Going North: Our plans for cruising on Pelagia this Spring/Summer (2016)

After our time in Mexico, we have a hankering to go North.

Specifically, we are planning a 2-3-month long cruise to:

• Princess Louisa Inlet: Strangely, we've never been to this world famous cruising destination. It's time we went, and going in late May should mean lots of waterfalls and lack of crowds.
• After Princess Louisa, we plan to head to the central coast,  North of Vancouver Island and Cape Caution (via Desolation Sound and the Broughtons). Never really crowded, June will be pretty quiet. We've been here before (2002, 2007, 2011) and miss it. Fantastic, wild and dramatic (but protected) anchorages, wilderness, great salmon fishing*, uncrowded.
• After the central coast, we currently plan to cruise down the West (wild) coast of Vancouver Island. Open ocean, rugged coast, protected anchorages. North of Estevan Point (north of Clayquot Sound) is especially beautiful and uncrowded (with good salmon fishing).  [We could change our mind, however, depending on our tolerance by July for fog, cool weather, and isolation, as well as our hankering to get home to the mountains (Whistler) for hiking and backpacking.]

Of course, as our experiences with past cruises have proven (including Mexico), our plans are indeed written in the sand at low tide -- they could change.

Rescue Bay: a favourite B.C. Central Coast anchorage

* We've not been real successful fishing (for salmon) -- the central BC coast is the only place we've caught salmon -- so we need all the help we can get.

A new cruising season: A short trip in Howe Sound

After a Fall and Winter focused on our skiing life in Whistler, we hadn't left the dock on Pelagia since September. (Perhaps a bit of a "hangover" from so many days and nights aboard her since the Summer of 2013, in the USA then Mexico .)
 
Escaping the crowds skiing at Whistler over Easter, we headed down to Vancouver, first for a couple days of socializing as well as cleaning Pelagia and minor repairs, then out on Pelagia to Howe Sound for three nights/four days. All four days were sunny and warm.

Motoring up a windless Howe Sound on the way to Gambier Island -- still lots of snow on the mountains!

As we've done so often, we headed out to Port Graves on Gambier Island, anchoring in front of Camp Artaban. The first night, there were only two of us boats anchored; the second night, only Pelagia. On both nights, not a hint of wind in the anchorage (even though at least 20 knot outflow winds were occurring at Pam Rocks, perhaps 1 nm away). (During the day, southerly inflows of about 10kn would reach Pelagia by late morning/early afternoon -- not an issue for us.) At night, it became a bit cool, so, for the first time since the Spring of 2013, we enjoyed the flickering glow and heat (and hot water!) provided by our Dickinson "Antarctic" diesel furnace.

Despite the warm, sunny days, sea water temperature in Port Graves were a cold 10 degrees C -- far below their 21-23 degree C levels in July/August -- so no swimming. But the trails inland were in fairly good condition, so we hiked up Bert's Bluff (~390 m) for the great views.

View from Bert's Bluff over Port Graves, Gambier Island

Zoom in on Pelagia anchored in front of Camp Artaban (taken from Bert's Bluff)

View from Bert's Bluff across Howe Sound to the Lions

After two nights at Camp Artaban, we headed out, finally getting Pelagia's sails up for a brief sail (as usual, winds died as we neared Hood Point/Finisterre Island on Bowen Island). We headed into Snug Cove to the Vancouver Rowing Club's outstation docks (at USSC Marina), where we stayed one night. The next morning, after Michelle then David going up the mast to replace the Tacktick/Raymarine anemometer bearings (successful and easy!), we headed back to Vancouver in order to get home to Whistler before dinner -- managing a short downwind sail before reaching Stanley Park.

Sailing out of Port Graves

Sailing out of Port Graves (still lots of snow on the the Lions)

 

Michelle removing Tacktick wind transducer (for quick repair)

It was great to get back out on Pelagia. Even better that our anchorage was empty, quiet and windless. This short trip served as a bit of a shakedown trip as we discovered and fixed several issues -- and discovered several additional issues we need to deal with before our much longer travels planned for late Spring and the Summer.

