More Northbound C-Dorys

F

Fun Patrol

New member
Ahoy all...

E-Ticket, Tesoro and Fun Patrol are in Sidney, BC continuing north for the next month or so. We just had the pleasure of meeting Peter and Caryn on C-Dancer in Port Sidney and look forward to crossing tacks with other Brats along the way. We launched June 17 in Anacortes and messed around the San Jauns, now it's up though BC...eh?

A note for the ham-equipped boats. The Great Northern Boaters Net comes up daily at 0730 PDT on 3.870, then goes to 7.285 if needed. It's a great place to connect with other cruising boats and their years of experience in the area. I was pleased to reconnect with friends from our big boat cruise in 95-96 still "out there" doing it.

Have Fun!

Roy...Fun Patrol
 
Happy Independence Day to all our American cousins. We are launching at Ladysmith sometime today for the start of a leisurely northerly (hopefully two month) voyage. Night at Newcastle Island in Nanaimo and then strike out over the Strait at first light for Jedidiah Island Marine Park. Very loose sail plan but probably Desolation and northwards possibly the Broughtons and all quiet places on the way. We will keep sharp eye out for othe Brats. Bon voyage to all.

Helen and Dave
 
Caryn and I had another great trip to the beautiful province of BC and met some new C-Dory friends. As Roy mentioned, we met up with him on his boat, Fun Patrol along with Tesoro and E-Time from Arizona in Port Sidney. We also had the pleasure of meeting Dick and June from Langley, BC who own Shrek, another Green 22' CD. We joined them for a nice cruise to Otter Bay on North Pender Island.

Summer's just begun and we look forward to meeting many more C-Brats in our travels.
 
E-Ticket, Tosoro and Fun Patrol are in Pender Harbor provisioning, intending to depart for Princess Louisa in the morning. Is this fun or what?

Roy...
 
All you northbound C-Dorys

All that can anyway, please keep the updates coming. For those of us that couldn't make it north this year, it sure helps the wait to next year. Enjoy and appreciate your sharing of C-Dory adventures. Not only is your shared information entertaining it is helpful in the future travels for many of us.

Again thanks and keep those updates coming
 
Say hi to Eric and Susan on E ticket! Also a 73's to the gang on the NorthWestern Boater's net (I was on the net in 1993, 94 and 95).

Wish we had made it this year--but hopefully next!
 
Anna Leigh met E-Ticket, Tesoro and Nancy H at Montague Harbor on our last return day from Ketchikan. It is fun to meet new C-Dorys when you least expect it.
 
For those planning a trip to the Inside Passage area, the internet hookups have changed quite a bit since I was up here last. Of course it used to be you had nothing...the good side of which was more time to play with the boat. But you had to row ashore to find a pay phone to check on your parents and kids. Then came the laptops and shoreside dial-ups, but you had to take your machine or a disc ashore to an Internet cafe. Then came the miracle of wireless, mostly in the form of WiFi. Short range, but a real blessing when you are in port somewhere.

Up here in the Northwest the WiFi for boaters is in the process of being taken over by an outfit called Broadband Xpress. BBX comes up on your screen. The good news is they provide excellent signals in many ports in the Northwest. With high gain antennas, good signals can be had at up to 3 miles. The bad news is they charge for this...on the order of $300/year, $100/month, or about $10/day. For my trip of about 2 months...mostly out in the boonies, it is a bit much. In addition, they are putting out the word to operators of unsecured sites that they have a virus and security risks. All very true, but I think it's code for "lock em up so we have an exclusive". It's something for us all to ponder, for me I prefer the thrill of discovering an open site (like the one I'm on now) for the few times I want to clean the spam out of my mailbox, and of course check the Brats site.

Another option that has dried up for me is the cell phone Internet connection. I used to get that via my Verizon service, but they closed the backdoor approach recently when they started offering a broadband service. That really works well in many places, but it runs about $70/month in addition to your voice service. I still might go for that.

Being a ham has rewards...other that wearing a baseball cap with your callsign and a plastic pocket protector. E-mail can be done via the Winlink system and you have coverage worldwide. I have never been anywhere this didn't work, including the mid-Pacific Marshall Islands. For non-hams, a similar system exists via the marine SSB radio and Sailmail. For a nominal fee that used to be around $250/year, you have limited use that includes business communications that are forbidden on ham. So, get a ham license for $10, and have unlimited usage! Hams are not allowed to charge for their services. Just a bunch of nice people having fun watching little lights blink!

Later, and 73's

Roy
 
Them's fighting words! Been a ham since 1946 and ain't never been nice! :wink:

Dusty ex - W1SAW, W4SAW, K6RSR, etc. maybe a duzen etc
 
Yeah Duster, me too. Not been there as long as you, on the earth or as a ham.

We're 63 here and been hammin since 1956.

Charlie ex KN4KBA now K4KBA, one and only always..
 
MY, my ... all this QRN!

Hi Charlie, Dusty, et all.

I'm a new kid on the ham block since 1967..
ex WN9YPZ [That took 5 minutes to send on a straight key, though it did have a nice rythm.], ex WA4SME, ex WA1KRM and now .. KA1RX.

Anybody want a 54' TriEX tower, TA-33 & Ham-M rotor? II hope to have this out of the yard so I can replace it with a HyGain 18HT, Hy Tower. [2 each phased]. I don't climb anymore... something abt a yellow patch that caught me by surprise at the 35' level while dismantling a tower, so I don't trust myself anymore. Take it down and it's yours.

