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1   How Did That Happen? 

  I'm not going to tell Lilly what I'm seeing up here, she had dropped below to make tea. I had goofed. We were not where we were supposed to be. Now, the weather was kicking up and the waves were breaking over the port side. The Queen Charlotte Sound was pushing us hard into the strait and it didn't look good. We had to make the cover of Calvert Island before dark or we'd be in big trouble.

     Having spent the last weeks from Seattle to here, we had never been exposed to the big waters of the open ocean. Instead, we hadbeen “gunk-holing” up the East coast of Vancouver Island, ducking into safe harbors early in the day, never being out after dark. As beginners, we had it easy. No worrying about difficult navigation: I would just measure thirty to forty miles on the chart, figure the compass setting to get there, and off we would go. All we had to do was stay on the course I had chosen, then—when ready to pull over— look for a small bay to turn into.

      This was different.

      What if we couldn't find a safe spot before dark? 

      Right now I couldn't even see the shore we left from this morning, it was just water with rocks sticking up everywhere. Last night when I was plotting our course I thought I had it all planned out. All I had to do was motor for thirty minutes after leaving the bay, turn right between two giant rocks, then turn west to three hundred and twenty degrees and stay on that heading all day until we hit Calvert Island.

      What two big rocks? There were big rocks everywhere! They were all around us. What happened? I double checked my time.

       There it was.

       I hadn't been on this heading for thirty minutes, it had only been fifteen.

      I had looked over at Lilly then, seated in her spot against the starboard rail. Her bright orange life jacket fastened up tight and tied off to the life line with the end of one of the sail ropes, a precaution she had been taking ever since falling overboard off Quadra Island. She was looking at the rocks with the same apprehension I was feeling myself.

      “How about some tea?” I had asked her.

      She unhooked and went down below, while I tried to take account of the situation.

 I had left Port Hardy super early because I knew this was a long stretch of open water and I needed all the daylight I could get. Last night I had poured over the charts. Getting my dividers out, I measured several times the exact distance out of the marina to where I had to turn northwest. However, when I sighted the two big rocks I was sure that was the passageway I was looking for. These had to be the right ones. So off I went. After clearing them, I made my turn onto three hundred and twenty degrees.

      Now, there were rocks everywhere.

      I looked at the open ocean far to the West and I could see a ferry passing by in the distance. It was so small it looked like a toy boat on the horizon. I wondered why he was way over there when straight ahead was the entrance to the Fitz Hugh Sound and Calvert Island, the gateway to the protected Inside Passage, that went through Canada, all the way up to Alaska. Then it hit me, he was avoiding the rocks.

      Now that I was out here I couldn't just head over to where the ferry was. It was miles out of my way and I wouldn't be able to make Calvert Island by dark. It was also where most of the rocks were. I compromised and went a little toward the ferry, mostly for Calvert Island.

 What could I do—we were already out here—we would just have to watch out for the rocks.

      When Lilly came back with two mugs of tea, I asked her to take the helm while I checked the bilge. On top of everything else, the shaft seal had been leaking more and more, and the bilge pump wasn't working right. I had intended to get a new one in Port Hardy but the prices were too high. We would be in civilization in a couple of days and could get one then. Which meant I would have to check the water level every hour to make sure it wasn't getting too high.

      Uh-oh, there was already a lot of water in the bilge. The bilge pump showed a large amp draw but the water level wasn't going down. Apparently it was stuck. I would have to pump the bilge by hand. So, I dug out the guzzler hand bilge pump, stuck the discharge end over the rail and started pumping away. Fifty pumps should do it.

      It took one hundred and fifty pumps.

      Already the shaft leak was getting worse. I wondered if I could do a hundred and fifty pumps every hour.

  

      “Lilly,” I said as I climbed out of the hatchway, again, “I may need some help.” I didn't want to make too much of a fuss over the leak. The problem was , how many disasters could my wife take? Could we take turns on the bilge pump? Then is when the seriousness of the situation hit. If my backup hand bilge pump would give out and we couldn't get help soon, the boat could actually sink out here.

  How in the world did I get us into this situation?  

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