Ghostsailor's Monthly Update

July 28^th
 

Von Don Up Inlet to Copland Islands

Well, the day started off nice, but that didn’t last too long. This was the day we were all going to split up We each had separate places to go. WindDancer was as far west as they were planning on going, and were headed back to Walsh Cove. Palarran was going to go and check out the Octopus Islands. Ghost was headed towards Nanaimo.
Our plan was to start out and go as far as the weather would allow. As we eased out of the inlet, we were met with more wind than we had seen so far. It was, of course, right on the nose.
Six hours later, we had beaten into pretty nasty seas and finally tucked into a corner of the Copeland Islands Marine Park. We were not as protected as I would have liked, but it was the best we could find.
We tied and untied the stern line a few times before we got it to a place we could live with. We were in a narrow little corner of a bay. The problem was that if we were to get blown one side or the other, we might end up pretty close to the rocks. It looked like another sleepless night for Ghost.
We checked the weather and decided to wait out the 30 knot winds in this bay. The wind was suppose to start tomorrow morning. Low tide was also at the same time. Tomorrow should be interesting.
 

July 29^th

At midnight the tide was about 7 feet lower than when we arrived. We were too close to the rocks. I jumped into the dingy and with the hand held sounder, I was not satisfied with our position. I needed to pull our stern closer to the other shore. I pulled the stern line to yet another tree, but had to tie it to the tree instead of looping it back to Ghost. This is bad because when we leave, we will not be able to just pull it to Ghost.
After an hour, we were perfectly balanced between the two rocky shores. We had 10 feet under the keel and 15 feet on each side. The wind was calm for now, but this was about to change.
Good Morning! NOT!
As the sun came up, we looked outside to see that our world had gotten a whole lot smaller. Now we had 1 foot under the keel and 10 feet to each side. The wind was starting to build to the 30 knots planned. We were getting pushed into the rocks. We had to move and we had to move now.
We didn’t have much time to think things through, but we talked it over. First the kids had to go down below. Ang started the engine and I started cranking up the chain. This was going to be tough because if the wind caught the bow and Ang couldn’t hold it into the wind, we would be on the rocks.
Never have I cranked up 150’ of chain. Never has Ang done such a wonderful job at the helm. Never had the kids been so ignored! We got the anchor off the bottom and Ang started us out of the bay. We let the stern line pull off the reel. I would go and get that later.
When we were out in the channel, I climbed into the dingy and went back for the stern line. Nothing left to do but try to get into Lund.
An hour later we tied up to the breakwater in pretty calm weather to let the storm blow over this little town. We were not alone.  There were many boats tucking into Lund to weather the storm.