Sailing video!

If you love awesomely edited videos that are both funny and entertaining to watch, there are a crapload of them out there. Youtube is full of them.

Youtube is also full of videos like the one you are about to watch. Boring videos filmed and edited by people like me that think they know what they are doing.

Enjoy!

Posted in Big trips, Canada Trip, Palarran, videos | 1 Comment

A few pictures of us rounding the Brook Peninsula

Each part of this trip around Vancouver island had it’s tricky parts that I worried about.

The first section was the Straight of Georgia, the second section were all the rapids and narrows of Johnstone straights. The the biggies, Cape Scott and Brooks pennisula. Those were the big daddys.

As it turned out, other than a crapload of very thick fog, and some rolly seas, Cape Scott was fairly easy. Nothing to sneeze at, but not as bad as I thought it would be.

Due to all the fog, we did not even see the Cape. It was completely covered.
A few days later, we were anchored in Klashkisk Inlet, preparing to round the Brooks Peninsula. This time, no fog. But there were some honking big waves and swell.

I think I posted about the rounding before, but thought I’d upload a few pictures of the rounding. Some of these were taken by Jason and Christy on Hello World and the others were taken by Kevin on Andante.

Enjoy….we did….sorta. ;)

I love this first picture. It was taken by s/v Hello World as we were leaving the anchorage and heading out to round Brooks. Tawn is on deck working on getting the staysail up. We already go the main up and reefed.

We are NOT sinking.

This shot was taken right at the point of the Brook Peninsula by m/v Andante. Proably about an hour or two after that first picture was taken.

We are almost around the point.

And finally, around the point and headed downhill. Tawn was up riding on the bowsprit (her favorite spot on the boat). This was were we saw the biggest seas and were actually doing 10 plus knots over the ground as we surfed down the waves.

Around the tip, Grundel here we come!

Posted in Big trips, Canada Trip | 3 Comments

Old man and the Sea

I’m not a very good fisherman. I’ll be the first…..make that second to admit that. Tawn is usually the firt to admit I suck at fishing. I like the idea of fishing, but never really have the patience for it. Truth be told, I don’t really know what I’m doing. What lure to use, how deep or shallow to put the stupid lure? Where to even be, and then what to do with the damn fish when you do catch it? All very confusing.

But since we’ve left Seattle, I’ve been fishing alot. And since I’ve been catching alot of fish, it makes going out the next day a little easier. We have also caught a crap load of Crab (Dungeness) and a fair amount of Prawns. But those are easy. Put some rotten something in a cage and drop it over board, then pick it up the next day, rinse and repeat.

Last week we (Me, Tawn and Kevin) were out fishing for Lingcod and Halibut and were having a blast catching a ton of fish. When we had a little snafu with a line getting snagged on the bottom and in the process of getting that untangled, I felt a small bite on my line. I pulled it up a bit and had fish on the hook. It did not feel very big, so I was just sorta reeling it in slowly when BAM!, there was a big giant pull on the line and now what ever I was pulling up felt a lot bigger….A LOT bigger.

As it neared the surface I could see the orangeish color of the fish. “Another cod” I thought, then looked closer and could see this huge Lingcod with the fish I caught in it’s mouth! I yelled to Kevin to grab the net. I think I said something like “net, nnnnn, nneeet, NET, NET NETNETNET, GRAB THE FUCKING NET”.

And we pulled this 21.6 pound (yes, I’m claiming that .6 of a pound) lingcod into the dinghy.

So many fish tacos!

When Kev started filming with his Ipad, I was still a little excited

If you’ve never seen a lingcod before, they are beast. Huge mouth full of sharp teeth. Not a very good picture of the mouth, but close enough.

Pre cleaning

Posted in Adventures, Big trips, Canada Trip, Fishing, Palarran | 2 Comments

This is how we do.

Some of you may be wondering what happens when two people that, may or may not have a slight drinking problem, quit their jobs and sail off on their boat to far flung places that have really shitty, really expensive beer (I’m looking directly at you Canada). What happens? Since we are working with a limited amount of money, $50 dollar cases (yup!) of shit beer rarely make it on the shopping list. We may be crazy, but not crazy enough to do this completely sober.

So with the help of some of our equally crafty/creative friends, and by crafty/creative I of course mean alcoholic. But the fun, lovable sort of alcoholic. Not the greasy, urine soaked kind. We have a method of brewing very tasty beers on board…..and as soon as the rum runs out, I’m gonna have to figure out a way to build a small still (I am now looking directly at you Philthy, HI PHIL).

As proof, I give you the fruits of our first batch of boat brewed beer.

Five……FIVE growlers of beer!! HHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAHHAAAAHHAA

Bear Hole Brown Ale. We are anchored in Nimmo Bay, enjoying pint or two right now.

Cheers!!

We actually brewed in a couple weeks ago in a place called Forward Bay. And bottled it 3 days later in Potts Lagoon.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we called it Bear Hole Brown because on the day we brewed it, we went for a hike and had to basically crawl through/past what could have only been described as a bear hole. No doubt a bear slept there.

Anyway…..mmmmmmm beer!

Posted in Adventures, Big trips, Canada Trip, Palarran | 9 Comments