Van Anda, Texada Island, BC, 31-MAY-2025 – On our first trip north, I remember getting to Texada Island. We had traveled so far, to the brink of the world it seemed. Today, we have just been piddling around for the past month and had stopped here to wait out some not so terrible weather.
It is the 72nd anniversary of my parents’ wedding. My father has been on my mind; Jennifer’s mother, Hilary, has been on her mind. They each died in 2019, so I guess enough time has passed that we both feel we should have spoken to them by now. For me, there is so much I’d like to tell him, so much I’d like him to see and enjoy, and even more I’d like his opinions of.
Our world has changed so much technologically in the last five years, and politically to. When he died, Trump was on his way out, now he’s back. AI has made its arrival, but it is so flawed. (A friend makes his money by redoing AI-implemented projects so that they work.) We were in Hawaii when my dad died. We sailed to the Aleutians, kept the boat there for five years and returned to the PNW. All stuff I would have liked to share with him.
Jennifer has felt her loss in different ways, but the same manifestation: how much she’d like to tell her mother.
Yesterday we sailed from Ballet Bay, south of here, to Sturt Bay, where Van Anda is. The weather tuned out as predicted: from the south from 10 to 15 knots gusting to 20, with wind against current, yielding steep waves. Jennifer planned to leave at 8 just after the current turned to south (current is mentioned as the direction it is headed, where wind is the direction it is coming from – don’t ask me.)
When I woke, I asked Jennifer why were leaving so late, the current had changed. She said it was a covenient time, would I like to leave earlier – yes. I made coffee and we were on our way by 7 am. Inside the bay, everything was quite calm. There were two other sail boats, Pino, who we thought we knew of and Let’s Rock, a fully outfitted metal offshore boat, kept really well.
We raised the main as we were leaving to keep us from rocking in the waves before we got into the wind. Leaving another anchorage was Windsong, an older-style sloop towing a yellow pudgy. We’d seen Windsong in Princess Louisa inlet. They had their main up as well.
Windsong headed north, as we did, with the waves abeam. Even our main couldn’t keep us from rocking completely. Windsong then turned about 30 degrees to the left, taking the waves on the forward quarter. It seemed like a great idea, so we followed suit.
In a few minutes the wind came up enough to sail, so we put up our 135, without turning towards the wind. We do this all the time and are quite good at it. The wind was abeam. Windsong was abeam of us and ahead of us a half a mile west. They turned into the wind and let out their head sail and followed suit. The wind picked up and soon we were doing between 5.9 and 6.7 knots, with occasionally hitting 7.3. Hull speed is 7.6 and we have sailed faster than that. The wind continued to shift aft. We kept adjusting sail to match.
When we looked over towards Windsong she had jibed and was heading North East and after a few minutes reefed her headsail. The wind continued to shift south; there was little sign of the southerly current. Once the wind started fully south, we jibed the headsail, so we were now running wing-and-wing and I set up the spinnaker pole to keep the headsail steady. (While we were motoring I realized I hadn’t set up the preventers and set them up as well.) We connected the main to the starboard preventer and sailed away.
After 45 minutes, Windsong was a mile or more behind us and east against the mainland coast. Looking towards the mainland I spotted a thick, black stick poking out of the water. It moved and I told Jennifer, Orca! As three more fins came to the surface, females, and another male. Jennifer says they were moving south. I thought they may have been hunting. We were moving quickly and so were they – opposite directions.
Jennifer called Windsong and told them about the pod. The voice of the woman was elderly, seventies at least, perhaps eighties. The man sounded the same age.
Jennifer and I are lucky, our voices, so far, haven’t changed to elderly, though hers has deepened.
We talked about the perception of age and the aging of sailors. These two sailors have an older boat that seems to have gone offshore. Probably when they were younger, vibrant and muscled. Young voracious people. Age and time have altered them, but they still are who they were.
In this part of BC, we’ve met many boats, but very few have left the PNW. Most are very pretty dock boats and are in awe of Jennifer and me. Jennifer and I are speechless. We’re not very special, especially when compared to the likes of Pino, a boat we’ve known about for years.
We learned about Pino from Robusta. They were in Japan together. Robusta went to the Aleutians and Pino came to British Columbia.
What stuck in our mind was the image of Rekka, one the crew of two, being washed overboard in the Japan current held to the boat by a six-foot tether (jack line). Most of the hardware in the cockpit was washed away, but Rekka’s tether and mounting point held.*
Pino is on across the dock from us. On Tuesday, their boat will be pulled and they’ll paint the bottom.
On the same side as Pino is Let’s Rock. A fully outfitted metal offshore boat – we’re all under forty feet: 31’ for Caro Babbo, 33’ for Pino and 34’ for Let’s Rock.†
Gary and Linda sail this area every summer. I asked about offshore. No, Gary said. That’s not for us. We thought about it but its not something we’ll do. He had remorse, as if he was chickening out. We talked about Mexico and other places and it was not for them.
I’d like to talk to my dad about all of this, get his opinion and tell him about the RC float plane with the electric motor we’d seen on Princess Louise Inlet. I’d like to get his advice on someone I’m helping get started in business now that I’ve run out of advice and money.
My dad only visited me once in my dreams, and now that I know we should have spoken, I wonder if I’ll lose him forever.
–––––––––––––––
* Another friend, Greg James, unhooked his jack line and fell overboard while coming into an Australian harbor on the Gold Coast and died.
† Two further boats arrived as I was writing this, both under 30’.
