Day 360 Up with the sails AGAIN!

Above are pictures of Selby Cove, Prevost Island.

We took off from Bedwell Harbour late this morning and set off for James Bay on the North side of Prevost Island.  It had the makings of a nice place to stay for a day or so as long as the winds weren't from the Northwest.   As expected, the winds were from the Northwest as soon as we left Bedwell.  OK fine, what the heck, we put up the sails and tacked back and forth up through the islands.  Out from South Pender Island and over toward Saltspring Island , then back toward North Pender Island, then back toward Saltspring Island.  Back and forth fighting our way up in  winds from 8 knots to 18 knots.  Up with the Main Sail.  Out came the Genoa on its roller furling.  This baby is so big that it rolls up at the bow when you're done with it.  You don't pull it down, just pull a line and zip, it wraps around the forestay and its nicely put away.  Zephyr is the first boat we've had that has had this equipment.  

Once the winds got to over 15 knots, we decided to put up the Forestaysail and roll up the Genoa for a while to see how she would perform with a smaller sail.  This required us to finally set up the "Running Backstays".  These are lines (rope) that replaced some of the rigging when we had it replaced.  They run from about 3/4 of the way up the mast toward just beside the cockpit and stabilizes the mast when the Forestaysail is up.  We had lines running all over the boat.   First, Zephyr stopped healing over and ran flat(good).  She also lost about 3 knots of speed (bad) with the smaller sail.  With the Genoa out, we were making about 6+ knots through the water.  Only 3 with the Forestaysail.  Plus, while most boats will only go at 45 degrees into the wind(we talked about that yesterday), with the Genoa out, Zephyr would point clear up to an amazing 30 degrees before the sails stopped drawing wind.  That allows us to go much farther up wind than any boat I've ever been in.   With  the forestaysail out, she will only point to about 50 degrees since the sail is farther back from the bow of the boat.

Since we were in no real hurry, we pulled the Genoa out about half way so it slightly overlapped the Forestaysail.  We had all the canvas up that Zephyr carries.  With the Genoa only half way out, the speed went back up to the 6+ knots it had been.  Only this time with a bit more control.

As the afternoon progressed, the wind got lighter and lighter until we finally had to start the motor.  We started into James Bay.  OOPs, already two boats anchored in there so we moved over to Selby Cove right around the corner.  No reason to crowd a harbour.   It was deserted so we dropped our anchor and we were set.  There were some houses along the shore but the closest is deserted so we have the place all to ourselves.

It was beautifully sunny all day.  Still a bit chilly so a coat was the wardrobe of the day and a hat to keep the ears warm.  I'll take that over cloudy and rainy anytime.  It is only supposed to get better over the next week.

As we sailed up Captain Passage just West of Prevost Island, I checked the bilge and found some water down there.  On with the pump and out it went.  Now here is where it gets interesting.  After I turned off the pump, water just started coming back into the bilge from the through hull where the water is supposed to go out.  We were healed over just enough to have the fitting under water.  There is supposed to be an anti-syphon valve in the line to stop this from happening.  I'll be exploring to see what went wrong.  I watched as the water came in and the automatic float switch that is supposed to turn on the bilge pump if too much water is down there didn't work either.  It floats but doesn't turn on the pump.  I'll be checking out that little problem also.  Down into the bilge again.  Boy what fun!?!

There are definitely more sailboats out on the water today than any day so far.  We had to have seen at least 15 throughout the day.   Add in several ferries and tugs and it gets busy out there.  We are always on watch.  Today's voyage, while only a distance of 8 miles as the crow flies ended up at over 16 by the time we got here with all the switches back and forth through the channels.  Even having to go farther under sail, it is still much cheaper than using the motor as many of the sailboats we say today were.  It's great to be under sail again!

Hey, I got this done and it's only 1920 hours.  I may get to bed at a decent hour tonight.