Celebrated Canada Day 150th in Vancouver Harbor aboard Bobcat "Black Hole Sun".
Day one Jim and I departed Shelter Island Marina on the good advice from our friend Art, via the North Arm of the Fraser. After a short leg for the day we anchored in Cowards Cove for the night by deploying the Xi5 and hitting the GPS Spot Lock.
We enjoyed the remainder of the evening by getting some sun on places it has never shone before or at least in 30 years. Supper was steak and potatoes. We launched our first crab trap early evening 6:30 square in the middle of the river channel and so no winner winner crab dinner for us.
We did not give up hope on the crab trap so easily though. We searched extensively towards, into, around and at the location on the track we left earlier. I made a track of the search area. So we pay for two tidal fishing license and loose not one but two crab traps as now we are replacing and purchasing.
I think we will starve living out and abroad on a boat without hunting and gathering skills. Really looking forward though to tying a hook on the line and catching supper. We later saw first hand the five "W"'s of crabbing. We will not fail a second time to be sure.
Day 2.
I was up early the next morning to disengage the Spot Lock on the Xi5 and put the boat in motion. 20 minutes later I arrive at our search area. It was now low tide and we were hopping to find the yellow marker buoy. Jim woke up and had a coffee and helped me look briefly. We no find at low time. Game is hard. Fail, Defeated, You Loose, Destroyed, Wrecked, Ended, Doh, Doh, Doh. Noob. LOL.
Back to the anchorage at Cowards Cove and we Spot Lock again and get busy preparing for our next leg. We completely recharge the battery bank almost 97%. The dishes were done things were put away, route and Spot Lock target were reconfirmed (49.297578, -123.120825) we stowed the Xi5 applied throttle and motored out into English Bay.
We stay well out from the shore and into the traffic pattern and beat a line for the Lion's Gate Bridge. We make great time again for another short leg and nail our Spot Lock perfectly behind a submerged rock and in a great place to view the fireworks.
A few calculations later and we deduce we will have 4.5 feet of water under us at the tide change in the morning. We scan the bottom three-sixty with sonar and no rocks under. No other boats anchor around us.
We were just west of the Nine O'Clock Gun. The Nine O'Clock Gun went off and scared those that were not expecting it. The current architecture of the display case does not allow viewing of the muzzle from the ocean.
We enjoy a steak dinner, Caesar salad without crab before the fireworks all courtesy of moving the saloon cushions outside and plugging in the barbecue. After supper we are soon enjoying a fireworks display honoring Canada's 150th year as a nation.
The fireworks was quite immersive with some great sound reverberations coupled with the encircling vortex of visual renditions of hearts, hoops, lasers, popcorn and silken scarlet showers of light falling to the ocean. Twenty minutes later it was over and we retired for the evening.
We awoke to find that our previous nights Spot Lock and consumed more of the trolling motor 36v lithium bank than anticipated. We had no choice but to plug the 36v battery charger into the power bar and charge the battery whilst the Xi5 was deployed. Untested - the manual for the Xi5 says do not charge while deployed. No surprise it works and because we are still locked GPS and only using 1 or 2 amps to hold station we manage to eventually get the 36v lithium trolling motor only bank back up to 40v before a couple other cells starting jumping above 3.5.
When it was all said and done we were able to store 40v in the trolling motor battery and felt confident in it's ability to spot lock again. When the pack was balanced it would take up to 42v. We will balance all 12 cells in that pack and get it back to full potential.
Main 48v Lithium Battery bank is reading 54.7v or about 97% capacity, all our route and anchorage reviewed and we depart as planned at noon that day exactly. Around the submerged rock and straight east. A little longer leg.
We are routed to Pleasantside in Port Moody at the farthest point east in Vancouver harbor. We arrive on schedule and deploy the Xi5 for the duration. We have excess energy we make the hot water for free and do up last nights dishes.
Water is hot still for evening dishes from supper of barbecued chicken wings, spinach salad with balsamic vinegar and dinner rolls filled and grilled with garlic butter and cheese. We pretended to watch a movie but fell asleep.
We sleep in some on a day when we plan to return to Shelter Island all in one leg. Our supplies of critical items like cigarettes are running low. Anyway up at 7:00 am and realize we didn't run the generator that night. Doesn't much matter. We stow the Xi5 and leave.
We are underway for Shelter Island Marina. 40 Nmi away with a 69% battery bank. It is cloudy and almost rainy in Port Moody but we can see the break in cloud cover by Vancouver proper so we run silent till we are well away from the beautiful community of Pleasantside home of "George Otto" seller of Porte-Bote second hand great deal for us. Thanks George too bad we didn't get a chance to visit.
