July 14th

Pulled up an empty crab pot. We haven’t had much luck crabbing this trip. Then we up anchored and got another present, kelp (see photo)! That’s why we seemed to be dragging last night, we were anchored in some nice slippery kelp beds! Also the batteries started to charge with the motor, could it be that our alternator belt had been slipping?

Kelp bed

It was a foggy and calm morning, so we headed out into the Straits and Jim started fishing. We trolled along the coast with a lot of other fishing boats till we saw race rocks light in the distance. They had their fog horn sounding. Then Jim got a bite and we pulled up a Chinook salmon. He gutted it and I filleted it. Then we kept on fishing for a little bit as we headed around race rocks. We heard booming ahead, apparently the area between race rocks and the main island is where they test out live artillery. We avoided this area!

Chinook Salmon

No more fish were biting and it was still foggy so Jim pulled in the line and we motored towards Victoria. I turned on the fog horn and radar and immediately spotted two boats near us in the fog. Radar works well in the fog, as does the fog horn. The fog lifted and we could see the entrance to Victoria Harbor. It was littered with little fishing boats in front of it. Canadians seem to like to fish!

We made our way through the pretty harbor and called the harbor authority who gave us a mooring spot right in front of the Empress Hotel! Couldn’t have asked for anything better! We settled in and got ready to go for a walk. I called up some friends who we were going to have dinner with that night and left a message. As we were getting ready we saw our Seattle dock neighbors on Celtic Knot pulling in. They’d celebrated the Forth of July at Roche Harbor and then spent some time up in the Gulf Islands. We chatted a bit and Jacintha sang them a song, then we went to pay our moorage. Victoria is much pricier than Barkley Sound but it has location, location, location!

Victoria!

We checked out the aquarium and watched their scuba show. They had a couple of giant octopi in the waters, and Jacintha recognized the salmon straight away. She was very happy to see other kids as well! Then we sat and ate ice cream. We heard a busker playing guitar on the side walk and Jacintha gave him some money then sang him “My Favorite Things”, two verses plus chorus!. He was so impressed he gave her his CD! I wanted to put a hat in front of Jacintha as I thought she could make some money!

Jacintha, future busker

We returned to the boat after that and I made apple crumble, a tomato salad and baked the salmon. Jim had told Lance and Carol that we would be in Victoria on Friday but today was Thursday, so Lance had to drive all the way down from Nanaimo where he is currently living. They got there at 7:30.

Jim met Lance and Carol when they emailed him asking to see our boat in Seattle. They’d seen his website and were in the market for a Hans Christian like ours. They just wanted to get an idea of the layout of the boat and what we thought of it. Jim obliged them and they went off looking for their dream boat. When we sailed into Nanaimo last year, we heard a voice call out to Jim as we were docking. They were living on the waterfront condo and had spotted our boat coming in. They invited all of us (we had my parents on board) for a lovely dinner in their home and they told us of their continuing search for a boat. Anyway, they’d bought their boat, a Hans Christian 38, it’s a little smaller than ours with one mast and it is moored in Nanaimo while Lance is fixing it up. Carol got a job in Victoria and is living there. Their plan was to move onto the boat as soon as they’d fixed up the interior. Lance works on BC Ferries and knows the waters around Vancouver Island and north well and has a lot of interesting stories to tell.

We had a lovely dinner and talked until really late at night. When you get two boat owners together who have similar boats, there is always more things to talk about.

Lance and Carol