Author: mvdadmin

An 8am departure put us in Prince Rupert late morning. Narrow Grenville Channel looked completely different than yesterday evening, it was flat calm – you could have water skied.

We took a “short cut” through shallow water (15ft depth, full speed) and reminisced about doing this on the banks in the Bahamas. The water in Chatham Sound was filled with silt, as most of it is shallow with the Skeena River feeding into it.

There was another huge line of logs, or we called telephone poles, all the way to downtown Prince Rupert. It was as if a tug had lost its tow, but it was from the big tides. We picked our way through like a couple days ago (was that just yesterday??) Finlayson Channel, and multiple times brought back the throttle to idle through.

Prince Rupert was busy with both commercial and recreational traffic, and everyone seemed in a good mood – perhaps the heat wave with warm weather was to thank. Apparently they only had five days is summer last year.

We contactless fueled (the dock was also twenty feet above us, as it was low tide) the aft tank and meandered our way back to Pillsbury Cove to anchor for the night.

Don’t be afraid of the huge aquaculture farm at the entrance to Pillsbury Cove, hug it on your starboard side and you can clear the shallow water it forces you into.

There’s always something to do on a boat. Tessa worked on cleaning the vinturi and flybridge area better from the salt we took by Slingsby Channel just before Cape Caution, Tom installed a Sonos amp for the flybridge speakers and worked on tweaking the Sonos system. We tried to spend as much time as possible outside in the light warm breeze, as we know it’s not every day you get this weather this far North!

Our second Open Ocean segment was this morning, and they say to try not to transit on the peak big ebb tide as Finlayson Channel empties out into Milbanke Sound. Well, you guessed it, we were transiting on the peak big ebb. The wind was supposed to pick up at 10am, so Tessa wanted to be tucked into Finlayson Channel before that.

7:15am departure, and it was already warm. We had 4ft large rollers on our port side, the stabilizers again earned their keep. As we entered Finlayson Channel it was a land mine of logs. With the big tides, all the debris had washed off the beach. We had to slow down multiple times to pick our way through the minefield. But the water was glass and these unchartered (for us) waters were gorgeous. And it was only a down payment on what to come.

We surprisingly passed another First Nation Village in Katsoo Bay, we had taken the “fun” way on the inside of the island. We know knew why the BC ferries had a route in this narrow passage. We also lucked out that there was a cell tower at the village.

12:15pm we had come upon Khutze Inlet, where Tessa had us anchoring for the night. It was just absolutely stunning, but Tom wasn’t thrilled with the protection from Princess Royal Channel. It was also midday, we were feeling good, and the weather was amicable for more running. So we pointed the boat North.

The cruise up Princess Royal Channel was absolutely stunning. The channel had stunning mountains and waterfalls everywhere you looked. The beauty was overwhelming, and we definitely want to re-visit this area when the US – Canadian border opens to non-essential travel.

Some waterfalls were narrow and ran from the top of the mountain to the channel, others were wide and short like the one pictured.

As we exited Princess Royal Channel, we entered Wright Sound – which also was truly beautiful.

Tessa was at the helm as we were approaching narrow Grenville Channel. She heard a change in the main engines, and saw the rpms falling without touching the microcommanders. She quickly called Tom up to the helm for him to see what was happening. She also quickly did some math: ten hours yesterday and eight hours today at 15-1600 rpms drawing from the Aft fuel tank. We had sucked it dry. Tom ran down to the engine room to switch over to draw from the port and starboard fuel tanks, and the engines were happy again. He dipped the aft fuel tank, and we had one inch- equivalent to 17.25 gallons.

We weren’t happy about draining the aft fuel tank, and as we haven’t made the transit from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan before we would stop in tomorrow to put fuel in the aft tank – just for safety.

It also paid to check on the fishboat once in awhile, as the views aft were stunning.

The wind over current made narrow Grenville Channel “ok” in our boat, but it definitely would not be in a smaller boat. We had the doors to the pilothouse open, as it was a warm breeze. We passed the BC ferry just North of the narrowest portion of the channel. We put our “sailor hat” on once again going North past Klewnuggit Marine Park to go South, hoping to spend as little time as needed in the lump barreling down the channel.

