Whales, Shipwreck, and Learning the Boat

Dear friends and family,

Blog 2 of 3

I wrote earlier of some of the challenges of the Raid. Now I will share some of the amazing rewards of being out here in a little boat.

First and most important were the whales. Most days we saw whales from a distance, but on two occasions even close. On a race one day a few humpback whales decided to join us by coming into the middle of the fleet. Big, forty foot long whales right next to our little boats. Someone mentioned that whales cannot detect anything directly above them, but I find that hard to believe since they did not surface and take any of our fleet high into the air with them. 

And on the second to last day, a long slow row to Rebecca Spit, I was last in the fleet, with most boats getting towed by a mother ship. And right behind me (remember I am rowing and facing backwards) and I mean right behind mea forty foot humpback breeched straight into the sky, clearing her whole body out of the water. If I had not seen this for myself I would not have believed it, just imagine the power to get about forty tons of body completely out of the water. It caused quite a wake but no fear.

I don’t want to skip over the natural beauty of the places we went. This part of Canada is gorgeous and we often tucked into little corners of this world (in shallow water) where big boats could not go. Once settled onto either the beach or anchored, the land exploring was fun and took me to many places I’d never been before. And with warm water to swim explore as well.

One night as we were congregating on the beach next to a long sand spit, that at the highest tide was just under the surface of the water, we watched a 34 foot sailboat sail not towards the marked channel at the end of the spit, but directly into the middle and go hard aground. The skippper let out all sail to try to power over the sand, but had not a chance. 

Within ten minutes another sailboat under full sail headed straight for the middle of the spit as well. We all held our breath at the amazingness off this, but the boat slowed briefly as it dragged across the sand, but continued over into deeper water on the other side. It must have had a very low (shoal) keel to have made it. We wondered if they had any idea of what they just did or were oblivious!

Since the first boat went aground at the highest tide, it laid over on its side all night and all the next day, waiting for the next evening’s high tide. One of our group of raiders found a shovel and dug a long and deep trench next to the keel so the boat might pull itself off with an anchor. 

The twenty something skippper claimed he had a concussion, having been hit in the head when the boom jibed across, and thereby rendering his reasoning powers useless. I talked with him briefly and could see that there was something wrong with him, but not sure what.

Of course the raiders group included someone who could administer craniosacral therapy to help with his “concussion”. And the group support seemed to buoy this young skipper up.

He did manage to get off the next night using his anchor as a kedge, and a larger sailboat of a friend of his towed him to safety, as he had crapped his driveshaft the month earlier when he ran aground. 

I am not much of a sailboat racer, so each day the one or two races were challenging for me, with the boat traffic at the start and turning points and the competitiveness of the skippers. I barely know how to sail this little boat, so did learn a lot by being next to other boats and comparing sail trim with speed. Turns out I came in 10th place for the week (out of 20 I think) just goes to show how showing up day by day makes a difference. 

Near the end of a long day racing as we were coming into an anchorage the wind was dropping and dropping with boat speed going from six knots to just below two. I was relaxing and getting the boat ready to anchor when a huge gust hit me from the side, knocking me hard enough to have the mast touch the water and filling the cockpit of the boat with water. Because of the open stern, it all ran out very quickly and he boat rounded up and then quickly resumed its slow progress forward. I managed to stay in the boat, only wet from the action. Proof that this boat does indeed right itself, just like in the demonstration of it online.

I sure was glad to have my cockpit tent to protect me from the wind and rain. Ian and Janice on the other xp20 had no tent and I felt for them with much more exposure. How they changed clothes inside is mysterious to me as I surely couldn’t. 

With my typical extra safety attitude, I carry a rather large anchor relative to the size and weight of the boat. It allowed me to anchor on very short scope and be sure she was not going anywhere. This was handy in some of the tight anchorages where there wasn’t room to swing.

It seemed like I brought a lot of gear, but I ended up using most of it.

What I missed:

1. A second butane canister as my first ran out of fuel early on so I could not make coffee aboard when I woke up. 
2. A very long line to tie the anchored boat to shore like other skippers did.
3. More skills sailing a small boat. I see that I have a lot to learn, but did learn a lot in this Raid so far.

More to come…

Sending love,

Charley