What year are your CM93 electronic charts? Make sure they are the "latest"! (HOWEVER: ALL CM93v2 charts are OUT-OF-DATE!)

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UPDATE/COMMENT: This post concerning "CM93" charts is proving to be very popular. It must be noted that CM93 Version 2 charts are usually far from being "up-to-date"; certainly NOT the best charts"available, so users of these charts must be cautious. Often, they are totally out-of-date, and dangerous. In some cases, C-MAP or Navionics electronic charts (which are fairly inexpensive on Android and IOS platforms) may be more accurate. However, as we have noted in other posts, Navionics or CMAP charts may also not be fully up-to-date.

NOTE that Mexico's SEMAR issues new charts every year (as well as updates). For example, in 2018, SEMAR issued a new, detailed, chart for the islands in Bahia de La Paz. (Unfortunately, this chart is available only as pricey paper chart or Raster, and not in their vector/ENC collections (such as excellent O-charts).

THIS POST offers the best solution for electronic charting in the west coast of Mexico: OpenCPN, O-Charts Pacific Mexico, and Blue Latitude garbour charts, plus a couple SAT2CHART/SASPLANET charts to fill a couple "holes".
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CM93 vector electronic charts, covering the whole world, are shared widely among cruisers; they are also available from some sites on the web. Technically, these charts are "pirated", so user beware....

[Note: By "latest", we mean the most recent CM93 available which works in OPENCPN]

CM93 "version 2" charts are easily used in the open-source, freely available, OPENCPN navigation program (CM93 "version 3" charts do not work in OPENCPN).

When we were planning to sail to Mexico, a cruising friend gave us a copy of the CM93 charts. We were impressed that they covered the globe; we were less impressed when we saw their lack of detail. This was especially the case when we left the highly accurate (and free) raster charts of the USA and entered Mexico. In Mexico, we quickly learned (i) our CM93 charts were nearly useless, (ii) our updated CMAP charts (on our chartplotter) were much better, and (iii) in many (most?) places, even our up-to-date CMAP charts provided insufficient detail.* As we note in our earlier blog posts about charts and guides (as well as comparing official Mexican SEMAR charts with CMAP charts), we did not feel confident navigating close to shore until we reached Cabo San Lucas where we could finally use the excellent Blue Latitude Press cruising guides, with their excellent, detailed chartlets and accurate waypoints.

[*Our experience with Navionics charts in Mexico indicates they suffer similar problems as CMAP charts; indeed, we note areas where CMAP has important detailed updates not found in the Navionics. See our blog posts concerning CMAP, Navionics and SEMAR charts.]

It turns out, we were using a very out-dated version of  the CM93 vector charts, dated mostly before the year 2000. Since returning home, we have found CM93 version 2 charts dating as late as 2012. The differences (improvements) over the years are substantial.

To help other cruisers, the examples below show the improvements in the CM93 charts for the years "2000", "2007" and "2012" (dates are approximate).



Turtle Bay/Bahia Tortugas (Baja California Sur)
Our first real experience with CM93 charts coming in to an unfamiliar bay. 

Our circa-2000 CM93 chart was useless: no details, no depths, and the datum way off (on the other hand, the CMAP turned out to be pretty good).

The circa-2007 CM93 has much more detail and correct datum, although lights were not correct.

The circa-2012 CM93 chart for Turtle Bay is quite accurate (determined using GE2KAP and Google Earth (see this blog post) -- we wished we'd had it back in 2013!




La Paz, Baja California Sur
Both our circa-2000 CM93 charts and our CMAP chart showed few details and were inaccurate for the section from (and including) Bahia Los Frailes, to Ensenada de Los Muertos, the Cerralvo Channel, and finally, the San Lorenzo Channel entering Bahia de La Paz (they still are...). The Blue Latitude Press Sea of Cortez cruising guide was a godsend.


We entered the narrow, dogleg channel entering La Paz harbour just as the sun began to rise (we had left Los Frailes in the morning and done an overnight trip from Los Muertos in order to beat a Northerly, accurately predicted to come fiercely the next day). The circa-2000 CM93 chart showed NO details; fortunately, the CMAP chart showed good detail which turned out to be very accurate (though we did not know/trust this at the time).