Klewnuggit Marine Park is a little ways off Grenville Channel, most boaters choose Khutze, Lowes or Kumealon Inlet as they are directly off Grenville Channel. We wanted to be a little further along but not as far as Kumealon with the wind over current picking up, and Klewnuggit looked like an ideal anchorage.

Well, it turned out to be a spectacularly stunning anchorage. It is definitely worth the small diversion off Grenville Channel to spend the night.

5:30am one of us got up to pee, it was flat calm, so we pulled anchor and got underway.

It was another big ebb tide at 7:30am, which could be detrimental as we pass Slingsby Channel. It was calm seas and logs galore until the Walker Islands, and then we started taking salt over the flybridge at 7:00am with three hours to round Cape Caution. Yes, Slingsby Channel was the culprit.

Thank goodness for Tessa solving (we hope) our stabilizers issue. They were making these rough seas “comfortable”, and we use that term loosely. Fish boat … you doing ok? If not, we’re not stopping to attend to your needs (we are towing our 16’ Aluminum Riverhawk). When they say heed caution when Slingsby Channel is at a full ebb, they aren’t kidding. Dodging logs in big seas is no fun. Wheeee, who needs Disneyland for a wild ride?

But thankfully once past Slingsby Channel, Cape Caution was a sigh of relief. Low 3ft westerly swells off our port side still gave our stabilizers work, but the hard workout was in the rear view mirror.

Once tucked into Calvert Island, Tessa proceeded to wash the boat from top to bottom, as we had just had a very nice salt water bath. The water flattened out, we listened on VHF to the Canadian Coast Guard help a grey whale with fishing gear wrapped around its tail nearby, and enjoyed the beauty of transiting “The Central Coast”.

The North End of Calvert Island has the Hackai Research Institute, some stunning fine sand beaches, and some great fishing. River’s Inlet is known for their big salmon, we caught an 80lb King salmon back in 2008 at the head of River’s Inlet. Shearwater is the main stop in the area for provisioning, fuel, and a burger if you’re tired of eating seafood. This year, and 2020, all First Nation Villages are closed to outsiders to try to prevent Covid from affecting the communities.

We cruised on past and anchored in Raven Cove and couldn’t believe how warm it was.

After Tessa did some touch up work on cleaning the front windows, she mustered up the energy to go in front and around the port engine to check to see how the stabilizers oil was doing after a ten hour run. Tom was dying to know. She squealed with excitement, and Tom thought there was something wrong. She responded no, break out a glass of wine, we didn’t lose a drop of oil!!

Windy weather app showed calm conditions in Johnstone, BC Marine Weather had a Gale Force Warning in effect. Our experience is that early morning is best to transit Johnstone before the wind has a chance to build and funnel down the channel.

6am departure, the wind had already built and it was the same conditions as when we tucked into Granite Bay at 5pm the night before. We were riding a big ebb tide until late morning, which would push us through Johnstone Strait. The con was that this big ebb tide was fighting the strong NW winds.

This is where experience comes into play, as we knew where to find the “smoothest rough water”. We made great time clocking 15kts, weaving our way through Johnstone and also betting on it flattening out after Port Neville – which it also did. We were thankful to have use of our stabilizers, and turned them to “center” – on but not active – after Port Neville while transiting the calm waters, thinking we were doing them a favor.

12:30pm we arrived Port McNeill and topped up on fuel contactless. We called Canadian border control before we docked to check to see if we needed to check in before fueling. Since it was in our float plan that we gave to the customs agents in Van Isle Sidney BC, we did not and were good to go.

Once finished fueling we anchored out, Tessa got to work washing the boat down, but was curious about how much oil the stabilizers lost. So she paused her boat wash to crawl around the front of the hot port engine to find we only had ten percent oil left in the reservoir. When she reported this to Tom, he said, now we need to find the leak. She went right to work starting at the forward bilge, and tracing lines back to the oil reservoir. As she knew stabilizers were critical for a “smooth” crossing tomorrow morning around Cape Caution.

She made it back to the motor and shaft, both dry. Then a blue “cap” caught her eye. She brushed her fingers along the backside and her pinky finger came back wet with oil. She had found our leak.

