Our last 60 miles to the opening of the straits were jam packed with wildlife and signs of humans. Every few minutes we were pointing and yelling about something coming up. Sea birds, including a few albatross still, were everywhere swooping and diving. Numerous Humpback whales, dolphins, and porpoises made appearances too many times to count. Twice we saw weird sunfish, once a group of three smaller fish and one large solo. We saw tankers, cargo ships, fishing boats, and buoys marking fishing equipment all around. What a contrast to the last 30 days!
Around 1:30pm ships time, I spied Mount Olympus over a line of clouds on the water. The rest of the afternoon we were all on deck watching more and more land appear. Surprisingly, the most visible mountains were off the port bow to the North and faded off into the West, Vancouver Island really reaches out there.
That night, Griffin was so excited that he couldn’t sleep. After being in bed for a while he came back up and hung out with Ned and I in the cockpit. I took that opportunity to go nap and they got to be the skippers for avoiding a brightly lit, but not on AIS, and unresponsive on the radio fishing boat. As soon as that was over it was time to turn to starboard and head down the straits, cool that Ned got that taken care of while Greg and I were sleeping soundly.
Motoring against the current down the straits in the dark and barely any wind is pretty exciting for sailors coming off the ocean. More and smaller fishing boats were lighting up water around them and were not on AIS. Over in the shipping lanes there was all sorts of commercial traffic so we stuck to the Washington side initially. After breakfast the wind built again so we put up some sails, continued to dodge ships, and crossed the shipping lanes towards Victoria.
Dock lines out, fenders re-inflated, and the customs dock located, we came through the narrow harbor entrance and tied up. What a trip, in all the meanings! We giddily shared hugs and congrats and I went to call customs who decided to send two agents down to meet us.
All checked in, we headed over to the Wharf Street Marina and Greg easily docked us in the marina even though we’d only been to one dock other than the customs in the last year. What a trippy thrill!
12 years ago our good friend Lisa moved to Victoria and she took the day off work to watch us come into the harbor, go through customs, and now she finally got to come down to the boat and share some hugs. She took our photos and brought us some cherished fresh cherries and apples along with some fresh croissants which were gobbled up quickly. What a treat to have such a thoughtful and welcoming friend, our tired crew couldn’t have dealt with a big party.
Over the next few days we said goodbye to Ned who grabbed the Clipper and headed back to Seattle, our wobbly out of shape sea legs walked miles to a marine store, we ate lots of delicious food that wasn’t cooked on a gimbled stove, and got Griffin some new men’s size 14 shoes since he’d outgrown everything else. Lisa (aka Weezy) drove us around town to get groceries, propane, and even took us all the way to Costco! That was intense.
One morning there was a knock on the hull and a kind and nicely dressed woman was outside. She was Tanya, the city ambassador to the state of WA and friend of our weather router! She gave us a bottle of champagne from our weather guru, Bruce, and left us stunned with kindness.
Sleeping many hours in a row was amazing. Though Greg dreamt of still being on the ocean we most certainly were not. Our sea legs weren’t too bad, but at night when I woke up to use the head I had to hold on to prevent the waves from knocking me over. That took about a week to stop. It’s the most bizarre feeling after such a long crossing to be back in home waters. Seeing friends and people is easier to adapt to than being in familiar landscapes. I’m unfamiliar with the familiarity I’m feeling around me.
We’re headed into the Gulf Islands and plan to see more Canadian friends until we get to go home and move back into our house on August 1st. It’ll be nice to have a slow re-entry.
