Trip Report: Aiviq on the Inside Passage

[Aiviq]

Part 1: Lost and Found

I live in Niger, West Africa, a country that was just designated by the U.N. as the poorest on earth, recently beating out Sierra Leone. If any of you watched much (pre-Katrina) news, you’ve probably seen pictures of the place. Generally speaking, seeing pictures of where you live on CNN is not a good thing. When more than one CNN news crew is around town, it’s definitely bad. When a big name domestic anchor like Anderson Cooper shows up, it’s time to go on vacation.

I was happy to go on vacation this past July, not only because of CNNs arrival, but because it meant my long awaited trip up the inside passage. I bought my C-Dory in the Seattle area a year ago, and left it in Oak Harbor, where EQ was to install a 15-horse kicker, a radar arch and some new electronics, including radar, a chart plotter and a few other items. I’d made the arrangements for this work over a year ago, and had been in intermittent touch with Les ever since. My last e-mail from him had been a week before my scheduled arrival, and he said he was confident it would be ready when I got there.

I arrived in Oak Harbor on July 14th, rented a car and drove up to Deception Pass. As I pulled into EQ Harbor Services parking lot, I spotted my boat in their yard, but it didn’t appear that anything had been done yet. I still had a week before I left on my trip north, though, and hoped that they were, in fact working on it. I went into the office, introduced myself as the owner of the Aiviq, and asked Kathy what the status of it was. She said “you need to talk to Les”, in such a way that my heart sank a little bit.

Les ushered me into his office, and allowed that there had been a little hitch. “We finally found your boat yesterday” he commenced, “so I think we’ll be able to get started on it first thing next week”. Well, he had adeptly succeeded in deflecting my attention from the fact that they hadn’t started work on my boat, yet.

“Found it?” I asked? “You forgot which storage lot I had it at?”

“No, I knew where you were storing it, but it’s been missing”, he replied.

“Missing, as in the storage lot had moved it to another parking place?”

“No, it’s been lost. I’ve spent the past month searching all over Oak Harbor for it”

I glanced out the window at my boat sitting in the yard to reassure myself that this had a happy ending.

Last December I had arranged to have the boats inboard engine serviced and winterized at another marina, Cap Santè Marine, because EQ Harbor Service only worked on outboards. Cap Santè had picked up my boat at the storage yard and towed it to their workshop in Anacortes for the work. When it was done, they had e-mailed me that the boat was being towed to EQ. Les said that they had called him, and he’d asked them to bring it over. It had never showed up, but he didn’t think much of it, figuring that they had towed it back to the storage yard instead.

When I called in March to check on progress, Les figured he’d get to it soon, but had been so busy that he didn’t actually get around to it until Mid June. He drove down to the storage lot where the boat had been stored to look for it, but it wasn’t there. He called Cap Santè in Anacortes, but they said they had a work ticket saying it had been towed from their yard to EQ in January. Les tried to contact their tow driver, but he had apparently been fired not long after that. Les started scouring other marinas and storage lots in the area on the chance that it had been miss delivered to the wrong place. Nothing.

He talked to Cap Santè Marine several times, but they were completely clueless as to what had happened to the boat. Finally, the day before I arrived, he had an errand he was running in Anacortes, and stopped by Cap Santè Marine to have a look around. Sure enough, my boat was sitting in a back corner of their storage lot, where it had apparently sat since December. He towed it back to his shop, and that is where I saw it the next morning when I arrived. Really I’m grateful for the way Les handled it. If I’d been sitting in Niamey knowing my boat was missing from December through July, I’m pretty sure I’d have died of a heart attack.

Anyway, we were supposed to be leaving Oak Harbor for the trip north on July 21, but EQ didn’t get started on my refit until the 18th. It was clear that they weren’t going to get everything finished in time for us to start on schedule, but they did work like yeomen and mange to get all of the important stuff installed, including the kicker, radar arch, radar/chart plotter, anchor windlass, fuel flow meter, new stove and new batteries.

They had been going to install a battery combiner switch and trim tabs, too, but hadn’t gotten around to that. Les strongly recommended the trim tabs, but we were already a couple days behind schedule, and I didn’t want to wait for them, a decision I would regret. As usual in the end, EQ did top quality work in record time. They finished up on the 22nd, Les launched the boat and I single-handed it to Oak Harbor, where my wife and kids had arrived 2 days before and were staying in a hotel. I wanted to get them moved onto the boat that night so we could get an early start the next morning, but Prakah wanted one more night in a hotel before being confined to the misery of the boat.

