JULY 2018
T
he winter of 2016-17 was one of the coldest on record
in southern British Columbia. In June 2016 we had
sailed across from Hawaii to Sitka in southeast Alaska
aboard Distant Drummer, our Liberty 458. At er
enjoying a summer of leisurely cruising through the
Inside Passage in Alaska and British Columbia, we
reached Canoe Cove on Vancouver Island where we
had decided to haul out for the winter.
We lived aboard all through that winter, and as we shovelled snow
of the decks and slithered across the ice to the washrooms, it was
dreams of hot sunny California days that kept us going. We were wait-
ing for a big fat high to settle in the northeast Pacii c to give us a steady
northerly wind for the passage south. Our plan was to spend the sum-
mer following the sun southwards down the California coast.
FOG, FOG AND... FOG
Fog is a summertime hazard in the Pacii c Northwest. We encountered
it in Alaska and British Columbia, and it would continue to plague us
all the way down through northern California. PHOTO COURTESY OF
SUZY CARMODY
(LEFT)
The author and her husband, Neil, have
been cruising fulltime for more than a
decade