Twas the night before...

Stones Marina, Nanaimo, BC, Canada

Monday, our first potential leaving day, has come and gone. Murphy was doing his best to keep us here.

Saturday night I decided to do a final test of the navigation lights.  I test these out every time we leave port, even though we have never actually done any night sailing.  They always work fine.

This time though, the starboard (green) nav light, would not come on.  This is one of my horribly expensive OGM LED lights that I installed several years ago.  Shortly after I put them on, we managed to scrape the starboard light off on the nasty pole that guards our slip.  There was no apparent permanent damage at the time, and the light still worked.  However, it now appears that there was some more subtle damage that has allowed moisture to infiltrate the delicate electronics inside the normally sealed fixture, resulting in it's now untimely total failure.

No problem, I exclaimed!  We have a backup tri-color light at the top of the mast that we can use in a pinch.  The good news is that the light is still working.  The bad news is that when we had some up-mast work done this spring, when the anchor light was replaced with a new, low-power LED bulb, the tri-color lens got put on sideways, showing red and green to port and white to starboard (a great way to confuse other boaters).

Searching the chandlers on Sunday netted me a new, much cheaper set of LED nav lights.  With some quick modifications, I was able to adapt the mount and replace the starboard light.  We will order another of the good (expensive) lights when we get further south.  For now, we will sail with a mismatched, but at least fully functional, set of lights.

On another note, I forgot to get my eye drop prescription filled until Sunday.  Normally not a problem, but I guess they just don't expect anyone to want an entire year's supply at a time.  They were not able to fulfill the entire order until around noon today.

Today, we got one of the boat monkeys to go up the mast and straighten out the tri-color light, so we are now well equipped again.  No doubt the anchor light will stop working any time now.

With all the stress, and amazing number of last-minute chores that seem to be cropping up, we thought it prudent to wait till tomorrow before casting off.  We actually made this decision on Sunday, so we were able to really enjoy a night out with our good friends Barry and Hazel on Devenshire Cream.  Much wine and merriment ensued, as we did not have to get up early this morning.

Tomorrow we expect to get off the dock by around 8 AM, in order to make the slack at Dodd Narrows by 9:30.  With any luck, we will be in Montague Harbour in the Gulf islands by the afternoon - a great, easy destination for our first day out.

{GMST}49|11.33|N|123|56.832|W|Stones Marina|Stones Marina{GEND}