Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

  September 3-5, 2022 I would like to start , first , by telling everyone the disappointing situation around fishing on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.   We had , naively, assumed that since we would be cruising down the rugged shores of the West Coast, past mainly un inhabited areas, that we would be allowed to fish for our food on the way down.   Of course , we did bring food on board, as we were not silly enough to have simply left our subsistence up to the ability to catch fish, but we had also fully assumed that we would get to enjoy an occasional outing in Kiki to catch a fish.   We have always enjoyed fishing during our trips, as it is curious to see what we can catch in different areas, and the West Coast of the Island was going to be the most complete open-water coastline that we have been able to fish.   Unfortunately, pretty much everywhere south of the Brooks Peninsula was closed to all Fin Fishing, and so since catc...

September 1-2, 2022 On September 1st cleaning and boat projects took up our morning.   It was a drizzly, damp morning and perfect for inside work.   There were lots of little tasks on the list of things to be done before we headed out to sea to head for Mexico, so it worked out well to have some drizzly mornings to work on them.   In the afternoon we headed over to Fair Harbour in Kiki.   We got rid of our garbage and recycle, did a load of laundry, got some fuel and groceries, and had showers.   Although we also shower on board, it is a treat to have a full-pressure flow of hot water.   Our system on board works quite well; when we are motoring we can run a coolant circulation pump that runs a separate closed loop of coolant through a heat exchanger, which our engine coolant also goes through.   We therefore take the heat that our engine is creating, and run it through our hot water tank, as well as through bus heaters, which w...

  August 31, 2022 Another perfect day; a perfect day to follow yesterday's perfect day!   In the morning we headed out in Kiki all prepared for a beach day.   It was sunny and already hot.   Hot, sunny days are few on the outer coast and we considered ourselves very lucky to be in such a beautiful spot on such a beautiful day .  The protected sandy beaches that we headed for, we had spotted on our way in yesterday.   We had also seen a large, sandy, exposed beach on the outer coast, which we thought we could perhaps hike across to.     The tide was out, and since we knew we might be gone for quite some time, we pulled Kiki right up the beach past the high-tide line and tied her off.   Although she is a lightweight, aluminum-hulled boat, with a 20hp outboard on her, she is fairly heavy.   So, since we do not have dinghy wheels, we used a couple of round logs in...

August 30, 2022 Today turned out to be such a perfect day! It all started at 06:40 when we pulled up our anchor from North Harbour and motored out.   It was a foggy morning, but as we motored out to open water the fog parted for us, and we got to enjoy the morning sunrise before the fog surrounded us once again. We made our way out towards the end of the Brooks Peninsula, which is a large piece of land that sticks almost straight out about 10 nautical miles from the rest of Vancouver Island.   It is well known for very accelerated wind speeds and rough conditions, and we had lucked out with having a day of light winds in the forecast.   As we motored out through the fog we saw our first albatross!   They are such large, but graceful birds and beautiful to see.   We later identified it as a Black Footed Albatross, which have a wingspread of 78 - 84” (2m).   Appare...