Seabbatical Adventures: Day 4, June 26th Back to the North Channel

Day 4 – Back to the North Channel

Up at 07:00 Cove Island and off to Hayward Island located in the North Channel which is part of our old sailing grounds. We want to do some sailing in our familiar territory so that we can spend some time with less stress while we learn the boat and all of its systems. We have been sailing in the North Channel for about 10 years so the sailing and navigation is not new to us, just the boat.

We follow our track out of the cove to ensure we don’t hit anything. A bit of stress as again Dawson and Julie use differing navigational tools to determine where to go. We manage to get past all the shoals into deeper water and set our sails. Once again the winds seem favourable. We do like to run the engine a bit to charge the batteries. We have a fridge and freezer that like to eat battery power as well as our BFF Slim. Once the sails are up it is quiet and peaceful and we can continue reading our manuals and cleaning the boat. Julie is taking a toothbrush and scrubbing off all the black marks on the fiberglass. This is day 2 of toothbrush scrubbing and it is showing some good results. Next is the wax. Dawson is figuring out the reefing lines which have not been used previously on this boat. Both of us feel it is important to be able to reef, so, on the lines go. Turns out we have to move some other lines around to free up the appropriate tackle for reefing.

The winds fall off a bit and we consider hoisting the DRS (assymetrical spinnaker sail). Again we will have to see if all the rigging gear is on board and how exactly it is rigged. Glenn has left us some good notes, so we will read through the notes and figure it out. As we are reading the wind picks up and we decide we don’t need the DRS sail. We abandon the set up and finish the reefing lines instead.

The day proceeds and we are sailing at about 5 knots. Arrival time should be around 19:00. Sufficient daylight to make harbor. Haywood represents “making it to the North Channel” so we are quite looking forward to that achievement. Julie continues to wax the hull and even do some vacuuming.

Finally we make anchor at 19:00. It is hot and we are exhausted so we go for a swim. The water temperature is lovely. Not shocking at all. Julie is happy with the swim platform which makes it very easy to get on and off the boat from the water. On the way out of the water, there is an opportunity to scrub the transom for bugs. Dinner is at 21:00 and then bed. Hope those noisy loons don’t keep us up. One in particular is making quite a noise. Not sure if it is protecting a nest or attracting a friend. Either way it is making lots of noise.

Cheers Julie and Dawson