The next morning we went shopping, and I had to turn in the rental car, so we didn’t get out of the Marina until after noon. I’d wanted to get to Bedwell Harbour in British Colombia that night to clear customs and make up some of our lost time. We only made it as far as Anacortes, though, which is only 10 miles or so from EQ Harbor Services where I had launched the boat the day before.

[Aiviq]

Part 2: A Volvo bites the dust

The 24th was a Sunday, and we finally got an early start from Anacortes. We ran up through the San Juan Islands to Bedwell Harbour on South Pender Island, where we cleared Canadian customs. We then continued on North. I hoped to get fuel in Nanaimo, and then continue on to Scottie Bay. It would have been a long 110-mile day, but I hoped to make up some of our lost time.

Mid-afternoon, about 20 miles south of Nanaimo adjacent to Thetis Island, I noticed the engine RPMs drop off a bit. I scanned the instrument panel, and saw that the temperature gauge was pegged on high. I immediately shut down the engine and looked out the back door at the engine compartment, which was enveloped in white smoke and steam. As some of you know, my C-dory is a mid-80’s 27-foot model with and I/O engine. Many of you on this site deride I/Os, and I was about to get a lesson in why.

I opened the engine compartment and discovered that the water pump belt had broken. I replaced the belt, and after letting the engine cool down a bit, I topped up the coolant level and restarted the engine. It didn’t sound right, and it seemed to me that the water pump was frozen, so I shut it back down, deployed the 15-horse kicker and continued towards Nanaimo 20 miles to the north. We got about 3 knots on the kicker, and spent the next 6 hours limping into Nanaimo, arriving about 9 PM. We traversed Dodd Narrows 5 miles or so before Nanaimo, and fortunately the tide was with us, because our speed wasn’t great enough to overcome an adverse tide – we would have been running backwards.

We spent the night on the boat, and the next morning I set off to find a boat shop. There were lots to choose from, and after talking to a few people, I settled on Blue Peter Boatyard. I walked down and explained my problem. They weren’t sure that they could get me in, but they said if I could get it to them within an hour and a half, they would have a look at it. I walked back to the boat and brought it down on the kicker. One of their mechanics came down to the dock to look at it, and he had me start it up. After 30 seconds or so he said to go ahead and shut it down again. He told me that at best, I had blown the head gasket, and at worst I had cracked the head, or possibly even the block. He wouldn’t be able to tell the extent of damage for sure until they pulled the engine and cracked it open. He also said that there was evidence of significant overheating, and it was likely it would need a complete rebuild.

This was certainly not news I wanted to hear, but it got worse. When I talked to the owner again, he said that because my engine was 20 years old and out of production, it was hard to get parts for them, and if you could get parts they were super expensive. He said the last time they had done a rebuild on one, the new pistons alone had run $1,000 each.

He also said that what with trying to track down parts, and probably needing to order them from Sweden, a rebuild would almost certainly take 3 weeks or more, and cost in the neighborhood of $10,000, and when it was done, I’d still have a 20 year old engine and stern drive. He broached the idea that I consider a new engine and stern drive, which he said would cost about $17,000 (Canadian) and could be installed in about 3 days.

I asked him to go ahead and pull the old engine to verify what was up with it. I held out a faint hope that I could get by on replacing the head gasket, and be on my way, but if it did require a rebuild, the idea of a three day turn around as opposed to 3 weeks might mean the difference between getting the boat to Alaska this year, or putting it in storage in Nanaimo for another year (or more).

It was discouraging to think about, and I especially didn’t look forward to breaking the news to my wife, who was still trying to get over the shock of the $10,000 I had spent at EQ harbor services. The boat yard was really busy, and they couldn’t get around to pulling the engine until Wednesday the 27th. They sent it to the engine shop they used, and said they’d know on Thursday the extent of the damage. I went in late morning on Thursday, and as expected the head was warped and cracked and it would need a complete rebuild. The only realistic solution, I felt, was the new engine.

Sure enough, Prakah did not take the news well. She wanted me to sell the boat on the spot, and it took considerable effort to convince her that selling it without an engine would not bring us top dollar. I eventually called the shop and told them to put in the new engine. It turned out that the three-day time estimate on the installations was from when they got around to it, which wouldn’t be until the following week. The following Monday was a Canadian holiday, too, so they wouldn’t start on it until Tuesday August 2nd.

