rough around the edges Albin 25

[ssrig]

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[ssrig]

Well we are home. We put the boat in the water July 5th and spent almost 2 months on it hauling it out September 5th, then promptly two days later packed up the camper and went on a road trip/fishing trip for three weeks and now we are happy to be home.

This summer was different summer due to Covid but the weather was pretty trying too. Usually July, August and September we have good weather but instead we had some 3-4 day storms with one gusting to 45 knots winds for three days straight and leaving a sloppy mess of confused waves. With that storm I had an opportunity to have my wife acclimate to poor boating conditions in small forays out from sheltered areas which at the start scared her but was good to get used to it as we did end up heading home from Desolation sound in 25 knot winds and associated waves for two days, mostly on the stern or quartering waves that required constant hand steering to keep the boat from veering to one side and getting tossed around.
Even in Pirates Cove where we spent two nights we had an exciting last night where the wind picked up dramatically and had many boats dragging anchor around midnight and scrambling about trying to tie up the the small host dock where they were rafting up or just leaving the cove altogether, with the fetch even in that small anchorage creating some sizeable waves.

We did have some other very exciting events out there including a close encounter with humpbacks! Always on the lookout for them we spotted a small pod when we were leaving Von Donup inlet and slowly cruised closer to them and took it out of gear to watch them when one breached right in front of the boat freeking us out then all of a sudden two were heading straight for the boat and submerged just in front of the bow! For a second I thought we were being attacked lol! I was recording this on my phone but the footage isn't the best along with some verbal expletives that should be edited out so I may get that posted somehow?



We started our summer cruising going to Wallace Island for a few days then to Sydney Spit Island and Princess Margaret Island as a shake down cruise.
We stern tied on Sydney spit one night and in the morning while lying in bed I noticed that the boat wasn't rocking normally with some passing wake and went out to investigate why and saw that the rudder assembly had made a groove in the sand and we were just slightly beached! I climbed off the swim grid onto the beach and pushed the boat into deeper water and had a good laugh about it, we always play close to the edge when stern tying or anchoring and we are often too close to shore, just the way we roll I guess?

Here are a few images of our trip:
Sydney spit with an otter swimming next to the dingy.

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Beached jelly fish.

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Weird bug found on the beach?

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Princess Cove on Princess Margaret Island stern tied.

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[Bob Noodat]

Great story and pictures.

Your weird bug is a California Beach Hopper (Megalorchestia californiana), one of the amphipods, which are often called sand fleas, although this species is the biggest of them all on the west coast, and most sand fleas are half the size or less.

[DesertAlbin736]

How exciting! One thing we missed out on was seeing whales on the last two times up there including Desolation Sound. No bears either. Sidney Spit is a nice stop. We hiked the trails end to end while there. The approach to the Sidney Spit anchorage can be a little tricky with shallows on either side of a winding channel. Easy if you have a chartplotter & good depth sounder. You really did anchor close in! There are some really shallow spots there.

This was a fogged in anchorage at Sidney Spit last year. Is that ketch still there? Looked like it was a live aboard.

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Another view of Sidney Spit dock & beach. This shows how far out we anchored. But we have an outboard powered hard dink, which makes it easy to get to shore.

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And looking west toward Sidney.

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[WillieC]

Love, love, love Ganges. We were able to catch music in the park and the market one afternoon there back when the world was great.

We will be back!

[DesertAlbin736]

Will Canada ever let us Yanks back in? Hope so. Give our regards to all the BC Albineers.

[ssrig]

Great story and pictures.

Your weird bug is a California Beach Hopper (Megalorchestia californiana), one of the amphipods, which are often called sand fleas, although this species is the biggest of them all on the west coast, and most sand fleas are half the size or less.

Thanks for that! Yeah that bugs body was about 1/2" long.

[ssrig]

DA, WilleC,I am sure our borders will be open again or at least I hope so, we spend quite a bit of time in the US and have many friends who we visit there and also travel through usually each year to get to Mexico for the winters which will not happen this year.

We had 8 boats at the rendevous in Ladysmith!

When I was anchored at Sydney Spit in the CT41 I woke up one morning and looked outside and saw all the other boats pointing in the complete opposite direction than me and once I took stock I realised that the keel had settled into the mud and the tide had left the boat riding ten inches higher than normal, didn't tip or move at all and it was very stable until the tide sucked us out of the mud.
I have been touching the ground three times on my Albin, I know when I am close and try to calculate when the tide will be down to critical levels and get up to adjust lines accordingly, not during the night though, I take no chances with that.

We see whales everywhere we go! We have paddled our kayaks with them in Mexico and have seen humpbacks up in Desolation many times too, they say there are "resident whales" there mostly hanging around Von Donop area. We have several different videos of our whale encounters.

[ssrig]

A few other images here, going to the Albin Rendezvous in Ladysmith.

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Desolation Sound, moving from Roscoe Cove to Pendrall Sound. Zoom in and note rechargeable anchor light sitting ontop of my mast. Two solar showers in thier constant spot on the front deck, well strapped on!

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Wallace Island sign shed, we are Slo mOcean on the bottom where DA used to be.

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Cleaning out the crab trap, 7 1/2" male on the top!

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Spot the Albin, Sydney Spit

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We ended our trip by leaving Wallace, stopping in at home for showers and south to Sydney spit for 4 nights of great weather and otter spotting.

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[Bob Noodat]

Will Canada ever let us Yanks back in? Hope so. Give our regards to all the BC Albineers.

Not until sensible people on both sides of the border start to quell the mass hysteria. That's a way off.

[ssrig]

Looks like I never posted about this and it was one of my favourite modifications I did before the trip. The old marine head had an electric salt water pump that I repurposed and ran some pecs pipe to the old waste pump out deck fitting where I mounted a tap midship, I cut down a hose so that it would reach the anchor and all the way to the swim grid.

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Worked great for cleaning the fish cleaning table that I made!

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[nebulatech]

Awesome trip!

I like the idea of a wash down. What really makes me smile is looking at the picture of the gate valve labeled "waste." Taken out of context, can you imagine how that might be interpreted?

[ssrig]

It was an awesome trip!

I thought it was funny too but nobody even noticed! It is really hard to read though.

The previous owner used the waste outlet as a FM radio antenna mounting hole, so unscrew the cover and a car antenna would push up into the hole from below where it was connected to the stereo but it was not waterproof and most of the time we are in no radio zones and right next to the VHF antenna so I removed it.

[ssrig]

Last year I built a “Flopper Stopper” out of some bits of metal I had laying around.
We anchor out pretty much every night during the summer and most of the time we tuck ourselves into a small cove but sometimes we get stuck in what I call “Big Boat Bays” where the fetch or all the people with dogs are racing around in their dinghies taking them to shore and creating endless wakes! For those anchorages we deploy Flopper.

The frame is aluminum with stainless flaps.

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It hangs on aircraft wire and as the boat heels over to the side the Flopper is on the flaps open allowing the Flopper to sink with little resistance then when the boat tries to roll the other way the flaps close creating big resistance thereby stopping the roll.

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These images are from after last years cruising season and the salt had attacked the aluminum’s unprotected surface which has now been painted.

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I mount it in association with a down rigger base that is pretty strong but it still needed a bit of triangulation to deal with the forces it creates, I keep it around 4-6 feet in depth and it works great!

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Here we are in Pendrall Sound with it deployed which takes three minutes.
Pendrall being one of the Big Boat Anchorages.

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[DesertAlbin736]

Looks like something that ought to be patented & make a fortune from!