Again, we wished we had the 2012 CM93 charts as confirmation of the CMAP (and Blue Latitude Press) information.




Punta Sabalo/Estero de Sabalo/Marina Mazatlan

In late April 2014, it was time to sail across the Sea of Cortez to Marina Mazatlan in the Estero de Sabalo, where we planned to keep Pelagia for the 2014 hurricane season. Again, our circa-2000 CM93 charts were useless. Our CMAP chart was also incomplete, although it had much more and better information than CM93 (the June 2014 CMAP update provided much more information for this area).

  

 

The circa-2012, CM93 chart shows an outline of the Marinas in the Sabalo Estero, but with few details. Fortunately, the combination of our CMAP charts and the Blue Latitude Press Pacific Mexico guide gave us the information we needed.

Other places in Mexico where CM93 2012 charts are inadequate (or useless) compared to official SEMAR charts: 

The list is too long. 

But, for example:

Puerto Los Cabos (San Jose del Cabo): nonexistent on CM93

Marina Coral (Ensenada): nonexistent on CM93

Marina Costa Baja (La Paz, BCS): nonexistent on CM93

"The Islands", Bahia de la Paz (new (2018) detailed chart): nonexistent on CM93

Topolobampo: details nonexistent on CM93

Bahia de Altata:  details nonexistent on CM93

Marina at La Cruz and Paradise Marina (Banderas Bay): nonexistent on CM93

The list goes on and on.... 

CM93 charts in Canada?

After seeing these large changes (improvements) in the various versions of the CM93 charts, we wondered how the CM93 charts would look in our home waters in British Columbia.#

The circa-2000 CM93 charts are terrible for BC waters, even on the south coast of BC (even though most areas in 2000 were exquisitely charted by the Canadia Hydrographic Service (CHS) as well as preceding (mostly British) cartographers). However, by 2012, the CM93 charts are quite good.

Further north in British Columbia, there remain "pockets" of unsurveyed (or poorly surveyed) coastline -- almost all well away from typical routes. One area is "Lady Trutch Passage" on the Central Coast near Bella Bella. This passage always looked inviting, but was choked with narrow passages and no chart was available. However, in 2011, the CHS produced a new very detailed chart including Lady Trutch Passage. Interestingly, the circa-2012 CM93 chart includes this detailed information; the circa-2007 CM93 chart as a subset of this new charting; and predictably, the circa-2000 CM93 "chart" is hopeless for this area, even for the relatively well-traveled (and well-charted for years) "Perceval Narrows".

Circa-2000 CM93 "chart" for Lady Trutch Passage area: USELESS

CM93 "2007" chart for Lady Trutch Passage area: VERY incomplete

Pretty good, detailed CM93 "2012" chart for Lady Trutch Passage area

 

Obviously, anything "new" since 2012 (marinas, rocks, shallows, buoys... etc) will not be correct on the "latest" CM93 v2 charts (approx 2012).

(# Legally, in Canada, vessels must carry up-to-date CHS charts, so technically, circa-2012 CM93 charts are not sufficient; of course, neither are CMAP or Navionics charts.)



Before we sailed down to Mexico, we wish we had been aware of the substantial changes in the CM93 electronic charts. We should have been... but we were probably too wrapped-up in too many things as we prepared to sail to Mexico, and as were were on our way down the coast.

Hopefully, some cruisers heading offshore will find this blog post helpful!

UPDATE: Change (temporary) in Geary's SONRISA NET Mexico weather forecasts from the web and via saildocs

APRIL 10, 2016 UPDATE: It appears that Sonrisa Net weather website is now up and running correctly and obtaining Geary's forecasts via Saildocs now working fine.

Ignore updates etc below....

HOWEVER check out Pelagia's info re Mexico cruising weather (& charts, cruising guides, etc), go to this post:
 





APRIL 7th UPDATE:
It appears that the Sonrisa Net weather website is now being updated,  except for the "Daily Summary" (still shows February 18th summary) which is updated on Geary's "Blog" on Weather Underground.

Unfortunately,  it does not appear that requests ("queries") to SAILDOCS for Geary's forecasts are working properly (see below for workaround to get forecast via Saildocs) .



