SV Ultegra's Most Excellent Adventure: West Coast of Vancouver Island

We have continued to have extraordinary weather until today, when we woke to pouring rain while docked at Tofino - but we won't complain, as we have been blessed by the weather gods! Since reaching Vancouver Island on July 25/15 we have been bumping our way along the coast, checking out a variety of marine parks, sports fishing haunts, natural hot springs and enjoying some incredible kayaking. We have had some fabulous sailing, great winds that are going in the right direction! We topped out at 11.9 kts on the foresail a few days ago, that was exciting! The boat is performing well, despite a few glitches, a small tear in UV cover of the foresail, head problems and a water leak that Dennis has spent hours on trying to find the source still no luck. Thank god Dennis is so capable at fixing things. and no doubt with his obsessive personality he will find the source of the leak! A note to those of you with water makers, we are having to replace the pre-filters every 200 - 250 gallons, given the algae bloom on the west coast. Glad we brought lots.

Despite our comment in the last post about not seeing as much sea life as anticipated we are seeing quite alot. We have now seen 5 types of whales, killer, gray, minke, fin and humpbacks; seals and sea lions, sea otters, bear, racoon, deer, tons of eagles and numerous sea birds. We were accompanied by an albatross flying with us much of the trip from Gwaii Haanas to Vancouver Island. I named him Abby. Things you will do when you are sailing long distances (:-)

Our fishing luck continues, with the purchase of a fresh tuna from a commercial fisherman at Winter Harbour. They had 6000 pounds of tuna on board and we out until they caught 15,000!

We are both enjoying being in more populated areas, chatting with other boaters, dinners out, access to phone, email, grocery stores and laundry, things that become real treats when you don't have ready access to them. We are headed to Victoria, looking forward to kayaking in the Broken Islands on route. I am going to spend a few days with friends in Victoria while Dennis heads to Port Angeles to do some work on the boat. Our plans are to head off down the US coast around the 3rd week of August.

Hoping you are all have a great summer!