CIRCUMNAVIGATING VI IN A COUPLE OF OLD BOATS

and bear enclosures. Orphaned cubs stay in the junior nursery, shielded from public view except via a livecam feed, until they’re about 18 months old, when they move to the pre-release enclosure before being set free.

Two of their most popular residents are black bears. Watching 25-year-old Knut and his younger female buddy, Rae, play and hang out together is a highlight of any visit. They are ambassadors in the centre’s quest to educate people about living with wildlife.

Over the years, Robin, Sylvia, and their family have added ponds, wheelchair-accessible pathways, art, gardens, and places to play and picnic, along with the Museum of Nature and the Learning Centre. With so many different areas, it never feels crowded, even when kids are joyfully running around the place — there’s always a quiet, lovely corner.

It’s been a lot of work over the years, but for the Campbells, their staff and volunteers (now numbering 80 to 100), it’s clearly a labour of love. When asked about their unconventional life, Sylvia modestly says she and Robin are proof that “anybody can do anything. You just really need the desire to do it.” Then she adds, “It was fun.”

The North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre is open daily from 9 am to 4:30 pm at 1240 Leffler Road in Errington.

Circumnavigating VI in a Couple of Old Sailboats... Fair Winds and Mast Destruction

THE FIRST INSTALMENT IN A FOUR-PART SERIES

by Rob O‘Dea

Trousset Encyclopedia

was in shock and treading water in the middle of a choppy Strait of Georgia next to my dismasted sailboat. The broken mast had become a battering ram which was trying to punch a hole through the wooden hull while the sails and the rest of the rigging threatened to entangle and drown me. I wondered to myself (for I was all alone) just how it was that I came to be in this situation. It was the very last day of what had been a spectacular two-month voyage circumnavigating Vancouver Island and here I was, within eyesight of home, struggling in a race against time to save myself and my sailboat. I

But let me start at the beginning.

Peter, Arnt, Simon and Leif in Sointula. Now in their 60’s, these four ruffians were childhood friends in North Vancouver.

from top Photo taken from the top of a quarry where the stone for the BC legislature building was mined.

below Picturesque Sointula.

Mother, juvenile, and infant orcas.

opposite Mapping our resolve.

In order to catch up on the schedule it was time for an all-nighter, or so we thought.

A night of music on board Ern.

The plan for our trip around the Island was hatched over a bottle of wine while sailing in the Nanaimo/Qualicum/ Lasqueti area. In the previous decade my good friend, Arnt, and I along with our spouses, had spent our vacations sailing all over the Strait of Georgia from Sidney to Desolation Sound and even a few voyages beyond that into the Discovery Islands. It was time for further flung adventures, and an extended voyage around Vancouver Island was the ticket. The idea for any such adventure is always the easy part but with two boats needing preparation, provisioning, spare parts, dozens of new charts, research on tides, currents, passages and options for planned and emergency anchorages, there was a lot to do. Once those basics were underway we started to put the word out to family and friends to pull together a crew. We ended up with a total of seventeen people (including three generations of family) joining us for one or two weeks each over the nine different legs of the voyage. Some of the crew were coming from as far away as Halifax and New York and that—in addition to the arrangements for travel to and from some very remote locations requiring combinations of ferries and chartered float planes—required a lot of travel planning. Due to the remoteness we anticipated for much of the trip, combined with our desire for a galley full of fine food, the menu and provisioning nearly required a Michelin chef’s worth of expertise and a part-time sommelier. Our spice rack was stuffed with all kinds of treasures including three different types of saffron to ensure we had the proper ingredients for bouillabaisse, paella, crab cakes and fish’n chips! After two years of planning and preparation, it was time to put all our plans into action and head to sea.

There’s an old sailor’s superstition that you should never leave for a voyage on a Friday... so, it was on a Friday in May that we set sail. My home for the next two months was to be on Ern, my wooden 33-foot cutter-rigged sailboat that was built in Nova Scotia in 1956. Ern and I were accompanied by my partner in adventure, skipper Arnt Arntzen on his 21' gaff-rigged sloop Odin, a boat he built 20 years earlier. Along with our rotating crew, the voyage was to be a journey of friendships, food, surfing, fishing, music making, exploring, adventure and beachcombing in remote and beautiful landscapes soaked in a fascinating history and culture.

For the first leg of the trip we planned to make our way up the Strait of Georgia to the inside of the Discovery Islands and then up Johnstone Strait for our first crew change in Port Hardy. It was planned to be a leisurely nine days requiring about 35 hours of travel. We had only travelled for six hours towards the Sunshine Coast when my Dad, who had come all the way from Halifax, became violently seasick. By morning the winds and seas had calmed but Dad decided that a week with his brother in Vancouver was preferable to another bout of sea sickness. With a degree of It was time for further flung adventures, and an extended voyage around VI was just the ticket!

Odin is dismasted Whirlpool Rapids

Yuculta and Dent Rapids Powell River Prawn Festival

Retreat from the gale

Sea sickness strikes

Engine troubles

sadness, we dropped Dad at the Langdale ferry terminal and after his ferry left for Horseshoe Bay we steered our sailboats to the NW once again. We had barely gone a mile when Odin’s diesel engine conked out; an engine that had been professionally rebuilt just two years prior. New injectors were required but it would be three days before the parts arrived from Vancouver. What was that adage about never leaving on a Friday? We made the best of it, exploring Gibsons and enjoying the town’s excellent craft beers and restaurants. By the time the engine repair was completed we were well rested and raring to go. The marine forecast called for calm seas and no wind through the next 48 hours. To get back on schedule we decided on an all-night motor up the Strait of Georgia. For the first few hours we motored into a gorgeous sunset in flat calm conditions, however, just after dark the wind came up and by 11 pm we were experiencing a 25-knot outflow from Jervis Inlet coming directly at us. We retreated in the dark through the twisty, reef encrusted entrance of Pender Harbour and went to

bed hoping for better conditions the next day. It was not to be. We awoke to a howling NW gale in the Strait and it was forecast to blow all day. We were staying put. By now there was no chance of making it to Port Hardy for the first crew change, so we relaxed on the itinerary and decided that Powell River, with its handy airport, was our best back-up.