It was clear that I wasn’t going to get Prakah and the kids to Ketchikan in time for their flight to Anchorage on the 3rd of August, so I arraigned to rent a car, take the ferry to Vancouver, drive them to the airport and have them fly to Anchorage. They left on July 27th, and that was the last we would see each other until I got back to Niamey on September 6th. They had only spent 2 days on the boat, but I was way more broken up about them missing the rest of the trip up the inside passage than Prakah was. If it weren’t for the $25,000 we were dropping on the boat, she would have been happy with the way it all worked out.

Blue Peter finally got started on the new engine installation on Tuesday August 2, and sure enough, they were done and the boat was re-launched 3 days later on Thursday. The old engine was a 4 cylinder, 130 hp Volvo Penta gas engine, while the new one was a V-6, 190hp Merc-Cruiser, which was significantly bigger, but they got it shoe-horned in with only minor modifications to the engine compartment (the engine cover had to be raised 2 inches, and some of the coaming around the engine compartment had to be trimmed). Unlike the old engine, the new one filled the engine compartment completely, and I fear servicing it will be difficult. The new engine is also heavier than the old one, and the boat sits lower at the stern than it did.

[Aiviq]

Part 3: Note to self - Watch out for logs!

My brother Chris had planned to join me in Ketchikan when Prakah and the kids departed, and help me bring the boat up to Juneau. When Prakah and the kids left from Nanaimo, I’d arranged with Chris to meet me in Nanaimo instead, and he arrived on Wednesday. We spent Thursday night on the boat in Nanaimo harbor, then started north again on Friday, August 5th, 2 weeks behind plan.

The engine break-in schedule we were given called for us to keep it between 1,500 and 3,400 RPM for the first 20 engine hours, and to vary the RPMs constantly within that range. At 3,400 RPM we made about 12 knots, depending on the wind and tide, and with varying the RPM constantly, we averaged 9 or 10 knots for the first 2 days. On Friday we had very good weather and calm seas through the Strait of Georgia. We refueled at Campbell River, and traversed Seymour narrows, where the water started getting choppy as we entered Johnson Strait and we had to slow down considerably. We anchored at Thurston Bay, which was the first time we had tested the new windlass. It worked flawlessly, as did everything EQ had installed.

Saturday, as we pulled out of Thurston Bay into Johnson Strait it was again very rough and choppy, as is typical of Johnson strait. We could only run at 2,000 – 3000 RPM and made 3 to 8 knots. After 30 miles or so, we were finally able to get out of the strait and into some protected water again. We hoped to refuel at Echo Bay, but they were out of gas so we continued to Sullivan bay, where we fortunately found fuel. We ran over a large log, though, coming out of Sullivan Bay. It made an impressive thump, and kicked up the stern drive, but fortunately there appeared to be no harm done.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved having my brother aboard, and I could scarcely have accomplished the trip without him, but it was sometimes a struggle to get him to look out of the window and assist with navigation and collision avoidance duties. He generally kept his nose buried in a book, and would only look out the window when specifically commanded to do so. When we hit the log, he was up on the sun deck, reading, and I had to shout out the window to ask if he saw what we hit. He glanced back and said “well, there’s a really big log right behind the boat”.

[Aiviq]

Part 4: Note to self - Watch out for nets!

We continued on to Blunden Harbour for the night, but as we entered Queen Charlotte Strait it was again very rough for the last 10 miles, with waves breaking over the bow, and causing some leaking into the cuddy cabin. On Sunday morning we departed Blunden Harbour at 0530 in the hopes of catching better weather in Queen Charlotte Strait, and it worked. The normal weather pattern in this area is for relatively calm winds and waves in the morning, gradually building into the afternoon, with late afternoon and early evening being the worst. That was certainly the case in Queen Charlotte Sound, because it was perfectly calm Sunday morning.

We cruised up Fitz Hugh Sound to Shearwater (Bella Bella) where we refueled, then continued on towards Klemtu, making very good time for a total of 130 nautical miles that day, and passing some truly spectacular scenery along the way. We had also been spectacularly lucky, because except for some small patches of wind and waves, the weather had been absolutely fabulous the entire way. There had been scarcely a drop of rain since I left Oak Harbor 2 weeks before, and the skies were generally cloudless and blue. Very unusual weather for this part of the world. We anchored Sunday night in Goat Cove, just up from Klemtu.