Long term project is mount my IC-706MKIIG on the CD25.

73s
 
Fun Patrol and others... Yes...please do keep the stories on your trip coming in. ....and thianks for the wireless info updates too. Had thought about just unplugging and stop paying for all my "wire" phone lines and go total broadband/cell stuff... hummm?
 
Patrick,

We use Sprint for two cell phones and one broadband card(unlimited access) for about $160 per month. Coverage and speed varies!
 
Verizon offers the wireless broadband for $60/month if you have another cell phone account with them. So far, we have been pleased with the service. While not as fast as DSL or cable, it does give us coverage almost everywhere we have traveled since getting the wireless service. Much faster than dialup. Still haven't been to any major population areas to see that advertised speed. Nice to be able to get e-mail and check weather while traveling.

Best wishes,
Jim B (on the road to the C-Dory!)
 
I just recently got Cingular wireless for my laptop. Had a chance to test it in the Puget Sound area when I went by boat to the Bellingham CBGT from Olympia.

It leaves a lot to be desired but it does give you internet capabilities. Anywhere you have a decent cell phone signal; you can get a 60 to 100 KB connection. When you turn on the accelerated mode, it acts more like a 120 to 200 KB connection. In accelerated mode you lose some graphics quality.

If you don’t use an email account through Cingular wireless, you have to turn off the accelerated mode to get your email. Anyway, that has been my experience using MS Outlook.

Cost is $60 per month for unlimited access. I have 30 days to decide if I will keep it and probably will.
 
Dav: Wonder if Verizon has the same type of 30 day trial? Would be neet to test the systems side by side...? Or..they probly got some geek gig in their to keep you from doing just that....but hey.... we could try it at our gatherings locations... Who knows... find one with good coverage...and get a C-Brat "group" rate... ... or not.
 
Ahoy all...

E-Ticket, Tesoro and Fun Patrol made safely back to the trailers in Anacortes after a great 2 months doing the San Juans and some of B.C. inside waters. For those of you that haven't been out for a long cruise, there are a few things that we found different from an overnighter....

1) You will actually have to buy fuel several times at fuel dock prices. Several MORE times than you figured, at a little higher price...it ran us close to $5/US gallon in BC this summer. I usually get around 5 nm/gallon average, but on this trip in the Northwest waters I got about 3 1/2 due to the heavy load of provisions....and fuel....and water, etc. The 25's and Tom Cats will ante up a little more. The old traveler's addage is still good advice..."Take half as many clothes and twice as much money".

2) The Porta-Potti factor. Dreaded by many, these simple devices can be lived with. We use ours only for "Serious Business", with the even more simple urinal taking care of the #1 needs. Check out the "Little John" and "Lady J Adaptor" in the West Marine Catalog. You owners of 22s can save 50 grand ....plus the cost of a diesel truck.... by spending $10 at W.M. for these little devices, and not buying a new 25 for the marine head.

3) Laundry facilities: If you tend to go gunkholing like we do, finding decent laundry facilities is tough. Between hauling your stuff up the dock, or piling it in the dinghy, to find a machine somewhere that takes a weird combination of coins...or is out of order, ruins your happy-face. See #1 above; Take less clothes, get some of the outdoor type garments such as the "Columbia" brand. They are supposed to look wrinkly, they hand wash easily and dry fast.

4) Provisioning: Take less. Saves weight and space (read: fuel mileage). There are markets everywhere. We don't quite take our own advice on this, but we intend to give it a try :-)

5) Charts: The most significant change in navigation and safety for us in recent years has been the addition of a chart plotter several years ago. Ergo, the little pointer shows you where you are, where you want to go, how far it is, what the tides are doing, etc! Well, maybe. This information us usually correct, but sometimes the satelites don't quite agree with the chart that was drawn by Capt. Cook. And it should agree with what you see on the radar, the sounder, the cruising guide, and your eyeballs. For this trip to the Northwest, I sprung for the super-expensive expanded area Blue Chart chip for the Garmin 182-C. They managed to pack all the US and Canadian charts between Olympia and Skagway into this one. How do they do it? We also carry complete paper charts, most in booklet form, for WHEN the electronics pack it in. I also carry the laptop with another set a charts, tides, etc. For Puget Sound to Port Hardy, the Wagoner Cruising Guide is the best in my opinion.

But enough of that. What a great trip! Our favorite spot was Roscoe Bay in the Desolation Sound area. It has a narrow entrance that dries at lower tides. We went in with only 2 feet of water. There are hiking trails, but the best feature is a fresh water lake at the head of the bay. We portaged the kayaks about 3/8 of a mile and had the lake all to ourselves!

We are now at Cathlamet on the Columbia River. Just met "Tyboo" on the docks and are looking forward to catch up with "Helen O" today.

Oh, and we have WiFi for $4/2 hours, $10/day, $30/month. Not bad on the monthly deal. But, I have a ham cruiser bud here with Direct Way satelite providing open WiFi free for everyone! Life is good.

Have fun!

Roy
 
I have to agree with Rosco Bay. We came in with the 25 and had about 8" of water under the skeg until we got into the bay itself. Roscoe is a great little place to spend some time.
 
Hey Roy!

Great post and down to earth advice!

Glad you and the rest had such a fine trip.

Nice hearing from you again. Keep us updated on your adventures,

Joe.
 
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