She took photos with her iPhone, to report back to Tom, who then reported back to Philbrooks. It was 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. We needed to get this solved quickly, or we’d be sitting here until early next week with the weekend imminent. Tessa had said the o-ring looked off-center. And sure enough, it was not correctly placed. Tessa again paused washing the boat down to go outboard of the port engine to try to twist the blue cap off, investigate whether the o-ring is intact, if so correct its placement and tighten the blue cap as tight as she can get it.

Tessa was able to deduce that the o-ring was still intact, distorted from being off-center, ease it back into its actual home, and screw the blue cap on as tight as her small muscles would let her to ensure no more oil leaks.

She was nervous she didn’t have the o-ring set correctly, that the blue cap wasn’t tight enough, as it was still leaking some residual oil. Tom started the port engine which the stabilizers receive power from while Tessa watched for drips. She didn’t see any. We didn’t need a larger crescent wrench from North Island Marina (we made another tool work), and fingers crossed that Tessa was able to solve the issue.

6:00pm we were finally able to call it a day, after a 6am start.

We had planned on an easy morning, as Tessa planned on a 6pm slack at Seymour Narrows. We tackled what we thought would be a simple task of de-pickling the water maker (we fill the system with food grade glycol so the membranes don’t sour from lack of use over the winter season), but it turned into a multi-hour project as we couldn’t get the system to de-pressurize (Tessa was ready with a bowl to catch excess water), could only find charcoal filters and we also need a 5 microns (finally found one after tearing apart engine room storage), and then the high pressure pump wouldn’t pressurize correctly.

This is when we called it quits, shortly after 11am. What time was the slack at Seymour Narrows again? Tessa checked, and good thing, as it was FIVE pm, not SIX pm. We hurriedly got underway, as it would take us about five hours to get there.

Second “oh shit” of the morning: the low oil light was on for the stabilizers. We’d have to run without them. Which would be fine for this leg of the cruise, as we would be heading directly into the wind (and for the most part calm seas). But we would definitely want them for Johnstone Strait and rounding Cape Caution.

We kicked up the coals to 1400 rpm and made 14kts with the current (instead of 12kts) and made good time to Cape Mudge, the southern end of Quadra Island. Here, we know the current is always running South – regardless of the direction of the actual current. We also know from experience, to hug the Quadra Island shore for the back eddies running North. We had plenty of time, so we kicked it down to 1200 rpm, and again to 1100 rpm to transit Seymour Narrows forty minutes before slack with a 3kt push against us.

Seymour Narrows was relatively uneventful, as we transited with commercial traffic. North of Seymour was “supposed to be” calm. It looked like wind over tide, but we knew the current was still running with the NW wind. We used a commercial fishing vessel as a “wind block” aka tucked in behind him until our course deviated to the starboard to Granite Bay.

We put our “sailor hat” on, and went way North to come about South with the least amount of time with the swell on our beam (as our stabilizers were out of commission). We tucked behind Chained Islands out of the NW wind tumbling down Johnstone to pull the fish boat alongside, and headed into Granite Bay to anchor at 5:30pm – but our work had only just begun.

First task was to adjust the high pressure pump to get the pressure up from 400psi to 800psi where it needs to be for the water maker to make water. Like anything on a boat, nothing is ever easy – the high pressure pump is located outboard of the 20kw genset. Tessa facilitated the right tools and tested the water maker, as Tom did “boat yoga” behind the 20kw genset. We had success! However, the freshly made water still tasted like glycol. We let it run for forty five minutes or so, and the glycol content was down to a palatable hint of a taste. Check the water maker box: success.

Second task was to put oil in the stabilizers reservoir. Guess what – also outboard of the starboard main engine. This time Tessa slid her way around the front of the (still hot) starboard engine to try to complete the task. She wasn’t strong enough to turn the cap of the oil reservoir, so Tom squeezed his way around the engine to fill the oil. As we wanted stabilizers for our transit through Johnstone tomorrow morning. 2.5 qts of oil and almost as much of sweat, Tom did not recap the oil reservoir as tightly (thinking ahead that we’d have to do this again), and inched his way back inboard of the starboard engine. We were both dripping with sweat, 8pm, ready for a shower, dinner and a glass of wine.

As we’ve learned since the Bahamas, boating is just fixing issues in exotic places with no repair yard or marine store nearby. And so far this trip has lived up to this mantra. And as we have yet to detect the leak, we had more work waiting ahead of us tomorrow in Pt McNeill. Boating is FUN, they say!

