Although the blog is usually behind where we actually are at any given time,
this post is real time. We are leaving Princess Louisa Inlet right now after
spending a lovely 5 nights here.

Photos and videos to follow.

We’re starting to give up on Environment Canada forecasts. It is likely that staffing and budgets are at play so I’m not blaming the organization but depending on the region and the time of year the forecasts are either consistently under or over forecast.

In our experience, the winds in the Gulf Islands are consistently over forecast in the summer. When they predict 25 knot winds, we assume we’ll see 15 or less. We always assumed this was to reduce the number of new/infrequent or charter sailors from getting themselves in trouble by going out in winds that were too strong for themselves.

When we arrived at the North tip of Vancouver Island we found that the winds were not extremely accurately forecast but at least the errors were on either side of the true wind – sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. Normal forecasting errors.

So far, none of this is frustrating at all. Weather is difficult to forecast and the idea of protecting boaters from themselves (and thus protecting the poor underfunded Coast Guard who has to go rescue them) is probably for the best.

What is a weird is that regularly this winter they have been *under* forecasting the strength of the winds, often substantially and then amending their “forecast” to represent actual conditions. For example, recently they were forecasting SE winds in the region we are in at 20-25 knots. Between the morning forecast and the afternoon forecast, the winds were 30-35 knot and then increased to 35-40 knots. As the wind increased, they amended their prediction to 30-35 and then 35-40. For vessels that are comfortable in 25 knots but not 40 this is quite a big change in forecast and it would occur while they were already underway. This happened regularly while we were in Victoria as well.

Again, this would be only mildly frustrating to us as we always assume the forecast is only a guess anyways, however we have been watching the grib files as part of our own weather self-education and time after time we can tell that the winds coming in will be stronger than the forecast. The Environment Canada have access to at least as much information as we do, and they are “experts”, so the underforecasting and then backcasting is just bizarre.

On both the W Coast of Van Isle and our winter sailing trips we have found the grib files to be generally better predictors of actual conditions than the forecasts. - Livia

The gribs are better on the West side than on the inside because of the funneling effects of the land masses which the grib files don’t show. This is where the VHF forecasts really add valuable information. Grib files show systems coming through (lows/highs/troughs/ridges) but Environment Canada does a better job of predicting the direction of the wind between the island and the mainland than gribs because of their local knowledge and it is also important to understand that local physical land masses will funnel the wind in some regions into higher speeds than the grib will show.

Also, it is important to look at the strength of the low or high pressure system. One example of where Environment Canada was underforecasting is when a low pressure system around 980 millibars comes through just South of Alaska. When those come through, the isobars get tight, the grib shows strong winds, and, no surprise, we get strong winds.  Every time this happened you could add 10-15 knots to the Environment Canada forecast. - Carol

Anchorages in BC and Canada are more beautiful than ever in the winter. The water is much clearer and we can see more life in the water from the boat. The anchorages are deserted and so we feel like intrepid explorers even walking in what are normally overrun parks. There is more sailing wind in the winter, sometimes too much. Unfortunately it is also cold and wet.

Green clear water (left) and you can see the bottom (right):

One thing we've learned about ourselves, after doing a bit of winter sailing, is that it is easy to avoid feeling cooped up in bad weather if we plan our anchorages carefully.

Here is the SV Estrellita 5.10b list of important qualities for a winter anchorage:

- Scenic views from cockpit. If the weather really sucks and it is too gross to be in the dinghy, we can still sit bundled up in our cockpit in our full enclosure, sipping cocoa or mulled wine and enjoying the view with a book.

We love you Iverson Dodgers full enclosure – the wine and camembert don’t hurt either:

- Easy access to shore. Shore must be close to where we are anchored (no long dinghy rides in strong wind and rain) and we must be able to get to shore without having to carry the dinghy across a long muddy slog. Dinghy docks are great as are sandy beaches.

- Walking of some sort. Whether it be a hiking path, a beach, or the streets of a new town, we need somewhere to walk because we aren't going out kayaking in the rain. We don't have the gear (or the kayak) for that.

Hiking on Wallace Island:

- Finally, we like to mix in stays at docks in towns more often during the winter than in the summer. Warm coffee shops, public libraries with DVDs and internet, and pubs are even more fun after a long and usually isolated stint in the winter weather.

A few photos of Livia & Estrellita 5.10b at anchor for our collection.

From Montague, we had light winds forecast and so we delayed making our way across the Strait of Georgia and instead motored a short distance North to Conover Cove on Wallace Island.

Conover Cove is quite shallow and we can only stay there when the low tides are relatively high. At a zero tide we would touch bottom almost anywhere in the bay. We took advantage of the high tides to spend two nights hiking the island.

Wallace Island is a fun place for a cruising boat because it is one of those spots with a tradition of yachts marking their names, much like Hot Springs Cove. Most cruising dreamers have read of exotic ports of call where adventurous cruising yachts paint their names and Wallace Island echoes those stories for me. A few years ago we painted our name on a rock and hung the rock on the outside of the shed. Our good friends Ryan & Christine could not find our name when they visited, for the good reason that our paint had faded to nothing. The rock is still hung, perhaps someone else can put it to good use (please do & send us a picture).

This time we left an old yellowed chart which I had been marking our path on as we went around Vancouver Island. I thought it would be a good way to leave our name and fun for visitors to look for places they have visited or might visited on the West Coast. It will decay over time and that pleases me for some reason as well.

Where are we going? The only goal is to hang out for a bit at the mythical Chatterbox Falls in Princess Louisa Inlet. We say “mythical” because we attempted to visit in the snowy January 2007 but were iced in for 5 days just past the rapids but prior to Macdonald Island and never saw the falls themselves. That’s a good story for a later post.

In the here and now (or close), we left Victoria and our winter slip on the last day of the month and I began moving the boat slowly North during the day while Carol finished his last week of winter part-time work. We spent two nights at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and another two nights at the Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club, which incidentally is shortened to SNSYC and so I always misread it as NSYNC. For the most part, no matter how fancy, the yacht clubs have been very welcoming when we visit. No surprise I guess because they are, after all, boaters.

In particular, the RVYC has been fun to visit because they have a energetic racing fleet of all ages and it seems that many of their boats go out on a regular basis, in all kinds of weather. The RVYC does not seem to be a club full of dock queens. One day when we were coming in to escape a westerly gale, their long distance racing fleet was headed out to do laps in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

From SNSYC we sailed up to Montague where we were spotted by a fellow boater on the ferry, the Coastal Celebration. We spent 3 nights at Montague Harbor. Montague is nice, particularly when there are light winds overnight and you can anchor on the North side of the park. Alas, the winds were blustery and we were in the nearly deserted main harbor to escape them. We spent the days doing boat work, relaxing, dreaming of future anchorages and by the end were itching to move on.