From Desolation Sound BC

Morning has broken-------

In these deep sided sounds the sun does not come up over the tops of the trees until a little later than you’d be used to, but we’re only about 3 weeks short of the longest day and the dawn is very early.

So this morning we had daylight early, but sun about 8 am.

What sun though, the air is crystal clear, see forever air, so clear that distances in this enormous place are very deceptive.

Desolation Sound is stunning, piloting our ship around in here is an adventure in ever changing vistas. From the low rocky islands with little channels winding into the hidden anchorages of Prideaux Haven to the astonishing vertical granite walls, thousands of feet high, of Toba Inlet.  There is infinite variety here.

We spent our first two nights in Roscoe Bay, walked up to Black Lake where we swam in warm waters dark with tannin from the forest around, lay out sunning like lizards on the rocks, explored the forest trails and watched the deer walk across the path just a few paces ahead of us.

Our next night was in the cove up past Squirrel Cove General store, and stopping at the store was the first time I’d had to bring this big lump to a dock, in among other boats at that. It is not quite like parking a car!

But the ships big single propeller tends to kick the stern of the boat one way in forward and the other way in reverse, so I pulled in and put her in reverse to stop “Grand Mariner” about a metre out, the prop walking the stern across toward the dock on the port side while I  used the bow thruster to push the bow in the same direction.

The fenders touched so gently that Jackie did not wake from her nap on the settee.

Whew!

That general store is great, I’d rate it with the Brooklin General store just down the road from WoodenBoat magazine in Maine, and the Nordland General Store on Marrowstone Island across from Port Townsend. They’re a vanishing breed, but such a treat to shop in, all the unexpected treasures lurking on the shelves and in the corners, and the people behind the counters know all the places, the gossip and the places to go.

Our fourth night was in Prideaux Haven, we wriggled in there through tiny channels, standing up on the top deck wearing polarised sunglasses, watching carefully for the shallows and the rocks and anchored in about 10m of water with just enough space on each side to swing with safe clearance from the rock walls of the cove.

Day five, 10 hours of gentle motoring, Jackie and I taking turns steering on our way up the Homfray Channel, around the corner into Toba Inlet with its snow capped 5000ft high mountains, white foaming waterfalls cascading down through the forests that cling to the rocky sides and past the huge granite walls with horizontal marks where the glaciers that formed this amazing place had ground their way past.

Toba Inlet is like a wind tunnel, I imagine that there are big differences in air pressure from one end to the other which cause high winds in here when everywhere else is calm.  We encountered 25 knot winds in there, enough to make steering our ship downwind a little demanding, but coming back upwind she handled the steep short chop quite happily.

Last night we stopped in Walsh Cove, a tiny harbour in behind Gorges Island in the Waddington Channel.  Its small but very deep, and my first attempt to anchor did not stop us when I backed up so I pulled the anchor up and tried again.  This time was ok, holding at half throttle in reverse but I have all the chain out just in case.  I think its 200 ft of 3/8in chain with a 40 lb Manson Supreme anchor on the end of it (They’re made about half an hour away from my home in New Zealand, very good anchors by the way) so I’m very glad of the electric winch.

Today I’m planning to take us around into Pendrell Sound which has the peculiar reputation of having the warmest water north of Mexico on this coast.

I’ve asked, and was told that its because its on the midpoint of the tidal flows behind Vancouver Island. That is, some of the flow comes around the south past Victoria and through the Straights of Juan de Fuca, and some comes around the northern end and they meet here in Desolation Sound. Pendrell being the nexus. This means that the water here remains and does not flow away carrying the sun warmed water out into the deep, and I feel like going for a swim.

At 50.18 deg. North. 

With snow capped peaks all around.

Tools

I was busy building a garage, Ive mentioned it before.  A kitset 6m x 3.5 m one from Trade Tested here in NZ,  it came in several cardboard boxes, not very big ones, and did those boxes  not seem like nearly enough to carry all the bits needed for a building that size.
It turned out to be so lightly built and difficult to assemble that I abandoned the build half way through, it took me a couple of hours to dismantle what had taken me an awfully long time to get built,  then a day to make up a complete pre nail wooden kit from 3x2 wood including five roof trusses, and a day to stand all that up and put the cladding from the kit onto that.
Weve now got a robust and tidy building that will withstand a good blow.

The point behind this epistle is, apart from dont buy  one of those cheap garden or garage kits, is that I had some serious trimming of sheet metal to do, and tinsnips just did not cut it ( pun intended of course)

So I want off to the hardware store to find a metal cutting blade for the skilsaw,  not a cutting disc for an angle grinder, this is a sawblade specific to sheet metalwork.
Found one, near enough a hundred bucks.  That was enough of  a shock that I had to go and browse in the aisle where all the toys are ( read, power tools,  Im a sucker) to get my breath back.

I found there one of those "twinsaws" that are advertised as being able to cut almost anything,  this was very similar to the Ozito brand one in this link http://www.bunnings.co.nz/ozito-1200w-125mm-corded-twin-cutter_p00318797   but was the very cheap Bunnings brand XU1  version. $65  .  The saw blade went back on the rack., and I took the twinsaw home with me.

The thing cuts like a Samurai sword production line test dept.  It cuts anything up to about 1/8in like butter, its not a high quality tool and I dont expect it to last forever  but it pretty much paid for itself in an hours work.

