Crossing Cape Caution

May 12 – Crossing Cape Caution

Glen let me sleep in, still not feeling great. The water was calm, well as calm as Cape Caution can get and the group headed out. I managed to actually get enough cell service to make my 9am conference call today.

Part way out Tom had a problem. Apparently his steering hydraulics went out so we circled back and took Miner’s Debt and No Debt in tow. Hopefully someone gets a photo of the Magic train.

Pete went on board with Tom and Chris to try to help with whatever repairs they might be able to do. This left Linda to single hand Spirit Bear for hours crossing Cape Caution. What a trooper! She was told to take a ‘selfie’ for the record. She followed Nelsea and Nellie, who were following Sea Life.

Part way across Glen suggested that Tom try cruising using his throttles to steer and see if he could maneuver on his own. That seemed to work, but Magic stayed close just in case.

For those that don’t know Cape Caution is a crossing of about 31 miles of open Pacific Ocean. With the slower travel due to Tom’s issues and adding the harbor travel for the day we were traveling from about 8:30 am until 4:00pm. Cape Caution can be a beast, and with boat problems could but worse. But thankfully today it was a fairly nice crossing with just rollers, and a bright sunny sky.

Crossing Cape Caution on a nice day

After anchoring and rafting up in Joes Bay the guys all gathered on Miner’s Debt to give their wisdom (aka 2 cents) regarding the problem. They even got out the manuals, what guys reading the instructions, tell me it isn’t so. LOL Still no answers or fixes. Enough of that let’s go for a dinghy ride. Glen and I joined Willard and Diane in their dinghy (ours got another glue job today). We all went up the inlet (water was high enough to clear the outfall/waterfall), and up into Elizabeth Lagoon. Lagoon is a wrong name as this is really a full-fledged lake. There is also an Elizabeth Lake up at the end thru the trees. We found the entrance to that but it was not passable and we did not feel like hiking. So after thoroughly exploring the Lagoon, we headed out, over the rocks and back to the big boats. The group had dinner on Sea Life but not wanting to face real food yet, I stayed back on Magic and had some soup, then went down for an early night.

Some photos from recent days