When I purchased Aeolus it had four separate jacks, fittings, and mounts on the port side inner cockpit coaming.  I used all of them at one time or another, but always found their placement problematic at best and their utility marginal. The Pretorien cockpit is already pretty tight, and it …

The family summer cruise this year is to Olympia, doing up the south sound.  That didn't seem like quite enough to me so I put the word out I was looking to do a 5 - 9 day cruise to the San Juan Islands.  I was fortunate and received a favorable …

As with every year, the weeks before the cruise are filled with boat projects that really should have been done in February.  Some day that will happen.

Last year, one of the 11th hour projects was to replace the fridge compressor and evaporator and install a cool little gizmo that …

We steamed north with a destination of Tenedos Bay.  Tenedos would turn out to be our favorite anchorage of the trip.  It was spectacular and very rewarding to pull around the corner of Sarah Point and into the entrance of Desolation Sound.  The mountains were beautiful, rising straight up from …

It has been a while but I’m going to pick up this slowly developing marine travelogue again with our journey from Garden Bay to Lund.  We got off to an early start that should put us into Lund around 1:00 PM.  It was clear it was going to …

Heading out from Nanaimo to cross the Strait of Georgia you need to check the status of Whiskey Golf.  Whiskey Golf is a test range where the navy conducts torpedo test firing.  If it is active, and you will never know until the day of, then you need to make …

Onward to Nanaimo!  This is where the trip gets interesting for me because we are breaking new ground.  Today we transit Dodd Narrows, as famous a tidal passage in its area as Desolation Pass is for those who mostly cruise the US islands.

We spend the day blowing through, or …

Next stop Bedwell Harbor.  We have to clear customs somewhere.  The pro-forma itinerary called for it to be Sidney because it also has easy provisioning at a decent grocery store.  Our last stay at Sidney left us less than enchanted with it as a destination.  It has some nice bookstores …

This is a highlights and summary post.  I intend to publish some additional posts on specific locations.  All of these posts are made after the fact.  I took some notes on the cruise but didn't want to spend that precious time pecking away on the keyboard for hours every day …

I've long been a big fan of the Nanaimo bars sold at our neighborhood Ken's Market. What a delightful confection. Kim and I contemplated making them once, but as Boromir might say:

It involves a double boiler and takes more than a day what with the need for stuff to …