We deploy the Honda 2000 and plug our two chargers in after it warms up. We motor for some time. Our two chargers figure the battery is good and they shut off. This necessitates a full reboot of the system while underway to trick the chargers into cycling their timer cycle.
I throw the main disconnect the boat beeps and lights flash and then the generator again spools up and the chargers start feeding amps again. We break into sunshine and quickly we are charging underway maintaining a charge current while motoring.
We proceed with this posture again for some time until the chargers stop again. Simple repeat procedure. This time I forgot to shut off the breaker for the solar input now producing over 10 amps and funny the main contactor does not close. Lucky.
Whatever. We are now into some heavy 3 foot to 4 foot waves with wind west right on our nose passing through First Narrows and entering the bay. We let the Honda cool down, refuel amazingly and stow. We run silent through all the low tide chop and wave action and are beset upon by at least on curious sailboat that could make our beat along the inside channel markers on the way back to Cowards Cove for one more short anchorage where we plan to charge.
Instead we just have a coffee and suntan on the bow. We discuss the last leg according to the tide charts and soon realize we have to leave and now regardless of state of charge on the main bank. We stow the Xi5 and run silent out of the cove and up the North Arm of the Fraser River.
We are on route with a short inbound tide cresting to a short high tide in the afternoon followed by a short flood. If our timing is off we may very well have a tough time as the current were the Fraser grows giant arms is severe 5+ knots at times.
We didn't waste anytime to say the least and ran the Honda 2000 to produce 30 amps. We ran that way for some time 4 hours or so until it ran out of gas. We let the Honda cool down and stowed it. We will run silent the rest of the way.
We were in a convoy of weekend boaters heading back. We went up the river charging our battery for mostly 8 km/h with the wind at our back and the incoming tide pushing us up the river. We were over producing on current and were charging our main battery at around 5 amps.
Eventually the incoming turns to slack and then 2.2nm to the mouth of the North Arm the current switches on us and we now proceed at 3km/h with the same energy usage until we near the home stretch passing three fully laden log boom tugs around the inside bend at 4 knots and all ahead one-third for 70 amps and protect our flank from a passing unladen tug eager to get home we make 6km/h. His wash breaks behind me and the barges and dock we left behind on the starboard side.
We track the tugs movement ahead of us and watch as he splits river and makes route through the old train bridge. We make 7kmh from his wake and the new rollers. The river has certainly changed here. What the rollers give they take away just as quick but we are now locked in for the duration. Any steering malfunction or error from operator will not be acceptable.
We follow the tugs path through the structure and no mistakes were made. We round the corner and down the river with the tide at a leisurly 13 km/h. 20km/h is too fast and we only want to arrive there by 8:00 PM. We motor past the marina and back upsteam at 3 km/h deploying bumpers as we go and readying lines.
We enter our slip and our neighbor catches our lines. We secure the vessel to the dock with our lines, hook up our cable, power and close out the video of the ships log for the journey at exactly 8:00 PM.
All told we traveled 80Nm in four (five if you count the coffee sunbathing break on the way back) legs spanning June 30th, July 1st, July 2nd and July 3rd. We recorded 100 GB of video from the trip and an enjoyable time was had by all.
We learned much about how a Bobcat handles and was designed. We have come to appreciate Bill O'Brien as a designer of strong study vessels that can pretty much ride out anything. Really was amazing to be out there flattening 4' chop and rollers with it that day still making directly to our line with the wind NW 10 forcing the waves into the beaches and the shoals again at low tide.
We probably should not have been out there and those that were some where coming in dropping sails. Others sailed on up for the fun of Choppy English Bay at low tide. The boat was silent as we crossed through the Bay. The only thing that made noise was the swim plastic rope swim ladder attached to the starboard bow cleat that was not stowed properly.
You would have to be doing something incredibly wrong to be getting water over the bow of your Bobcat. Our Bobcat points to the wind all the time, rides better through the waves than a power boat, is cheaper to run than a trawler type boat. We really really like our Bobcat Catamaran.
One day we will do her justice. The entire topside needs a layer of fiberglass and her Port Bow needs one two. The locker lids all need work. The motor mount solution needs to be done with some stainless backing or even a better solution.
We feel from the only picture we can find of a Bobcat with twin outboards we are not too far off in our twin outboard cat middle spacing. Finally the fore deck and custom anchor locker lids need to be glassed properly.
If you would like to put a track in your chart plotter or Google earth let me know I can upload them.
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Posted by: albert682@yahoo.com
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