As we departed our anchorage early Monday morning, we accidentally ran over a fisherman’s gill net. The windows were all fogged up, and the fan I’d installed in Oak Harbor had burned out after only a couple hours of use, so I didn’t see the floats until the bow was running over them. I immediately pulled the boat out of gear and gave a little goose of reverse, so fortunately we didn’t foul the prop or damage the net, but we sure got an earful from the fisherman.

[Aiviq]

Part 5: Blood on the dock

Later that morning I became a bit worried about fuel endurance. We had two 50-gallon tanks that we had filled in Bella Bella, which theoretically gave us a range of about 200 miles. We encountered adverse tidal currents running up Princess Royal Channel, though, and passing Butedale (a beautiful secluded cove with a spectacular waterfall and an abandoned cannery), the starboard tank ran dry. This was only 70 miles from Bella Bella, and it was another 90 miles to Prince Rupert, the next place I was sure I could get fuel. Theoretically we should be able to make it that far with our remaining 50 gallons with 10 miles to spare, but the difference between theoretical ranges and actual ranges, I had just learned, could be as much as 30 miles. There was a fuel facility in Hartley Bay, a small native community 20 miles ahead, but the guidebook was non-committal about the reliability of fuel availability. We had already run into ports where the pumps were dry, so we could only go for it and hope for the best.

Fortunately Hartley Bay did have fuel, and the pumps were just opening as we pulled in at about 11:30 AM. We filled up and walked up onto the fuel pier to pay. As we came back down I was chatting with my brother, and failed to notice the 2-foot gap between two floats. I stepped into the gap, and fell, barking my shin on the timber on the far side of the gap. At first I thought I’d just bruised, or maybe scrapped it, but as I looked down I was surprised to see a four and one-half inch gash across the front of my shin half way between my knee and ankle. The skin had caught on the timber and torn loose a flap of skin down to the bone, which I could clearly see in the depth of the wound, before blood welled up and covered it. Blood was gushing out and filling up my shoe. My brother said, “Oh – are you all right?”

“No, I don’t think so” I replied. “I cut myself”.

I don’t think Chris ever actually looked at the wound, presumably due to squeamishness rather than indifference. “Do you need a Band-Aid?” he asked?

I told him I needed stitches. A lot of stitches, and that he should go ask someone if there was a clinic in town. I limped the rest of the way down the float to our boat, and we asked a fisherman sitting on the boat behind us about a clinic. He looked at my leg and blanched.

“Oh my god”, he said “that looks awful”. He told us there was a clinic in town, and we should go up and ask the fuel office for help, all the while muttering about how terrible I looked. Chris got the first aid kit out of the boat and left it with me while he went to check on the clinic. While he was gone I bandaged my leg, and poured about a cup and a half of blood out of my shoe, then limped up the ramp to the fuel dock. The fuel attendant pointed out the clinic, which was just about 20 yards away, and we walked over to it.

The nurse was just locking up for lunch when we arrived, but she ushered me in to have a look at my leg. I told her she might want to go to lunch first, because this was going to take a few hours, but she said she’d take care of me first. The Canadian Indian health service uses RNs to staff rural clinics in BC, Yukon territory and NWT, and she had spent about 15 years in Haines Junction, and was now doing temporary locum tenens work. She said I was lucky, because Hartley Bay didn’t currently have a permanent nurse, and there was only one there intermittently. She cleaned the wound, stitched me up with about 40 stitches, and sent me on my way with a bag full of supplies for dressing changes. I stopped in the office on the way out to ask how much I owed, and the receptionist said technically they were supposed to charge whites 15 dollars, but that it was more trouble than it was worth, so they wouldn’t bother. I’m pretty sure any ER in the US would have charged $500 bucks or more, so I got off pretty easy.

[Aiviq]

Part 6: In the dark

Chris and I started off again for Prince Rupert. We had been delayed for about 3 ½ hours by my accident, so we weren’t going to make it in before dark.

I’ve mentioned that my brother isn’t as helpful as he could be as a lookout, and not to put to fine a point on it, he’s also fairly useless as ballast. He likes to sit and read, and no matter how many times I asked him to sit elsewhere, he always ended up back in the aft dinette seat, leaning against the port wall. The boat has a tendency to list to port anyway, possibly because the water and wastewater tanks are on the port side. Les, the owner of EQ Harbor Service had strongly recommended trim tabs, but I’d begged off due to time considerations. I wished I had them virtually every day though, especially as Chris always chose the single worst spot on the boat from a trim standpoint for his reading. It was also the one spot on the boat (except perhaps the V-berth) where he could see virtually nothing of use to me from a navigation and collision avoidance standpoint (due to the pilot house configuration of my boat).

