Picture taken in British Columbia, Canada, Barkley Sound – June 25th.
As we counted down the days for our departure, I was asked many times; “Am I more nervous or excited.” I Always say excited, it is like a vacation that you have been planning for a while. We all know that feeling, right? But how will I feel once I’ve been gone 2-month, 6-month, 1+ years. I don’t really know yet. I guess what I can say is, the hardest part is going to be, not seeing my friends and family on a more frequent basis. We will have to use Face-time, phone calls, emails with less frequent hugs, that’s for sure.
As we worked towards the deadline we arbitrarily set on ourselves as June 15, with all our drive, determination and hard work we hoped we would meet it. But as the first part of June arrived we hated to admit it, we were not ready. It was hard to say to ourselves “were not ready yet”. It then suddenly dawned on us that we have no reason to be upset, angry or disappointed. We set the date, we can move the date.. (hard to say for a date driven IT girl that doesn’t like missing dates, lol) So, we took our “to do” list and marked those items that were a “must get done” before we leave.
Did I ever say that we have amazing friends… well we do. They jumped into action to help us get through the final items. We were also watching the weather in the ocean too and by June 18th we realized that if we leave on Thursday morning the we would be in good shape. So I spent the last couple days in Portland stowing for sea and food provisioning.
June 21 we set out from CRYC to head north, San Juan Islands and Canada is calling us. The ocean was extremely calm, but I didn’t do too well. I need to get my sea legs as it will be important for the upcoming trips south. Our trip north Ken and Cheryl Williams joined us and we were lucky enough to see whales and porpoise.
We landed at the Customs dock just north of the Broken Islands in Ucluelet marina. Customs boarded Angelique and went through our whole boat. It took more than 2 hours for them to interview and tour our boat. Dan was sad because they confiscated his Grandpa’s hunting knife and then promptly charged us $500 for the offence that we violated. We then headed to the store for food and fishing bait/gear. We had lunch at a small local fish and chips place, which was a welcome after such a long 26 hour trip in the ocean and 2+ hours with Customs. Next morning we heading to an anchorage just north of Chalk Island. Fishing was the highlight of the next 3 days. We caught lots of Rock Fish and Ling Cod. Awesome fish dinners for 3 nights in a row and taught Ken and Cheryl how to play 500, an Enloe family card game.
View from our boat anchored near Chalk Island – 2 different nights
We have enjoyed our time in this part of Canada and glad we made the voyage north. Excited to see other ports in Canada and Washington before heading south.
Cheers from Angelique M/V