As 2021 progressed, we had a hunch that the US – Canadian border would remain closed to non-essential travel for the better part of the boating season. March 16 2020 we found ourselves working seven days a week, keeping our restaurants afloat (and/or closed due to covid restrictions). In 2019 we had planned a major retrofit to commence January 2021, and took nearly ten months. Year 2020 was the perfect year for such a project as we couldn’t enjoy our favorite (BC) waters due to the border closure, and we were doing all that we could to keep our businesses afloat.

Mid-April 2021, we lucked out on the best weather to date this year to deliver our boat back to Philbrooks in Sidney BC for repairs and maintenance. All we could do was pinch ourselves that we were enjoying the San Juan Islands during April with no crowds and summer weather. The planning had commenced for “transiting through” BC Waters to SE Alaska. With the border closure and the Jones Act keeping cruise ships out of Alaska until end of July, and limited ships after that, we believe this year is THE year to cruise to Alaska as a pleasure boater.

Fast forward to June 15 2021, we position our fishboat (aka trailer her from Bainbridge Island to Anacortes) and gear, and charter a wheeled flight to Roche Harbor with our world traveler Portia kitty to take delivery of our boat after a week of delays. The excitement to take delivery after a year and finally spend significant time aboard cruising and enjoying SE Alaska was palpable. More realistically, we were thinking about all the sh!$ we needed to do provisioning wise and the race against our limited weather window. After a celebratory dinner at Roche Harbor, it was back to Anacortes for three days of provisioning.

This isn’t our first rodeo provisioning for a long cruise, we left Ft Lauderdale in 2018 with hopes of going through the canal. The weather quickly squashed our hopes as we endured tropical storm after tropical storm – in the “cruising season”. This time we had not only our Walker Bay tender to reunite with Docktails, but our fishboat and all of our fishing gear. Like moving into a new house, you can’t believe all that gear will fit, and somehow it does. Also at some point you need to cut the lines, as you’ll always forget something, and let the weather dictate when you depart. And that’s exactly what we did.

We positioned ourselves in Friday Harbor, a short “shakedown” cruise after Philbrooks not one, but two, sea trials. We should be good, right?

Seemed like it. Other than Tom updating the Simrad software and neither of our two depthsounders working (took him six hours in FH to get one of two to work), and needing a new chafing cover for our starboard bridle line. NBD.

Our WINDow was small and compact. We didn’t have room for error as the high pressure moved into the Seattle area. Our error of deviation was 1 – and that was rounding Cape Caution. Everywhere else our room for error was 0. Not exactly our favorite way to cruise, but we have to “transit through” BC Waters with only anchoring for the night and stopping for contactless fuel and essentials.

08:00 June 21 2021 we embarked from Friday Harbor to Van Isle Sidney BC for clearing customs.

10:00am As the fuel dock employees helped us contactless tie up, one said, hey we have a Docktails in our marina! And Tessa replied, this IS the Docktails from your marina!

As Nexus is not a form of travel document accepted currently, two friendly agents met us after we phoned in. The information on “transiting through” has changed like the weather changes as covid continues, but we were prepared. We had a Float Plan ready to give to the agents (they kept it), vaccination cards are not considered, they boarded and searched the boat and asked the usual questions along with covid related questions. They gave us an orange piece of paper with our CBSA transit number, asked us to check in with the ArriveCAN app, and informed us to fly the yellow quarantine flag while we were in BC waters.

12:00pm we were underway to make the Dodd Narrows 3:00pm slack. It was calm seas until we transited Dodd Narrows, and it was snottier than snot outside Nanaimo with a stiff NW wind.

Windy predicted it would calm down north of Nanoose Bay, and thankfully Windy was correct. It flattened out and we arrived Tribune Bay Hornby Island at the “golden hour” at 6:00pm. Ten hours on the water on our first day, with an unusual early warm summer wind, we basked in the warmth as we served up dinner and FaceTimed our friends vacationing on Donlop Point Hornby Island, as we are not allowed to leave the boat.

Let’s start with some “before photos” of the layout of the galley and main salon before the “can of worms”. Note the beast of a microwave, trash compactor, the upholstered valances, overhead lights and headliner, speakers, book shelf, desk and double-decker media cabinet. We had six reverse-air units onboard when we purchased Docktails, five stayed aboard until the Pacific Northwest (we ditched the one in the pilothouse in Florida as it was in-operable). The fifth in the galley was removed to make room for Tom’s AV Cabinet.

