Helsinki to Sao Miguel

Ice in the Baltic

When Stephen and I arrived in Canada on Narama after six months of long ocean passages interspersed with some cruising, we jokingly said to our friends that we highly recommend traveling great distances by air rather than toiling on the surface. After our recent travels I’ve reversed that opinion. We arrived in Helsinki jet-lagged, dehydrated and sick from recycled air and slightly shocked to find ourselves in freezing temperatures and near blizzard conditions after warm sunny days in Victoria. A mere 15 hours of airplanes and airports and we were dropped half way around the world, stumbling and poorly adjusted. The last nine days however, have reminded us why we are planning another major voyage on Narama; it’s not just the destination, but the travelling we love. We boarded MS Expedition in Rauma, Finland and set out across the Baltic Sea. We had a gorgeous warm spring day as we crossed Germany in the Keil Canal with cranes flying north over our heads, then occasional Common Dolphins playing under our bow as we headed south in the North Sea. We slowly pealed off layers of clothing as the temperature rose until we greeted Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island in Tshirts. Staying on the surface and watching the wildlife and climate slowly change as we cover several hundred miles is fun, flying is for the birds.

MS Expedition

Home in Alert Bay

We were motoring across Queen Charlotte Strait, heading home towards Alert Bay when a group of Dall's Porpoises came to play under the bow, seeming to escort us home. It was a miracle of a day in March, not a ripple on the sea and bright sunshine. The clarity of the water was wonderful, tempting us to jump in for a swim. The fact that we were still wearing toques and big winter gloves as well as our parkas, kept us above water.

We have been home for a week now, catching up with friends and correspondence and necessary evils, like income tax. We head away from Narama next week to Finland and the Azores for work on the MS Expedition, but we keep thinking about our upcoming voyage and leaving this precious coast for who knows how many years. Any town where a pub night means that you get to meet the elected and hereditary chief, biggest property baron and owners of most of the establishments and watch them cut a rug on the dance floor is a place worth calling home! I think that this perspective will make our voyage of personal discovery even more valuable; every coast on the Pacific has tiny communities full of character and we can't wait to meet them.

Winter

Narama Sailing Out of Knight Inlet
As spring starts to awaken the coast, the last of the winter job lists are making there way to summer and pre-departure to do's. Winter has been kind to us in our care-taking role at Knight Inlet Lodge, our remote hermitage in a beautiful mountainous fjord on the BC Coast. We have had lot's of opportunity to tiddle Narama in preparation for our planned voyage which we plan to embark on later this year. We sailed away from a winter spent in the company of two lovely dogs (Casey and Finnegan) in an estuary where we watched grizzly bears fattening up on salmon before denning for the season. The notorious outflow winds carried us to the Broughton archipelago with record sailing speed (8.7 knots!) where we had a week of cruising among the islands with every anchorage to ourselves.