Escaping Covid

[dkirsop]

It was a great day to go fishing yesterday. Not that I caught anything (good or bad).

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[Jack]

That's a good day of fishing. It's a great day when you actually catch a fish.

[jashmen]

Sometimes I enjoy no catching - don't have to deal with cleaning the fish at the end of the day!

[dkirsop]

It would be great to see how people use their boats on a routine basis as opposed to the occasional episodic venture. Share your picture of how you use your boat in your local cruising areas for routine recreation.

[DesertAlbin736]

Yeah, we miss being up there this year, although we were planning on the Triangle Loop anyway. How far down Haro Strait?

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Have you anchored off Sidney Spit lately? I think this boat was a live aboard & stayed anchored there full time & took the shuttle boat back & forth. Probably still there. We stopped there on the way back & he was still there in the same place. I could live on a center cockpit fantail ketch like that.


This is one my favourite photos from last year, fogged in off Sidney Spit.

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This is a shot of the dinghy landing dock on Sidney Spit. Nice hike trail runs the length of the island, just a mile outside Sidney Harbour.

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And without the fog. There's some shallows on the way in, so you have to watch your chartplotter & depth sounder & follow the channel, but you can get quite close in.

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There have been some good pictures of Orcas sightings along Haro Strait posted online lately, including spy hops & broaches.

For now we're hunkered down at home in the air conditioning & swimming in the pool at night (sun sets at 7:43 local, full dark by 8:30 since we're at 33 deg N latitude & don't use DST) as Arizona is in the midst of a raging wildfire of COVID-19 spike. Remember back on an earlier COVID thread on March 22nd we had only 152 cases in Arizona? As of today we have 108,614 cases and 1,963 deaths. People stay mostly inside this time of year, as by Sunday our high temperature may reach 116 degrees. That's 46.7 C. The overnight low will not drop below 86. Even now it's not even noon local and we're already up to 104.

[DesertAlbin736]

Normally we get out on the local lake during cooler months, but not since February this year when we served as committee boat for our sailing club's annual Valentine's Day "Sweetheart Race". La Dolce Vita has been laid up "in ordinary" ever since.

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The O'Day 272 sailboat on the left belongs to a couple (upper right in photo below, gal with blue & white striped top & guy with sun hat) who hauled it up from Phoenix to Blaine & met up with us at Montague Harbour last July & shared dinner at the Hummingbird with us and our Flagstaff friends, who are now up in Northern Wisconsin taking ownership of a Southern Cross 31 cutter sailboat.

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[DesertAlbin736]

Jasmen,

Bayville is a ways up from where I grew up in Barnegat, NJ across from LBI. This was my hangout as a kid, the Barnegat Public dock & beaches nearby.

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And days fishing the bay & marshes for perch (now a wildlife refuge) & tonging for scallops with my late father on his 25 ft Garvey clamboat.

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Back then I could never have imagined I would end up spending more than half my life living in the desert.

[dkirsop]

The picture was taken at the south end of Moresby Island where Haro Strait, Swanson Channel and Boundary Pass all meet. Adjacent to the Canada / USA border. Next weekend I will be joining up with a few members of the BC Albineers in Ladysmith. I'll post some pictures and give them your regards.

[WillieC]

I had read that the Ladysmith rendezvous was on. Good for y'all! Wish we were there as that was the plan. If Canada never let us in again I would understand but be extremely sad.
Give our greetings to all the Albineers for us!

[DesertAlbin736]

Say hi to Ives & Mike Symonds & all the BC Albineers gang. Last year was fun. Ladysmith is always one of our favourite ports along with Port Browning & Montague Harbour.

[DesertAlbin736]

COVID situation here is just out of control. AZ has highest per capita rate of new cases of anywhere in the country if not the world. We are headed to where NY was in March & April.

Here's our situation now as we make national news. We're the blue line on the right, NY is orange line on the left.

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[dkirsop]

There will be 8 boats at Ladysmith. I will give everyone your regards. Mike, me and one other had planned to visit LaConnor this May but that got put on hold in March. Keep well or as our Health Officer says: be kind, be calm, stay safe.

[DesertAlbin736]

We are doing our bit. Since we're retired we don't have to work or worry about job loss or $$. Been extremely cautious since the beginning of the pandemic, more so now than ever. Don't even get to see our adult children & grandchildren in person even though they live just across town. We cook at home, don't even do take out. Am becoming a master in the use of a Ninja Foodi combination pressure cooker-steamer-air fryer-broiler-dehydrator. Amazing contraption, can pressure cook a whole chicken in 30 minutes, then use the "Air Crisp" (air fry) function to brown the outside/skin in another 10 minutes or so, and voila, whole roast chicken in 45 minutes. Also steam veggies, air fry frozen french fries, breaded cod, butterfly shrimp, Buffalo wings, you name it, in 10 to 15 minutes without deep frying in oil & doesn't heat up the kitchen by using the oven. That's important when you're trying to air condition the house when it's 110+ outside. The upside is that by staying home & being couch spuds & not traveling we're saving huge amounts of money to augment next year's cruising kitty.

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Have postponed routine dental appointments, haven 't had a haircut since February, sporting a beard & now looking more like a slightly younger version of Tommy Chong, always wear masks & carry a pump dispenser bottle of hand sanitizer during infrequent visits to the supermarket. Only recently have we seen a majority of customers wear masks in the store & elsewhere. It's been a big wake up call for former skeptics.

The Ladysmith rendezvous was a major highlight of our cruise last year as was the previous one in 2018. Someday we'll be back again I hope. Not next year because we still want to do the Triangle Loop & Rideau Canal, but perhaps 2022? We'll see.

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We try to keep a positive outlook & find humor (humour ) where we can, with clever YouTube videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygdB-ZE0daY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuG5Jlz86pA

[dkirsop]

The guy in the shades and black T-shirt looks dodgy if you ask me.