“Falling” around South Van Isle - Part 2

On day two, we continued our plan B, “work and cruise, cruise and work”.  Plan B, just as it implies, wasn’t our first choice, but plan B’s have been our plan A’s a number of times in the past, so it was nothing new.  Sunday morning we woke to an empty San Juan Island anchorage,  a nice contrast to summer’s alternative.  I put some water on the stove for the coffee press and switched on the diesel heater.  
It was a quintessential setting, a cool autumn morning, a lone boat in the middle of a polished lagoon, surrounded by the quiet, patch work of deciduous and evergreen trees (for effect, add the wail from a solitary loon here ;).  Enjoying a warm cup inside a warm cabin seemed most appropriate.  There was no rush, we had all day to make for our next stop, Tsehum Harbor, home to Van Isle Marina and an official Canadian port of entry.  After a relaxing breakfast, the dishes done, the cabin tidied and the bed made, we were ready to weigh anchor.
After snaking our way out of Mosquito Pass, we set a course for B.C.’s waters via Haro Strait.  Sunny, warm, but windless, we motored across the strait, along Sydney Island’s north shore, tying up at Van Isle Marina about noon, two hours later.  Erika stepped off Jomo and into the phone shack.  She dialed up a Canada border agent, jibber- jabbered for a few minutes and jumped back aboard with our customs reference number in hand.  We were officially free to sail beautiful British Columbia…    

The first night at anchor, we plugged our heating blanket into the Jackery 1000ah power station, the alternate source of energy we wanted to experiment with during this cruise.  The LED on the unit’s display showed we only consumed about 20% of the stored electricity for the night.  Unfortunately, I forgot to pack it’s very unique charging cord and therefore stowed the remaining 80% of it’s capacity away for the remainder of the cruise - flex and adapt I guess.  Along with it’s conveniently small size (think of an Igloo Playmate cooler) I purchased it as an alternate or emergency power source for Erika’s work station and sat-com, in case the house bank failed - for whatever reason.  Luckily, we didn’t have to use, it but it was comforting to know it was on board.  -Keith

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