Leaving Sidney, at last

Rio Dorado, with First Mate Emily at the helm

With Arctic Tern gone, we could finally get our real vacation started.  We had invited Sara's friend Camille to join us for a few days, and decided to meet up with here in Ladysmith Wednesday evening.  After a bit of last minute shopping, we left Sidney harbour at around 10:30, which would give us favourable current for most of the 36 nautical mile (nm) trip.  There was not a lot of wind as we motored up and around Shwartz bay.  The wind picked up enough once we were northbound to the west of Saltspring to raise the mainsail, but we kept the engine running since we had a long way to go.

Emily has been excited to go fishing, so once we were well underway, I set about organizing our fishing gear.  My tenant Gerry from Cranbrook is a commercial fisherman, and gave me a selection of lures and lots of advice on how to use them.  I had an old trolling reel I got from my dad, and a new rod just purchased in Vancouver.  I tied on a combination of lure, flasher, and line-sinking device I got from Gerry, and lowered it into the water.  After letting out what seemed to be sufficient line, I went back to navigation and driving.  After a couple of minutes, I checked the rod, to see that line was continuing to spool off behind the boat, and the reel was rapidly emptying.  Oops!

I quickly stopped the line with my hands, and looped it around the reel while I figured out how to increase the drag tension.  Once I had this properly set, I started the surprisingly arduous chore of reeling in what must have been a hundreds of feet of line, with a pretty heavy load of tackle on the end.  There was no rush, so I did a number of sessions of 60 to 80 cranks, separated by rest breaks.

In retrospect, I should have paid attention to the tackle salesman in Vancouver, who, when looking over the reel, pointed out where one should put in oil.

Alas, I did not.  And so... The tackle was within 30 meters of the boat when the reel shattered, and literally came to a grinding halt.  Not good, as Emily is fond of saying in such situations. So, on with the sailing gloves, to finish retrieving the lure setup by hand.

We pulled into the Ladysmith marina at around 4:00, with no fresh salmon to show for our efforts. A very nice place, and we had lots of time to let Emily ride her bike around, and over to a playground before dinner.