expecting it and peed on Candace's foot despite the fact that he had just been for a walk.

The original owners of the resort site was the McMillin family who ran an extensive lime producing operation. The remnants of the kilns and some of the machinery are still to be found and make for interesting gawking.

A short walk away is the McMillin Mausoleum. This is a 'must see'. Visualize a rise in the forest on top of which stands seven twenty foot tapered Greek columns set in a circle, joined by a band at the top. One of the columns is missing, apparently broken off; its stump hanging there like a snapped-off upper molar. The hotel pamphlet tells us that it represents "... the broken column of life - the unfinished state of man's work when the string of life is broken."

In the centre is a stone platform with a large round table and seven large stone chairs. The overall design could best be described as Late Disneyesque. Cemented into each stone chair are the incinerated remains of a McMillin male. According to the inscriptions one of these was born and died on the same day in 1878, while all the others grew up to become Masons, Methodists and Republicans. Go see it for yourself if you don't believe me.

On the way back we pass a propane tank with a sign that says it is maintained by one Petro San Juan. Mexican I presume.

The next night we found well protected and quiet but very shallow anchorage a short distance away in Garrison Bay. This is the site of "English Camp" from the Pig War. It is now a national park.

San Juan Island seems to lack our beautiful yellow flowering broom. I must remember to bring some seeds to scatter about on my next trip here.

The San Juanese (or is it San Juanians?) appear not to be tree huggers. In contrast to SS, thinning/selective logging, as opposed to partial amputation, (also known as 'topping') must be happening because because people places are surrounded by attractive semi-open spaces. All electric supply is underground. They have not yet discovered metal roofs in bright blues, greens, purples, oranges and yellows such as are beginning to brighten the visual aspects of our Gulf Islands. Real estate prices are just as crazy as those we are used to.

We stop at Orcas to pee the dogs and look at the brickabrack boutiques and move on to take advantage of the arrangement we have with the Friday Harbor Yacht Club. The harbour lies off a channel with a substantial current. Lots of logs about.

Ann and Candace went grocery shopping and came back with some of King's Market's 'Beer and Bratwurst' sausages. They were just delicious with boiled cabbage. I also enjoyed their 'Seed Bread'. In this market is also to be found an enormous selection of pepper sauce with the most inflammatory labels that defy description.

Down the street at 'The Mystic Mermaid' there were 'Mount St. Helen Obsidian Emeralds'. Quite an attractive synthetic stone. The carved mermaid outside the store does not have a halter.

That night I read an article in 48 North about the Beaver. It was apparently quite a good sailing ship. It took two days for the thirteen woodcutters on crew to provide one day's supply of fuel. It never ran at night because of the fear of damage to the paddles by drift wood. Also an article on cleat and mooring line hitches with photographs to illustrate how bad it can get. I'm sure the photographs were taken at SSISC.

The next night is spent at the dock of the Orcas Island Yacht Club in West Sound. There are no boats at this dock because, according to a local, all the members have their own wharves.

We follow a windless Rossario Straight with Cherry Point Refinery on the horizon and stop for a leg stretcher at Matia Island on the way to Echo Bay on Succia. Here Ann presents us with a dozen freshly backed cinnamon buns from  MON AMI's galley. Next morning we see a McGregor sailboat with a 50 HP engine fly past at about 25 knots. Odd sight.

A little later the Coast Guard announces that it has received a report of a plane down off Patos Island. My binoculars confirm that this is indeed true and we are about two miles off. With adrenalin flowing and hand shaking I inform the Coast Guard that  WHISPER is off to the rescue. I can see the headlines now: "Local yachtspersons are heroes ....". As it happens we have a very strong tide against us so that even with Yamaha screaming at full power we barely move and it will clearly take several hours to close the gap. We watch in disgust as a 'Vessel Assist' boat roared up to the 'victim' and then announced that it was a float plane which had intentionally set down to collect water samples.

By the time we got to East Point at the south end of Saturna where Mike on  MON AMI was hunting the elusive Ling Cod, the tide had turned and was again roaring in the opposite direction to where we were heading. I really must get a tide book one of these days. Behind us the previously calm sea, now in apparent anger, flaunted foam topped swirling patches that made nasty sucking noises in our direction. Yamaha was again given all the gas she could drink. The genoa was deployed. Lowrance announced we were doing 6.8 knots. Careful observation of the shoreline revealed a just perceptible forward movement.

Realizing that it was going to take some time to reach Bedwell, our next stop, and in order to demonstrate nonchalance at what could conceivably be perceived by the uninitiated, as a slightly tense situation, I engaged Auto and went below to peel potatoes.

Harrison and Humphrey dreamed of chasing cats and twitched in their sleep. Candace, having admirable confidence in my command of the situation, immersed herself in some light recreational type reading (Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of Empire". Fourth Edition).

While we were thus occupied,  WHISPER's keel, and then rudder, made contact with a 10 metre long 1,266.465 kg log which happened to be travelling in the opposite direction.

The weight is an estimate based on the assumption that water logged fir has a density in the vicinity of 0.98973 grams/ml. Note the correct use of metric units. I submitted an early draft of this article to a friend who noted that I had originally incorrectly used 'Kg' instead of 'kg'. While on the subject of measurements, I feel compelled to draw readers' attention to the fact that our unit of distance - km - is most often incorrectly pronounced 'kilòmetre (with the emphasis on the o). The correct pronunciation is 'keelomeeter', same emphasis as in kilogram. Did you know that originally, in 1812 or whenever, the French defined the metre in terms of the distance from the equator to the north pole along the meridian passing through Paris, making it 10,000 km. This same distance, as every sailor knows, is 90 degrees, or 5400 nautical miles. So 10 km = 5.4 kn, or 1.9 km = 1 kn. A meter, by the way, is something entirely different.

But I digress.

The encounter knocked the tiller out of Auto's grasp and  WHISPER took it upon herself to alter course towards the sucking noises.

I found this unsettling, and I uttered an expression of astonishment. ('Holy Catfish', I believe). This woke the boys. They have what I consider to be an unhealthy interest in cats.

Candace - bless her, she is such a calm woman - gave me a reassuring smile, and went back to her book.

Fortunately  WHISPER escaped the incident with only a jammed rudder so my superior seamanship and encouraging signals from  MON AMI were sufficient to get us into Bedwell Harbour a few hours later.

We were greeted by an enthusiastic customs person who confiscated the Idaho potatoes that had been purchased to replace the original supply. Probably something to do with NAFTA. The boys' passports certifying that they were free from rabies when they left Saltspring were inspected, and  WHISPER was thoroughly poked around in to confirm that we were not carrying Canadian oranges or Colombian cigars.

The hunt had been successful and barbecued cod (with rice) was on the menu. The rest of this story is pretty boring, so I'll stop here.