Important Update March, 2016:
Geary's SONRISA NET weather website and associated Saildocs files for the Pacific coast of Mexico (especially Baja and the Sea of Cortez) have not been updating over the past month.

HOWEVER: He still does his daily forecast over HAM radio on the Sonrisa Net AND publishes an up-to-date forecast on his blog on the Weather Underground website:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Geary/show.html

To get a copy of Geary's latest forecast from SAILDOCS, send the following to SAILDOCS (replace the date: the example is for March 18, 2016):

send http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Geary/gearys-sea-of-cortez-weather-for-031816

NOTE: Saildocs will send a copy of the html file as a text file. This message will be unreadable until is saved as a .html file, and then read by your web browser.




The July 2014 post regarding Mexico weather info has been updated:
http://sailing-pelagia.blogspot.ca/2014/07/information-for-cruising-mexico-charts.html

Back home in Whistler -- Powder skiing!

Blackcomb Glacier: Michelle just had her best powder run of the season....

Back home in Whistler, after two weeks of sun and heat in Thailand. David's ribs mostly (though not completely) healed. Good enough to get back skiing.

While we were gone, the mountains received over a couple hundred centimetres of new snow.

Great powder skiing today.

A short break from the snow: Hua Hin, Thailand

We are taking a "sunny ways" break, spending two weeks in Thailand. Most of this trip we are in our favourite/usual beachside town of Hua Hin, an easy 3-hour bus from the Bangkok airport.

Good timing,  as after 46 days of skiing,  David finally came up limp with a minor (but painful)
case of bruised ribs,  keeping him off the mountain.  How?  He'll never tell,  but ask "Cannonball Shelley"  ;-)

Aren't you bored living up at Whistler?

View of the Black Tusk from Whistler Peak (December, 2015)

Nope!

It always surprises us, but it's a question we've been asked several times recently. Our answer is an emphatic "No!" With the snows of winter now well established here in Whistler, we have been (and are) more active than ever.

We typically go downhill skiing on Whistler and/or Blackcomb Mountains 3-4 times per week. Most times, we arrive back home in our condo (less than a 10 minute walk from the lifts, not including time for a stop at the liquor store...) at the end of the skiing day tired but happy.

Michelle heading down "Peak-to-Creek" (December, 2015)

At the Peak (January, 2016)

The other days of the week, we choose between

• long walks (usually on the plowed "Valley Trail" or the nearby golf course). We see lots of other people and their dogs (the dogs clearly love the snow), and often see wildlife 

Walk on the Whistler Golf Course (Dec 28, 2015)

View of Blackcomb Mt while walking on the Whistler Golf Course (Dec 28, 2015)

For some reason, bobcats seem more plentiful this Winter (today's sighting was the 3rd bobcat seen by Michelle) 

Bobcat seen during walk today on the Valley Trail (Jan 11, 2016)

 

Bobcat on Valley Trail (Jan 11, 2016)

• snowshoeing in the woods somewhere in the valley

1st snowshoe of the Winter (Green Lake Loop, December 2015)

Cheakamus River (Logger's Lake snowshoe, January 3, 2016)

Footbridge over Cheakamus River (Logger's Lake snowshoe, January 3, 2016)

Happy snowshoers...

Logger's Lake: our lunch goal on this snowshoe day (Jan 3, 2016)

Whiskey Jack (Canada Jay or Gray Jay) after our snacks at Logger's Lake

Whiskey Jack: Cute but persistent...

• X-country skiing (so far, on free tracks set nearby on the Valley Trail or on the golf course; in the next few weeks, we'll likely go to the extensive trail systems at Lost Lake Park or Whistler Olympic Park/Callaghan Valley -- both requiring trail passes).

New snow on the golf course (Dec, 2015)

1st XC ski of season (Whistler golf course, December 2015)

X-C skiing at Rainbow Park, Alta Lake and Blackcomb Mt. in background (Jan 10, 2016)

Of course, just sitting in our living room with a view to the ski hills and watching the snow come down, as we are doing right now, is also an enjoyable past time.

No, we are not bored living here at Whistler.