Sunday, June 28: Day 25: From Powell River to Lund

[Photo: Artemus helping Greg write into the log book before leaving Powell River]

Sunday (Day 25) – Heading to Lund and a Spotless Boat

I had to start adding the specific days to my post titles because I am completely losing track of what day it is out here—this way it will help keep me anchored!

This morning, I woke up once in the night to use the head and noticed that the roaring wind from yesterday evening had calmed down quite a bit. By 7:40 AM, we were right back to yesterday's beautiful calmness. Apparently, it is supposed to be quite windy out there in the strait for the next few days. Because it will be blowing from the Northwest, we are going to have to do some serious tacking when we get the sails up.

Our destination today is Lund! Right now, I'm sitting down enjoying my morning coffee while I type this, and Greg is busy vacuuming the entire cabin and the cockpit so we have a beautifully clean boat to leave in. Don't you just love it when your cruising partner pitches in with the heavy cleaning like that? It is most appreciated!

Tacking in the Strait and the Long Slog to Lund

At about 11:00 AM, we untied the lines and I pointed our bow out into the Malaspina Strait. I could see the little ripples in the water that had started to pick up back in the marina rapidly morphing into much bigger waves out in the strait. I knew right then and there: we were officially out in the big water.

With a stiff wind blowing from the northwest and our route heading northwest, we found ourselves fighting a choppy, head-on sea. We put up the working jib to help us along, but it turned into a mixed bag of sailing. Fighting both the wind and a heavy headcurrent, the most speed we managed to scrape out of the sails was about 5.2 knots—and that was only for a very short time. We tacked back and forth past the old mill, but it felt like we weren't making a single bit of headway.

There was another, larger sailboat out there tacking along with us, and we kept crossing each other’s paths. They had their mainsail out too, which gave them a major advantage, and they easily outpaced us. After tacking a few times, our Navionics screen was all over the clock, predicting an arrival time anywhere between 4:00 PM and 11:00 PM. Eventually, we lost our patience with the wind, took down the jib, and decided to motor.

It was the right call. The water gradually became smoother, the wind died down, and the rest of the trip to Lund turned into a very pleasant cruise.

A Desirable Spot on the Breakwater

We arrived in Lund around 3:00 PM and managed to score the exact middle spot on Breakwater 1, right where we had stayed before. For us, this is the ultimate spot because of Artemus. It’s a wide, concrete floating dock, meaning I’ll be able to step right outside and do my Tai Chi on the dock tomorrow morning—just like I did here two years ago with our friends!

[Photo: Happy cat sleeping under the dodger with cement floating dock to the right]

After tying up, we hopped in the dinghy and headed over to the marina office to settle up our moorage. Next, we hit the little store hidden behind the hotel to restock. We scored a few great finds: two bottles of fruit wine made in Abbotsford (Blackberry and Strawberry-Rhubarb), a good dark hazelnut chocolate bar by Ferrero Rocher, and a fresh bottle of Navy rum to replenish our nearly empty mickey for our morning coffees, which we haven't had in a few days. We also grabbed a bag of bell peppers and some tortilla chips to pair with the salsa we already have on board.

The Paparazzi Ice Cream and the Orchestra Flashback

With our shopping done, we headed straight for the boardwalk restaurant just after 4:00 PM. We hadn't eaten a proper lunch on the way, so we were getting hungry for an early dinner. They served up the most delicious lingcod fish and chips—which makes total sense, given they’ve won numerous awards for them!

After dinner, we stopped at the little ice cream shack along the boardwalk, which brought us to a funny realization about last night.

In all the rush to post, I forgot to mention the event Greg and I went to back in Powell River. It was an orchestra made up of highly talented young adults who had won multiple awards, and they played absolutely fantastically. Two of the pieces they performed were a couple of movements—Mars and Jupiter—from Gustav Holst's orchestral suite, The Planets.

[Photo: Capturing the view from our blanket; there were definitely more people in the crowd than players on the stage! There were a lot more around us.]

We watched the show sitting on our blanket on a sloped, grassy area, which quickly became pretty uncomfortable for my sore hips. By the time they started playing the Star Wars theme, we decided to get up and walk over to find an ice cream booth we had spotted, called Sassy Mack’s Homemade Ice Cream. The music was good and loud, so we could still hear the orchestra perfectly while we ordered. Last night, I had a lemony flavour, which was very good.

[Photo: Sassy Mack's Homemade Ice Cream shack at Lund Harbour Authority past Nancy's Bakery on the way to Boardwalk Restaurant]

Little did we know, Sassy Mack’s is actually based right here in Lund! The little boardwalk shack we stopped at tonight is their home base. While getting our scoops, (we both had the Salted Carmel Chocolate - absolutely yummy) we ended up chatting with the young fellow working the booth, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the local area. We mentioned that our friends were anchoring in Walsh Cove tonight and that we were planning to head there next.

He was full of smiles, along with his knowledge; He told us Walsh Cove is one of his absolute favorite spots in Desolation Sound, and he gave us a great tip: there are ancient pictographs painted right onto the cliffs there that we should try to hunt down!

Looking Ahead to Desolation Sound

When we got back to the boat, a wave of memory hit us. We realized we actually had been to Walsh Cove two years ago and absolutely loved it. I distinctly remember swimming there and even diving straight into the water because it was so beautifully warm.

Now, we are incredibly excited to get up there, do some swimming, and meet up with our friends before they head out to the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island for a Bluewater Cruising Association (BCA) event called VICE (Vancouver Island Cruising Experience). Greg and I were actually thinking of joining the VICE trip ourselves this year, right up until our mainsail ripped. But hey—maybe next year we will finally do the full trip around the island!

For the rest of this beautiful evening, the computer is going away. We are just relaxing in the cockpit in the warm sunshine, listening to the gentle lap of the waves, and feeling the boat move slowly in the water.

[Photo: History of Lund - duh!]

[Photo: Greg seated at the table in front of the Boardwalk, happy with his fish n' chips]

[Photo: My mouth waters just looking at this photo of the delicious Ling cod fish n' chips]

[Photo: A close-up of the Boardwalk.]

[Photo: King Neptune on a rock nearby]

[Photo: Some of the herbs growing near Nancy's Bakery]

[Photo: A shot of the Boardwalk and surrounding area, from the dinghy]

• Comments are Welcome! Please feel free to chime in—just make sure to hit PUBLISH when you are done. If you aren't signed into a Google account, your comment will show up as "Anonymous," so please type your first name and last initial in the comment box so I know who I'm replying to! (If you are signed into Google, your name will show up automatically.)

• Check Back for Updates: I quite often write and update this blog as the day goes by. If you want to catch the whole story, be sure to check back and refresh your browser! I've also been known to add details after the day is over—or even days later if I suddenly remember something I forgot to include.