Sullivan Bay

Before going to bed the night before, Chef and I had been instructed to make sure that everything in our cabin was properly stowed, battened and otherwise secured. Crossing the Queen Charlotte Strait was to take us out into the open ocean. Depending upon the strength and direction of the winds, we could be in for a rocky ride. Chef and I were pretty nervous about getting seasick, and downed a few ginger pills before going to bed.

We’d been told that the Captain would listen to the weather report at 4:00 am, and there would be a Skipper Briefing at 4:30 am. At that time, a decision would be made about whether or when we would cross the Strait. Chef and I stayed sleeping in our cabin, knowing that we’d be awakened once the engines got fired up. We were very surprised when we woke at 8:00 to see sunlight coming in from the light up on our hatch.

The 4:00 am weather report called for 10-foot swells in the Strait. That was enough to call off the early morning departure. Everyone headed back to bed, and it seems that no one was really up until about 10 am. The group has been moving along pretty quickly, and the early morning starts were really taking it out of all of us, so the weather day ended up being appreciated by everyone.

Our hosts at Sullivan Bay have been very gracious. They had just opened a new restaurant this season (we were their first guests). They had expected us to stay only one night, but when they learned that we wouldn’t be pushing on, they did all they could to pull together breakfast and dinner for the group. They also let us use their facility to host a few seminars. Fran, the Service Director, took numerous questions from the participants on boat maintenance and fixes. The man of our boat spoke on health related issues. After the seminars, there was another Skipper meeting with a review of the weather. At that time, we were told that there it was a less than 50% chance that we would be leaving Sullivan Bay the next morning.

This is when I started getting nervous. We’d built in a weather day (it was actually schedule for the day after our crossing) so if we left the next day, I’d still be on schedule. If we got stuck again the next day, I’d be behind by a day and would need to connect with all of the marinas and event coordinators and reschedule everything.

I still needed to connect with the marina we were supposed to arrive at that day to let them know we would not be showing up that night (I had a BBQ scheduled). I picked up my cell phone to call, and had no coverage. I tried using the boat’s satellite phone – but all the great minds on our boat couldn’t get it working. I tried using one of our participants sat phone, but the numbers didn’t seem to work. I tried using the Vonage phone of our hosts. I got through, but couldn’t understand a single word being spoken on the other end. I think they could hear me but I couldn’t be sure. I tried the sat phone of another participant, but ended up getting voicemail. I left a detailed message and asked them to email me if they got the message. I also found out that wireless had just been installed in the new restaurant. I was able to send email to the marina, but never got a confirmation mail back. I hope they got the message, and didn’t end up cooking those 50 hamburgers.

That night, everyone was tired, including Chef. We decided to take her out to dinner at the restaurant. She needed a break. The dinner was actually pretty tasty and it was nice to relax. Chef didn’t have to work and I didn’t have to do any dishes.

After dinner, Chef and I went over to “the bar” and watched a movie. The guys have so much space over at their place. We were trying to encourage them to go sleep in crew quarters for a night so that we could sprawl out in a huge bed and actually stand up straight in the cabin. The nicest perk was that both of us could actually stand up and move about the cabin at the same time. We weren’t able to convince the guys to swap cabins, and we headed back to the hole and re-stowed and battened in anticipation for the early morning departure.