Aahh! A rare perfect breeze for a downwind sail. One broad reach from Cortes Reef to Drew Harbour under mainsail alone affords us 2 1/2 hours of relaxed pleasure. We find a great place to anchor and spend a delightful quiet night on the hook.

Of course there is always another repair job sneaking down the rigging of a sailboat. This go ’round it’s the forestay and jib furler that need adjusting. It’s the 3rd day we’ve been attempting to loosen the nut on the roller furler that will allow us to tighten up the forestay. Terry’s super strong wrists twist the nut against my vicegrip assisted countertwist on the adjoining nut but nothing budges. We even borrow penetrating oil from a retired couple from Victoria on another sloop to no avail.

Oh well, time to look for whales, tight nuts be damned! “There are 2 whales in Heriot Bay” says Hawkeye Terry, “1 tail down – couldn’t see who it was. Let’s get out of the harbour and float around. Maybe they’ll come up” And they do – about 250m out further. we keep them in sight as we head towards the Breton Islands. “Are they fishing?” I ask “They’re doing long dives” Then we lose sight of them – stealth whales! Amazing how 2  40 ton creatures can disappear so completely.

“Let’s head up to Evan’s Bay and see if John and Tom around” I suggest. So NE it is. We catch sight of our 2 whales further on down the channel but we’re too far away now to catch up with them. Besides, I’ve wanted to get back to Evans Bay for the past year. As we round the point and approach the dock it’s looking fully occuppied with sailboats. There’s a pistachio and cream-coloured steel hulled sloop “Silvaticus” as well as a handsome 40 footer rigged for offshore.

As we approach we see John, the salty dog whose tales of sailing the BC coast enthralled us last year. “Is there room for us?” We call. “Oh yeah” calls John “I’ll move this runabout back and you can sneak in in front.” “Thanks John” We tuck in nose first and hop off to greet John and his 12 yr old granddaughter who promptly climbs the mast of Silvaticus in bare feet.

John might buy the sloop from Chris who is sailing around the Salish Sea looking for land to buy where he can plant a hazelnut orchard. He’s investigated most of the islands for land deals during the past few years. Chris knows of a year ’round dock and cabin on North Rendezvous Island, a location I’ve been wanting to check out this year. “Pete and Karen are looking for people they want to live beside – not the general recreational market. Make an offer. The dock is good but the island tends to get “Buted”. Getting “Buted” means getting hit by the bone rattling cold outflow winds from Bute inlet.  Evans Bay also gets riled up by the winds from Bute as we experienced last year.

Chris has studied and worked in a plethora of diverse fields. His latest passion is nut trees but he is a general arborist. He studied anatomy for 5 years to become a coroner and deisel mechanics so he could fix the engine of his boat independently. He’s also worked in the oil patch. In the northern “man camps”  the guys have everything from laundry to house cleaning to meals and entertainment supplied for them. Listening to Chris share stories of the lifestyle – huge salaries, no obligations, no family life, little incentive to work or to save – I can understand the strain this unbalanced existence puts on their wives, their children and the men themselves. Many don’t know how to manage their lives or free time and spend their off-work hours in bars with lots of cash to spend. Chris says a lot of those guys would be completely lost without those high paying jobs where you just do what you’re told and never have to think for yourself. I’ve heard some of this before but this is not the news that resource companies like oil, mining, logging etc want to publicize about the downside of that boom and bust far from home lifestyle.

So how do folks in more remote areas make a living? Currently John’s son-in-law is working for DFO on prawn boats up north and another couple are planting trees up north as well. Memories of living on Nelson Island in the 1970s and working treeplanting contracts resurface – so many great stories.