Demo of the galley and main salon was quick work, besides the media cabinet (built like a brick) and the galley sink (equivalent weight of a ton of bricks). As previously mentioned, “Tolly” Tollefson built boats to last. 

Our “can of worms” was the galley window. We knew it had a leak from above that we had missed on the survey in Ft Lauderdale (those valances hid a lot), but noticed once back in the Pacific Northwest on those days relentless rainy days. The plan was to replace all opening windows with non-opening windows (we only every opened the windows when our A/C was kaput in The Bahamas), fix the galley window leak and damage, keep the cabinets but replace the countertop and the ceramic sink. Our plateware and glassware was dwindling – thanks to this ceramic sink. Tessa was ready to say adieu.

Well, that galley window leak was much more than a small leak. The plywood behind the teak would have to be replaced below the countertop/behind the lower cabinets in addition to above the countertop surrounding the window opening. So, out the lower cabinets came for a complete galley retrofit (cha-ching).

With the headliner removed, they were able to identify that our boat was the equivalent of Swiss cheese. We were far from a water tight boat. All the stainless steel screws had failed in the stanchions on the flybridge (which is the ceiling of the main salon), and there was a 18″x18″ spot in the media cabinet that was pure mud. Needless to say they did a lot of fiberglass patching, and replaced all the stainless steel screws in the stanchions (cha-ching).

Even though the focus was on the galley and main salon, the Philbrooks Team left no stone unturned. They checked for water leaks from bow to stern, top to bottom. Many of our portholes had failed, and they patched the punky wood around them and rebuilt the portholes. Not surprisingly, the forward stanchion stainless steel screws had also failed. There was an aluminum strip on the radar arch and around the upper helm that had failed – which was the culprit to all the water leaking into our galley window. 

As we like to spend most of our time at anchor during the cruising season, Tom asked them to service our windlass. You could say this was our second “can of worms”. Not only was our windlass beyond serviceable, the bow sprit had to be rebuilt, and a 3’x5′ portion of the decking was rotted from the poor installation of the windlass and foot switch controls. Which meant a huge fiberglass decking project (cha-ching). As we have painted teak decking, we either had to replace the decking from bow to stern, or figure out a way to only do a section. Philbrooks did an outstanding job of replacing the fiberglass on the forward quarter of the boat and matching it to the decking on the bump up over the vberth. You’d never know there had been major fiberglass repair work completed. 

As you know, a pandemic was in its early stages as we began our boat retrofit in January 2020. We were making the trek from Bainbridge Island WA to Sidney BC every ten days or so to check in on the progress and answer any questions the Philbrooks Team had on wiring, placement of hardware, what color carpet/countertop/headliner and wood customizations. We are thankful to have been there in person for some critical decisions on the galley and main salon before the border shut down to non-essential travel mid-March 2020.

We then had to put our trust in the Philbrooks Team to bring to fruition our desires in the retrofit. We adapted to virtual meetings; weekly FaceTimes and even more frequent text conversations with photos. This was easier for us with the galley and main salon, as the critical decision making for these projects were already completed before the border closure.

However for the custom hardtop it required us to have complete faith in the Philbrooks Team on something we did not want to be disappointed with in the final product (cha-ching). FaceTime video included a lot of scaffolding and not great visibility of the hard top. Our Project Manager Jamie allayed our fears and calmed us down on multiple occasions. And nine and a half months later (and more work still to come) when we took possession of her in Roche Harbor mid-September 2020, as the border remained closed, all of our fears were allayed. But more on the custom hard top in another post!

After spending a season aboard in The Bahamas and the Pacific Northwest and becoming intimate with our 66′ Tollycraft, we were ready to embark on Phase One of a major retrofit. “Tolly” Tollefson built a great quality boat, however the galley and main salon had become dated as she was built in 1992. A massive media cabinet was no longer needed, neither was a designated desk area. The galley is always where the guests congregate, well, besides the aft or top deck, so why aren’t there bar stools? The venturi blew wind directly at your face, defeating the purpose of having a venturi. The bimini needed new canvas, but instead of replacing it why not install a hardtop?

