In all our times through Georgeson, we've never cleared (Customs) at Horton Bay(!). Given the low tide and unfamiliar waters, we pointed towards Paddon Pt, and giving it a bit of extra room, back around Curlew Isl. towards the Customs dock. By the time we cleared and got to Navy Channel, we were fighting a 2.5kt current (forgot about that one!), so we had slow trip up. We sailed for a while, but the wind quickly died and when it came back it was light and on our nose, so we didn't even try to motor-sail and motored right up to Montague and grabbed a mooring ball.
After painting the bottom and returning VS to her slip, I used a brand new shore power cable; after using our 'regular' one to keep the beer cold while on the hard, it was filthy dirty and took some major work/time to clean. To make a long story short, I didn't check the connection and resulted in our fridge hammering/killing our (new last season) house battery for a week. So although our two nights at Montague was as enjoyable as it always is, our house battery is only giving us about 1.5 days viable charge. We'll have to alter our plans for this trip and will need to replace the battery once we return home( $$$ :^( )
We couldn't get much lower key than this visit. Megan has classes, Elsa was up at the Shushwap, so it was just Lisa, Charm, and myself. Lisa was wrapping up her first 'colour' knitting project and with only a couple more rows to go, realized it was questionable whether she'd have enough wool to finish. A game of 'chicken', she won this match. Having been a couple seasons without doing any sort of line-work, I pulled out my reference books and whipped up some replacement lines for the tender. Other than a few walks around the Park (and down to the ice-cream station at Montague Marina), we didn't do much of anything.
July 26: Ganges Marina
Knowing motor sailing wouldn't sufficiently replenish our House battery, we opted for Ganges Marina. It had been a few years since being here -no signs of MJ on the docks this time, so all was safe & good. We did the usual touring of the area, visiting stores & galleries.
July 27: Winter Cove
Lisa wasn't comfortable with the shifting wind/sea conditions so we motored most of the way and motor sailed the last bit. The last time we were here was with BoB, and on that trip we rafted up with some friends already there, so this was our first anchoring here. Although not crowded, the spacing for the area we wanted in was a little awkward. We set the anchor in close off the reef just off the boat-ramp; compared depth/tides carefully, made sure we had a strong set, and settled in. Dave S., a LPS member from the WR Sailing Co-op came by on 'Peaktime' and we had a chat before they moved along to find an anchoring for the evening.
The next morning, the anchorage cleared out as it typically will, but the weird thing was that it didn't fill back in; I think there ended up being a total of 4 boats.... and this was a Friday night! While taking the dinghy out for a spin, we stopped and chatted with a nice couple on a BEAUTIFUL Olson34; custom built in Pt Townsend. With the low slack approaching, we headed over to Boat Pass to check it out for passage. We determined we'd be okay after carefully a course and taking some usable range bearings (more concerned with the reef & bull-kelp beds to the east of the Pass than the Pass itself.
The barbecue is toast! We knew it was on it's last legs, but the inner heat defuser completely disintegrated tonight. Add that to the shopping list!