June 24, 2022
37 NM [ 1 hour, 50 minutes ]
Waking up to our last morning in Gorge Harbour. Much of the day (for Dave) was spent on getting the (dumb) dinghy setup fully operating so that we could continue to new locations. The currier that was to pick up the winch and motor assembly was delayed a day. The part was in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. From where we are at on Cortes Island it takes two ferry rides to get there. Early afternoon he got word, verbally since our phones won’t take or make calls in the harbor, that Ian the Currier is being told at Ocean Pacific that they don’t know what he is talking about and they have never heard of Dave or his part order. Dave is positive that he spoke with Mike and Mike also agrees with his coworker that the day earlier conversation did not take place. Well, crap.
Dave is 100% positive on having spoken to someone since we can verify on the credit card (and he rarely pays for things himself #lifemanager) that a charge is pending from Blue Water Rigging. Huh…what is Bluewater Rigging we ask ourselves. Turns out when you Google “Ocean Pacific” (the name provided to us by the resort) you can in fact get a phone number for another company. At this point, we have lost the time that Ian had available before catching his two ferries home. We are going to need to head to Campbell River and pick up the part before moving on. This is also the time we realize that Campbell River is only 15 miles away and the real Mike at Bluewater was willing to meet us in Discovery Harbor to deliver it. Probs should have done this in the first place.
Over our last lunch at the Float House Restaurant, Dave and I ponder whether the dinghy could be lifted back into its davit without the winch assistance. If we (he) can get that accomplished, we could avoid abandoning the dinghy at Gorge Harbor while we cruise to get the fix. Dave set up some rigging that he hoped might make the difference for him and Cole to get the dinghy in place. I’ll just skip to the part where it’s going to take more than the two of them to get this done. On the opposite side of the finger pier we are tied to is the Pleiades, a purple sailboat. The Captain of Pleiades offers his hoist line to get the extra leverage. So, that’s what they did. I’ve included the video below for full effect. While boaters are a community of kindness and mutual respect, the question “power boat or sailboat?” is real common. This power boat was real pleased to have made friends with this sailboat.
"Pleiades is a group of more than 800 stars and means Seven Sisters. In Greek Mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, protectress of sailing."
We made our 45 minute cruise to Campbell River, met the right Mike, and installed the new winch. By installed I mean Dave hunting down a drill because the predrilled holes did not match the existing footprint. Shortly after 7:00 pm we were finally on our way to Von Donop Inlet where we will anchor for the night. All in all, our timeline was still on track. We had always planned to spend 3 nights in Gorge Harbour and it was nice to be
leaving as the weekend crowd was arriving.
Quick plug for Bluewater Rigging, they sold us the winch and motor for $200, while Ocean Pacific quoted us $850 for the identical one.
A few fun shots of our day aside from dinghy life.
...and Cole going swimming to get the crab pot line away from the prop. He is a life guard, so he was the obvious first choice. No crab, btw.
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