Day 24 - Victoria Harbor

Today we motored from Saanich Bay to Victoria Harbor. After a quiet night we raised anchor at 9 AM, rounded Cordoava Spit, and headed south through Bazan Bay into the Cordova Channel with James Island to our port. At the SE corner of Victoria Island we decided to take the safer and simpler route around Discovery Island rather than the shorter but more intricate Baynes Channel and Plumper Passage partly because we did not want to risk strong currents in those tight passages. Just as well. We rounded Discovery Island at the junction of Haro Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca and found ourselves doing as little as 0.5 knots against the current. We increased the engine revs to 1200 and got up to 0.8 knots. I think that the current, which was supposed to be 1.1 kt in the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca was stronger close to Discovery Island where it had to round into Haro Strait. It seemed forever before we got away from the Discovery Island light house but at 1.30 PM our speed increased to 0.9 kt then 1.0 kt then ... ultimately up to about 4.5 kt. We can credit the 4.5 kt to Brenda's suggestion that we put out the jib against the 14 kt wind that was about 30 degrees off our port bow.

We worked our way into Victoria Harbour at about 4.30 PM not being able to raise the Wharf Manager on VHF 73 as the web site had suggested. we motored to the Causeway Floats in front of the Empress Hotel dodging boats and sea planes along the way and saw a sign giving VHF 66A as the contact. We stooged around the harbor for about 20 minutes while a berth was located for us and we then got instructions to go to the Wharf Street floats, the south side of Jetty C which is perpendicular to the shore, to where it meets Jetty D, which is parallel to the shore. We were to raft next to a boat named Esprit de Mer. We found Jetty C, crept almost to the shore before we could turn left to approach it after passing several offshoots of Jetty D, then turned left along a narrow blind alley of boats and managed to tie up safely with the help of Robert, one of the four men on the chartered Jeanneau. After we arrived two more boats were crammed into this blind alley, one rafted behind Pachuca, and a smaller one ahead of Pachuca across the narrow section of Jetty D that forms the end of the blind alley. A year ago I would not been able to creep around narrow passages of a strange marina looking for a particular boat to raft to but I guess when you gotta you gotta.

Our theory that Victoria Harbor would be somewhat free because of the impending start of the school year was sound. However, we did not plan on a yacht club booking an entire wharf in the area followed by the start of a boat festival tomorrow. Things will be tight in Victoria Harbour until next week.

We're OK. We've booked for 3 days. The day after tomorrow Esprit de Mer will move on and we will claim the jetty space which I don't find that attractive if it means another boat rafting next to ours with their crew climbing all over our boat to access the jetty. But that's boating.

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