I dont think Id buy this brand if I were serious, but the Ozito one is a reasonable deal and the quality is reasonable for a tool that is not in full time use.

A word of warning though, theyre not good for cutting wood, they are specifically built for sheet and light sections of metal.

Interesting tool though, useful.

John Welsford

Lots of fun but no holiday!

Much too busy!

I have been flat out working at SCAMP Camp ( with a side expedition to the dentist to get a broken tooth fixed) pretty much ever since I got here to the Port Townsend area so have been very lax in my postings here on the blog.

We do though have a pretty good Facebook page up and running, thanks to my helpers there, thats Jackie, Pete and Chuck.  Lots to read and lots of pics.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/440526479459574/

We’re having a lot of fun at the SCAMP build class, halfway through the build class the boats are about on track with all of the frames and internal structure up, and tomorrow (Monday) we’ll be hanging the first pair of planks,  filleting  which is a seemingly endless task, fitting the cleats to which the cockpit floor and seat tops will be fitted  and organising for the second pair of planks.

By Wednesday the boats should be all planked up, “Real” boats, and this crew are doing a nice job of them.  Well done Dana, Bruce, Steve and Daniel.

The photo software “here” is not working the way I want, so please forgive the lack of pics on this post, it wants to do “Cloud” storage rather than keeping them on my hard drive, I’ll work it out.

In the meantime, its Sunday morning as I write, I had a little sleep in, and am now fiddling around learning the new sofware on the Macbook Air I’ve just bought as a replacement for my old laptop.  Nice, it runs for around 12 hours on a charge, great! The old one struggled to get 2 hours.

So I was reading some of the threads over on the WoodenBoat forum, a good plae to “hang out” when wanting some interesting reading, and found three threads on builds of my designs there that will interest.

Suzy Jackson is coming along well with her Navigator build, lots of pics there,

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?176883-Elena-a-Welsford-Navigator-cruising-sloop

Mal is making very good progress with his Sundowner,

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?148391-Welsford-Sundowner-build

This is a very substantial little boat, lots of space inside, and he’s doing a decent job of it.  Nice work Mal.

There is a good thread on a SCAMP build “here”.  Bruce in South Australia is coming along well with his little boat, and has documented the victories and trials that he’s encountered along the way.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?182771-Romana-de-Scamp

And there is discussion on the big “Pilgrim”  open boat cruiser I designed for myself a while back but never got further than the frames before circumstances meant I had to abandon the build and find somewhere else to live and work.

The pics of Chip Matthews big curvy beauty are well worth a look.

Thanks Chip.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?86953-Pilgrim-from-John-Welsford

I’ll be back in a couple of days, I promise.

John Welsford

From Desolation Sound British Columbia

Blog.

Desolation Sound, British Columbia.

Jackie and I found each other ok at Vancouver airport and the flight across to where we were to pick up our ship was quick and efficient, the cab driver who took us from the little airport into our motel pleasant and helpful, and the motel itself  (the “Port Augusta” conveniently close to both a very nice restaurant and the charter companies office at the local marina.

The crew at the charter company are wonderful, a this is a friendly and efficient outfit, 10/10, highly recommended!

It was a very rough trip across from the Charter base at Comox on Vancouver Island, waves up to about 3 ft high, but very close together.  I’d slowed the ship down to about three knots rather than just bashing on and was trying to steer into the worst then bear away and run across in the calmer patches but our ship is not as nimble as I am used to, so we got bounced around a fair bit.  Uncomfortable but there was no risk.  “Gulf Mariner” is pretty capable, she’s a “Mariner 40”, a fairly typical “Trawler” type cruising motorboat, comfortable and roomy, well appointed and Desolation Sound charters do a good job in terms of maintaining the boat, ensuring that I was properly briefed, shown all of the systems and where all the equipment is.

Navigation in this maze of channels is no so easy for a first timer here, its very easy to get lost and I have to admit to having been a couple of miles out when looking for the anchorage that we’d planned to spend our first night in, but serendipity found us a perfect spot and we didnt move for two days.

“Roscoe Bay” is a long narrow groove, cut by glaciers millennia ago. The entrance is very narrow and is only accessible from mid tide upwards. Inside there is a pool wide enough to anchor in perfect shelter. The steep rocky sides  of the pool are covered in spruce, what I think are hemlock, and a few douglas fir.  The area would have been logged in the early 1900s so the regrowth is quite tall, almost mature forest and its lovely to walk the many trails that run through it.

We’ve a small lake only a few hundred yards up what was a logging road alongside the small outlet stream from that lake, and once there the warm fresh water was so inviting that we were in swimming within minutes of arriving there.  Waterlilies, foxgloves, several berry vines with the remains of the spring flowers add colour, some of which have found their way onto the dining table in the main cabin here.

There are deer around and they appear not at all fazed by our walking past.  Compared to our New Zealand forests these are quiet, not a lot of birdsong, but peaceful. Its been perfect, but today we’re moving around to Squirrel Cove, will do a run ashore to the store there for a few bits and pieces plus wifi to email and post this to the blog, and then will head out to our next overnight stop.

The store here has to be seen, great place with lovely people.

I’m more familiar with the gps upstairs now, so don’t expect to get lost again, but in this amazing place, who cares if we do.