Interlude Captain & Mate, Spence & Linda Flegel

Sunday, May 19th, 2002

Dear Family and Friends,

Yesterday was day one of our summer of being vagabonds. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful morning to begin our wanderings. The sun was shining and there was little or no wind.

After leaving the marina in Blaine, we traveled the three miles to White Rock where we cleared Customs via telephone. When the Customs agent asked how long we intended to be in Canada, I replied, "five months, please." No problem! I think that six months would have been max.

Continuing then across Boundary Bay, past Point Roberts and still holding a course of 230 degrees mag. we proceeded across The Strait of Georgia to Active Pass. The tide was with us and we traversed the pass. Our timing coincided with the arrival of 3 of the BC ferries. One of them passed us and we met two others. They demand a lot of respect and attention when they are sharing the same pass with you. After rounding Galiano we continued up the Galiano shoreline to Montague Harbour. Everything is so beautiful here especially when the sun shines as it was then.

Wow ! Wall-to-wall boats. Linda counted over a hundred moored here. They are either tied to docks or to buoys or anchored as we are. Our friends John and Sandie Miller, who are neighbors in Blaine, arrived here in the late afternoon aboard the Lady Sandie. They had some difficulties crossing the border.

I spent the afternoon doing two jobs. The first job was to wash some salt off of the boat. With the addition of the watermaker last winter, I now have the liberty of being able to use some of our precious fresh water for this purpose. I also initiated the new washdown pump. This was a fun job as most of the jobs on board are. The second job that I did was to replace the sea water impeller on the gen. set. I’m glad that I had a spare one on board. I hadn’t planned to do this and it was far less fun especially since I am not mechanically inclined.

I got it working again by 7:30 with Linda's help by handing me tools. We had a late dinner, played some cards and had a wonderful nights sleep. It was perfectly still.

This morning was sunny at first then it started to get overcast. We went to shore and had a nice walk on one of our favorite trails. A little rain has fallen since we have returned to the boat. John and Sandie are coming for dinner and I had hoped to Barbeque hamburgers. We’ll see! Maybe they will bring over their grill and we will do them inside.

We would like to invite our family and friends to come and join us at some time this summer. We would like you to be able to share some of this with us. Kenmore Air flies many daily scheduled flights to places that we intend to go.

All for now,
Spence and Linda