So we cruised into Prince Rupert in pitch darkness at 11:30 PM, with the bow up and listing severely to port to the point where the radar was nearly useless, with at least two cruise ships, a barge under tow and a ferry all chatting on the radio to Prince Rupert Traffic Control. I’d ask Chris “do you see that ferry?” or “do you see that barge?” He’d glance out the side window, say, “no” and go back to his book. His indifference was remarkable to me, because I always find the prospect of a several thousand tons of steel running me down at sea on a dark night focuses my attention out the window marvelously.

Anyway, we made it into the City floats and found a vacant slip. The next morning we made a brief tour of downtown Prince Rupert, along with several thousand passengers from the two behemoth cruise ships, a situation we had been spared in the tiny ports of call we had visited up to now, but would become familiar with in SE Alaska’s touristy ports. It was foggy in the morning, and although we had radar and could have navigated our way out with no problem, we stayed in Prince Rupert through the morning to do some shopping and run errands, and left a bit after noon when the fog finally broke, revealing more freakishly unusual blue skies.

[Aiviq]

Part 7: Contraband Orange

Sea conditions were ideal crossing Dixon Entrance, but we started to experience propeller cavitation if we tried to exceed about 2,500 RPMs, so we had to proceed at about 8 knots the whole way across. We finally pulled into Foggy bay to examine the prop. It was tight and we couldn’t see any damage, but when we started off again the problem didn’t recur, which made me think the prop may have been fouled with kelp, or something. We could have easily reached Ketchikan by 10:00 PM or so, but we didn’t think we’d be able to clear customs, so we anchored for the night in a small cove inside bold island channel 8 miles south of the town.



Early Wednesday morning we arrived in Ketchikan. We pulled into the City float and I walked up to a payphone and called the customs office. They said they’d send someone down to clear us, so I walked back to the boat to wait for them. As we were waiting, my eyes happened to fall upon the sack of oranges we had bought the day before in Prince Rupert. Having had lots of experience coming in through US customs, I quickly told my brother to get rid of them right away before the customs inspector showed up. He looked at me like I was crazy, but I explained to him that while Canadian customs inspectors have a thing about guns, American ones have a thing about oranges. He hid them under the garbage sack in the trashcan.

Moments later we spotted the Customs officer approaching down the float. We invited her in, and with a bored expression she started the usual inquires about narcotics, large sums of money, explosives, illegal aliens and chemical or biological weapons. We denied everything, and she made the appropriate notations on her clipboard. Then she straitened up, and with a casual, but much more alert, demeanor asked “What foodstuffs have you brought with you from Canada?”

Equally casually, I replied, “We have some bread, canned goods and some hot dogs”.

Her eyes surreptitiously scanned the inside of the boat. “What about fruit? Do you have any oranges aboard?”

“No, We polished those all off a couple days ago”, I replied, coolly flipping open the icebox, so she could appreciate it’s newly citrus free interior. I could see Chris start, as though he had never believed me about the oranges. I prayed that he would play it cool, but he had to ask.

“What’s wrong with oranges” he blurted?

The customs officer looked him over like he was an unsavory character she was having second thoughts about allowing into the US. “The US bans importation of citrus fruit to protect our domestic industry from alien pests and disease” she recited, as though reading from a book. I tried to catch his eye, but Chris just couldn’t let it go.

“But this is Alaska” he sputtered. “There’s no domestic citrus industry in Alaska!”

She gave him a withering stare. “There’s also never been any outbreaks of Mediterranean citrus flies or European citrus blight in Alaska, either” she retorted. “So I say it’s working!”

Chris sputtered for a few seconds, but eventually subsided. The customs inspector ticked off the last few items on her clipboard, and we escorted her to the float. As she took her leave, we exchanged pleasantries about the weather, which continued to be unnaturally sunny and warm for South East Alaska. She turned to Chris, and got in her last dig. “Yeah, it’s always like this” she claimed. “I’ve got a house for sale if you want to buy it?” Chris declined, and she walked away up the ramp to process the never-ending swarm of cruise ship passengers disgorging from the adjacent cruise ship dock. Chris and I munched oranges.