Not only did we spend the season mentally re-configuring the galley and main salon, we also spent this time looking at other boats interior layouts – online and in person. We also paid attention to hard top styles and venturis. We snapped photos of things we liked, and made mental notes of things we definitely did not like. We wanted to honor “Tolly” Tollefson’s classic design, and make sure the hard top looked like it was built with the boat in 1992. No small feat for the boatyard we chose!

Tom used his amateur cad skills to draw a sketch of the galley and main salon layout, and we started interviewing boatyards. We knew Delta Marine was out of our budget, as we had done some work with them in 2018 once she was back in Pacific Northwest waters. Their work was fantastic, with a comparable price tag. So this left Platypus Marine, S3 Maritime, Yacht Performance Center and Philbrooks Boatyard. Platypus Marine required us to have a marine architect draw plans, adding $$$ to the cost of the project. We met with S3 and Yacht Performance Center aboard Docktails in Ballard, to get a feel of a working relationship and to hear how they would tackle our two projects. And finally we met with Philbrooks Boatyard in Roche Harbor at a Tollycraft Rendezvous.

At the beginning of our Pacific Northwest cruising season we began at Van Isle Marina for the Philbrooks Boatyard Team to physically step aboard Docktails and get a feel for the depth and scope of our projects. We were also able to tour their facility and a boat in process of undergoing a similar retrofit. Each employee was proud to show off their craftsmanship and current project, and they made us feel comfortable.

It ultimately came down to the synergy we felt with the employees we met, along with referrals and the exchange rate. Tom is also a hands-on owner, who likes to run and wire his own electrical. We, or more like he with me as his helper, installed and wired all new electronics tip to toe as well as a water maker in Florida. For many weeks were we very intimate with Marina Mile Ft Lauderdale, which also opened our eyes to what really is the boating capital of the states. But back to the point, we wanted to be involved the whole way. We felt comfortable with our choice in boatyards: Philbrooks. We were excited on embarking on Phase One of our Docktails retrofit!

After two years anticipation, we dropped Docktails off at Philbrooks Boatyard the Monday after New Year’s 2020. We were both excited and nervous to embark on this new chapter!

In the fall of 2017, we experienced the second best day of boat ownership: we sold our boat! We had our 42′ Performance Trawler for seven years, and had some great memories aboard. It was bittersweet to say goodbye. At the time, she was the perfect boat for us.

42′ Performance Trawler, our former boat

For many seasons while we got the sh*$! kicked out of us in the Straight of Georgia, we engrained in our memory that our next boat would have stabilizers. While cruising our favorite area, The Broughton’s, we took note that a water maker would make all the difference as there is limited potable water here. Tom is 6’1″, a stand up engine room would be nice, so he did not have to contort himself around the engines. We are very competent at docking a twin screw, sans bow thruster. But some of the docks we tie to there is a swift current. A bow thruster would be nice.

We had a list of what our next boat would have. And we told ourselves we would not compromise. Our “perfect” boat wound up being in Ft Lauderdale, FL. When Tom showed me the listing the first time I said, but she’s in Florida! And we kept looking. And we kept coming back to this boat in Ft Lauderdale.

Maybe her being located in Ft Lauderdale was not a bad thing? We have chartered in the Whitsundays, Australia and Phang Nga Bay, Thailand, maybe this could be another adventure?

We flew down in December to take a look at her, and ended up spending almost two hours aboard. Learning, sensing, understanding. She is a 66′ Tollycraft, originally a 61′ that was sent back to the Tollycraft factory in Kelso WA to have her cockpit extended. It is believed she was the last 61′ Tollycraft to be extended before they started building the 65′ Tollycraft, modeled after her. These Tollycrafts are what the Fleming, Offshore, and Marlows are modeled after. Her lines are classic, and timeless.

She is exactly what we were looking for. But she was located in Florida. After we got back to Seattle, we started doing our research on how to bring her home. The options were slim. She is too large to be transported over land on a trailer. We could put her on a float on/float off freighter from Ft Lauderdale to Victoria BC to the tune of $62,000. Or, we could cruise her through the Panama Canal ourselves. Since the first two options were not viable, it would have to be the third. We never knew transiting the Panama Canal with our own boat was on our bucket list!