Weather: Sunny and warm. Winds: S 0-5. Waves: Nill.
After a windy night, departed Gorge Harbour at 0900, motoring through the narrow entrance and still not spotting the petroglyphs. Once out of the harbor, made a right turn around the Heather Islets towards Shark Spit. Had a little S wind and popped the screacher for about 10min. Wind died just north of Heather Islets and we motored as we wove our way around Shark Spit in the Uganda Passage then west towards Hariot Bay.
Wind picked up once out of the north end lee of Marina Island and we made 7kts on a beam reach under main and screacher across Sutil Channel. The problem with making good speed under sail is short distances are used up quickly. It is less than 4nm across Sutil Channel and less than 30min after setting the sails, the wind died in the lee of Quadra Island and we were motoring again.
Motored into Hariot Bay and all the dock spaces were taken...the anchorage was also pretty full with permanent mooring balls. One advantage of having a boat drawing so little (5ft with centerboard down, 3.5ft with rudder down, 2ft rudder up) is the ability to anchor her in close to shore. So, we motored into about 10ft of water, dropped the hook and let out enough scope to swing into about 5ft of water. With no wind and a tide nearly at low and soon be rising, we were good!
Dinghied over to the dock, walked a couple long blocks to the nicely provisioned grocery, stocked up, utilized their free shuttle back to the dock, stowed our goods, pulled anchor and was underway to Von Donop before noon!
The 10nm motor north in Sutil Channel to the entrance of Von Donop was pretty boring. Had some cell coverage so we made a couple calls. Else, uneventful.
Making the 3nm to the head of Von Donop was far more interesting, reminding me of motoring up the Kalamazoo River to Douglas in 2011. Narrow in spots, but not as uncomfortable as the guide books made it out to be, no trees reached out to grab us. Freestyle, being the fast motor boat was already anchored with fenders out when we arrived. Mooring was uneventful and we were secure at 1530.
A pleasant evening with some SUP practice!
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