[Aiviq]

Part 8: End of the line

After shopping and fueling, we continued north out of Ketchikan at 1:00PM. The weather was clear and nice, although there was a slight chop in Clarence Strait. We stopped at Myers Chuck because Chris had read an article about it in Alaska magazine that had really struck his fancy. It was a beautiful spot. We then continued on to Whaletail Cove where we anchored after navigating its very narrow entrance at low tide.

On Thursday Morning we had a beautiful, smooth ride up Wrangle Narrows to Petersburg, a lovely Norwegian built town blissfully devoid of cruise ships. We spent several hours walking around the town, shopping, showering and getting fuel. Leaving Petersburg, we crossed Stephens Passage, seeing many whales along the way, and anchored for the night in Good Island inlet.

On Friday we continued up Stephens Passage, viewing lots more whales along the way, arriving in Auke Bay (Juneau) in mid-afternoon. It was another lovely day, and the weather Service was forecasting record high temperatures throughout the region. It reached about 80 in Juneau, and the populace was complaining bitterly about the heat. I don’t think a one of them would last an afternoon in Niamey. Chris and I took a long walk to Mendenhall Lake.

My ferry to Whittier didn’t depart until Tuesday, so on Saturday we headed up Lynn Canal to Skagway, where we walked around that very beautiful and historic town, and took a national park service walking tour. The next morning, on Sunday, we took the Yukon White Pass Railroad up to the summit, which was a very scenic and beautiful trip. We then cruised back down Lynn Canal, anchoring in secluded Boat Harbor opposite Auke bay for the night. On Monday morning, we motored back across Lynn Canal to Auke bay, and spent the day touring Juneau. Tuesday Morning I had the boat pulled out onto its trailer (which I had previously shipped up from Oak Harbor). Chris headed to the airport for his flight back to Portland, and I had the boat and trailer loaded in the Alaska ferry for my trip to Whittier.

It was a trip of adventure and miss-adventure. I spent way more money on the boat than I had hopped or expected too. Prakah and the kids only got to spend two days on the boat, which was really fine with her (but the reason why was anything but fine). I sustained a significant injury, but hey – my boats now better than ever with its new engine, my brother and I had the trip of a lifetime and enjoyed the most fabulous weather you can imagine. Really, at the end of the day, it was all good.

[Mr. Fisherman]

What a fantastic recollection. I very much enjoyed reading it all.
It makes me want to get back to my notes and pictures to post my trip up the inside passage this Summer.
Get those trim tabs, you will love them.
I hope the wife and family warm up to the boat adn are able to spend quality time with you aboard it.
My wife suffers from motion sickness and I am afraid she will never be able to do an overnight trip with me. It is a real bummer, but on the bright side my son enjoys fishing with me ans has partaken of the feast for the eyes that is the Pacific Ocean. Now every time we go fishing he asks "are we going to see the whales, dolphines or anything else cool"? I just say, "you just never know, lets go see...".

It sounds like you had a great adventure. I hope to go back sometime in my own boat. I hope you are bale to do the same.

[Sea Wolf]

Jim-

WOW!!! What a story! Are there more Chapters? I'm on the edge of my seat, waiting.....

When El and Bill first proposed their trip up the Inside Passage, I suggested they trail their boat overland through B.C. to Prince Ruppert to avoid the tougher parts of the lower passage, like the Queen Charlotte Strait, and go directly from Prince Ruppert across the Dixon Entrance to Ketchikan, then up the passage. Thought it would also save more time for some of the more interesting destinations in SE Alaska.

I also almost bought your boat when it first came out on the used market, but cancelled the trip up to Gig Harbor for the Sea Trial when I decided it was just too big for my use here inland in Northern California. Hmmm.....

Your story shows how flexible and able to respond to difficulties one has to be to survive one of these passages. Not recommended for panic attack prone types of personalities!

OK, I'm ready for the next installment! Joe.

[Redƒox]

....holycamoly.... yes thanx girlfriend was just saying ta me the other day "I noticed you don't write anymore" glad to see some are though. Gonna copy it so I can hit it latter when I quit work...

[gljjr]

Wow! What a trip! If that had been my wife she would have either made me sell the boat or get a divorce Well probably not but she would sure be upset!

[Sneaks]

[C-Hawk]

Thanks for posting the stories of your adventure. I enjoyed all of the posts. It makes me want to make the run myself.

[Pat Anderson]

Sheesh, Jim - there is a book in there somewhere!