After spending a second night at Thetis Island Marina, we left at 10AM to conduct an experiment. We wanted to see how far we could extend our boat’s cruising range by cutting our speed from a typical 18 mph to 8 mph.
Three and a half hours and 31 miles later, we pulled into Nanaimo, filled up the tank and discovered that at the slower speed we had about twice the range as at the faster speed, two hundred miles.
This is important in that we want to head up to Princess Louisa Inlet which is 100 miles round trip from the last gas dock. Given the rule of thumb of 1/3 out, 1/3 back, and with 1/3 in reserve, the 100 mile range at the high speed is way out of our comfort zone, so we were very pleased with the results of our experiment.
At 2:30 after doing some chart shopping in Nanaimo, we had to decide if we were anchoring out there, or making the 20-plus mile crossing of the Strait of Georgia, a large body of water similar to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We listened to the weather radio, and it sounded like it could go either way, so we made the decision to stick our nose out in the Strait to check it out for ourselves. Turned out that things looked good (unusual that late in the afternoon, as normally the wind comes up causing 4-8 foot waves), so here we are in Secret Cove, on the Sechelt Peninsula on mainland British Columbia.
We plan to make a short travel day tomorrow, then take the long slow journey up to Princess Louisa Inlet on Friday.
(Note to self: you’re planning to make a 6000-mile journey next year at 7-8 knots, . . . . . so get used to it!)
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