San Josef Bay, Tackling seas to Winter Harbour & testing Monitor WindVane

Billy&Lizzie

Leaving Sea Otter Cove, our first stop was at San Josef Bay. Anchoring was easy, dinghy to shore was short and we had spectacular views of our boat from the beautiful white sandy coastline as we had a mini picnic. A reminder that we are so lucky to have this freedom surrounded by beautiful nature. Upon leaving, we used our reefed Genoa with our whisker pole to head downwind further along the west coast of Vancouver Island. This was a perfect opportunity for us to use our Monitor WindVane for the first time! (We’d got the instrument itself from marketplace for a great price as it did not come with the wheel adapter attachment- so Billy made us one for under $100 - instead of the $500 new). We were very surprised how quickly and accurately it steered us- probably better than we could’ve done ourselves! We had 30kt gusts with big rollers from the Pacific- and it was the first time we were both comfortable in this strong of a wind as it steered us so smoothly. The monitor wind vane is our new best friend, so much so that we’ve named it ‘Monty’. Taking a turn into Winter Harbour, we took over the helm, furled our Genoa and carefully steered our way around the hidden rocks until we found our anchorage! Hopefully tomorrow we have time to visit the store here and go for a wander! For now, we will enjoy all the otters that are floating by!

Boat & Crew

Steph'Ney Thames

Pearson, 365 Ketch

Billy&Lizzie

Owner