We had a leisurely two-day sail to Powell River and to our pleasant surprise we arrived in the harbour on the eve of the Powell River Prawn Festival. It was time to put some of that saffron to use! The next morning was a busy scene as local musicians rehearsed and vendors set up their booths and wares. By lunch time, children were having their faces painted and everyone was having a great time celebrating, stocking up on local crafts and foods, and waiting for the first boatload of prawns to arrive. Unfortunately, it seems that somebody forgot to tell the commercial prawn boats. No prawns were to be found at the Powell River Prawn Festival that year. We made do with fish tacos of ling cod, fresh salsa and guacamole, and tortillas from scratch.

At dawn we said goodbye to the departing crew, and with their replacements on board, departed Powell River. It was day 10 and we had covered a mere 63 miles from home as the crow flies. Timing for the next three days would depend upon passages through the Yuculta, Dent, Green Point and Whirlpool rapids where currents can run as high as 13 knots (twice the speed of our boats under engine power) and swallow a boat whole. We would have to arrive at the slack, or beginning of the ebb current for each of these tidal rapids. Even though we continued to beat into light headwinds we made it safely through and by the end of day 13 we were anchored off Port Neville, part way up Johnstone Strait.

Peace was shortlived, as we were awoken at 3 am when a massive log and root ball came at us with the help of a 3-knot tidal current. It hit Odin’s bow and scraped her starboard side while the two boats were rafted together on Ern’s anchor. The anchor held and there was no apparent damage, but Odin’s deck was covered with branches and debris.

The next morning, after clearing off the remaining debris, we re-entered Johnstone Strait and immediately encountered our first good downwind sail of the trip. It was a wonderful rip-snorter of a sail and with the help of an ebbing tide, Ern was occasionally hitting 8.4 knots. We spotted a few humpback whales and were accompanied for some time by a large pod of porpoises. Things were really looking up! Then disaster... Odin’s mast snapped off! The trip was over.

We motored into the safety of Port McNeill to assess the situation and make new plans. Upon inspection, we found the culprit. A pin that holds one of the bronze turnbuckles attached to Odin’s wire shrouds was sitting loose on the deck. We surmised that the most likely cause of Odin’s dismasting was the root ball from the night before. As it scraped down her side, it must have torn out the cotter pin which held the turnbuckle pin in place and during our downwind sail, the turnbuckle pin was able to work its way loose. The turnbuckle and shroud parted ways at the deck and the loss of structural integrity resulted in a broken mast. One in a billion!

A replacement wooden mast was out of the question and sleeving the broken section might work as a jury-rig to get the boat home, but it would not be safe or wise to venture to the outside of Vancouver Island. A local welder suggested making a new mast out of aluminum pipe. He had a truck leaving Nanaimo in a half hour so Arnt ordered up a 26' length of 5" diameter pipe. It would arrive in Port McNeill later that evening and the welder offered to work through the night to turn the pipe into a mast. By mid-morning the next day the new mast was ready to be picked up. Two hours later it was installed and the rigging re-attached for a test sail. It performed perfectly! It had taken just under 24 hours from dismasting to the new and improved Odin. Thank you Port McNeill! The trip was back on! As it turned out most of the trials and tribulations were now behind us and the true adventure was about to begin, but that story will have to wait for the next instalment. RD

Rob O’Dea spent his childhood in Newfoundland, his adolescence in Nova Scotia, and for the past 30 years he has lived and adventured in BC with his partner Sharon. They spend a few months each summer exploring Vancouver Island by land and sea in the pursuit of great sailing, fly fishing, surfing, and fine local foods. For part of the last few summers, Rob has been volunteering with Living Oceans Society organizing beach cleanups in the remote shorelines in and around Cape Scott. Rob is president of the Oarlock and Sail Wooden Boat Club at the Vancouver Maritime Museum’s Heritage Harbour, building and sailing traditional wooden boats… skills that regularly come in handy when cruising in a 62-year old wooden sailboat.

from top

This sketch was all the welder in Port McNeill needed to fashion a new mast for Odin.

The arrival of Odin's new mast

Jaw to jaw turnbuckle

UNCOMPROMISING

OCEANFRONT LIVING

PARKSVILLE

NANAIMO FAIRWINDS

VANCOUVER

VICTORIA

IN THE HEART OF THE

FAIRWINDS COMMUNITY

The Westerly is beautifully situated overlooking the Strait of Georgia, nestled within Vancouver Island’s natural landscape of forested hills and rocky terrain yet only 20 minutes north of Nanaimo and easily accessible from both Victoria and Vancouver. Designed and built to exacting standards, residences at the Westerly offer an active lifestyle just steps away from the water, marina and Fairwinds Landing, the community’s new oceanfront residential/retail/dining hub.

WESTERLY LIFESTYLE CENTRE · 3455 FAIRWINDS DRIVE, NANOOSE BAY, BC · OPEN DAILY INQUIRE · T 250.387.4162 TF 1.800.340.9539 FAIRWINDS.CA