The sun returns

Dear friends and family,

It really didn’t take long, two short weeks of solid rain and then the barometer shows a huge rise and the sun returns. The forecast is for several days of this clear sky. Within a couple of hours in this sunny day, the boat is dry. We have been living without our heater for several days now after I realized that I had almost used up the supply in the diesel tank that fuels it. Since we were at least two weeks away from a fuel dock, we had to be miserly in the heat use. Life became a little more like camping in the cold, getting out of the warm bed meant adding several layers of clothes so we could be comfortable in the cabin termps in the 50’s F. It does seem that we are getting very used to these temperatures so that 60 degrees F feels cozy. (Well almost).

This afternoon we have plans to transit the Bay of Pillars narrows, which is a rock strewn passage to get us into a very remote inner bay. One of our guidebooks strongly recommends transiting this only after prior exploration by dinghy, but another warn about looking for rocks and having plenty of water to get through. I will write about it right after we transit. 

THE TRANSIT AND THE OTHER SIDE.

With some trepidation we headed towards the Narrows. Timed it for high water slack, as we heard the currents can run 4 knots either way at peak tidal stream. The chart showed enough water depth, so I followed the deep parts of the channel in. There were significant swirls of current all through the narrow part, which made steering hard, as I had to turn full port and then full starboard to try to correct for a straight course. As my father used to say “looks like you are drinking again”, when someone drove a curvy course. Nope, dad, I wasn’t drinking, but if you saw my course you might think so. Maybe I’d have steered a straighter course. Maybe next time.

We were just visited by Allan, who lives in a house next to the abandoned cannery in the outside harbor. He spotted us motoring past yesterday and greeted us on the radio friendly and invited us to visit him and the old cannery. We thanked him and I told him we were looking forward to being at anchor, so we drove past.

Today, we heard the outboards of Allan’s mini landing craft boat as he approached for a chat. With him holding on to our port side, we heard his story. He bought the cannery about ten years ago and lived there now with his dog Juneau, who was on the boat.

This cannery was private property in this Forest Service area, so he could buy the land. He had an idea to have a nonprofit to serve veterans and at risk kids in this wild country. His board of directors wanted to collect money and spend 5% on the property and keep the remainder,which he didn’t approve of so they disappeared and  so now it’s just Allan and Juneau in the big lodge type house.

I asked about where he goes for groceries and he answered that he was mostly self sufficient in the summer, living on fish, shellfish and foraged plants. 

He has a slow internet connection at the house to stay in touch with the outside world and visits with anyone passing through. He said occasionally one of the small cruise ships calls in here and the passengers visit the old cannery and hear his story. 

We touched on some of our liberal versus his conservative views on things and he mentioned that he was open to listening and being open minded about things. Since I am so sure that my point of view is the correct one, it was good to hear that he might have some chance of being converted. At least I’m not stuck in my one way of thinking 🤔 

He admired our boat and way of living and seemed slightly perplexed that we don’t fish or hunt, but listened to our story of enjoying the wild country and wild life here in other ways. 

I am spending some time watching the solar panels increase the charge in our battery bank. It’s a little more interesting than watching paint dry except paint  doesn’t give you electricity as it dries so there is a reason.

As I scroll through the settings for electricity I was perplexed at the “inf” indicator of the use rate versus the charge rate when it is sunny. It took a while to dawn on my simple mind that this meant that at the rate we were using electricity versus the rate of charge that we could live like this for “infinity”. Seems like a long time to me. Wonder if the food would last that long?

After an exploratory row in our amazing anchorage, I washed off the sweat with a dip in the 52 degree F water. almost balmy. Maybe summer is coming after all.

Sending  love,

Charley