Zachary Hicks

We woke ill rested, but not dead, and spent a short while re-packing our gear and loading it into the rental car. Interestingly enough, the new rental car smells quite a bit like the interior of Southern Endurance. I can only assume they think this masks the smell of some previous smoking renter, but frankly I'd prefer the smell of stale smoke.

The charter office was closed, so we went into Picton for breakfast and then returned to find that the office had opened.

As you might expect, we were quite anxious about approaching the charter company about our problem, but after a short talk with Crystal (a 7 day a week job for our Crystal ... and her son it seems) our fears were put to rest. Crystal was very sympathetic to our story and offered immediateley to place us in another boat.

Any question of whether the charter operators were leery of renting the 29 foot sailboat to us based on our experience with our little 22 footer was put to rest at this point. Crystal suggested that we substitute the 29 foot Southern Endurance for a 38 foot sailboat that was going to be available for the remainder of our charter. That's right ... thirty eight feet.

I am not lying when I tell you that I had to literally convince Crystal that I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to drive a boat that large through the marina. She tried to convince me that it would be easier than Southern Endurance to sail, but we were firm, and so that option was dropped.

In the end, we settled on switching to the (also) 29 foot Zachary Hicks. This boat is only available until Thursday, so we will have to switch boats again on Wednesday night.

We re-unpacked into Zachary Hicks and then set out for a test sail. Zachary Hicks is quite a bit nicer than Southern Endurance. Other than the smell issues surrounding (literally) Southern Endurance, she is an older boat, and aside from critical running gear, most of the living space and equipment is pretty run down. The running gear (engine, sails, lines, etc) is in very good condition, and the few hours we were out on the sound we found her to be a very nice boat to handle. The interior is, however, a little hurtin'.

Zachary Hicks has a less run-down feel about her. The interior is laid out differently as well, and as a result, has more usable space. All in all she offers a much more comfortable living experience. Oh. And did I mention she does't stink like a porta-john?

Our test run turned into a 5 hour sail down the sound. The wind in Queen Charlotte Sound is quite variable. As a result we got some good experience playing with the lines and winches and except for one quite alarming spot, we had a fun sail.




This is a shot looking down Queen Charlotte Sound towards the ocean.


It's not entirely clear how the rest of this week will turn out, but the weather forecast for the next two days looks good, so we're planning on heading down Queen Charlotte Sound towards the ocean and mooring overnight in one of the bays towards the end. If the weather holds, we may spend another night, but perhaps we will get the hankering for restaurant food and come back to town.

There won't be any updates until after all that, so until then ...

Don