Had a lovely sail to Keats Island from Horseshoe Bay – a short overnighter mid-week. This shot is mid-afternoon at Plumper Cove.

After I rounded the top of Bowen Isalnd, the wind in Howe Sound was about 14 knots on the nose and I tried a different sail combination – my 60% jib with a full main.  Normally I’d have the 100% jib up with a reef in the main in this wind, but I wanted to see how well the smaller jib performs.

I was surprise to find the boat a lot flatter – even with the full main.  Beating  all the way up, Madsu was never heeled more than 15 degrees and we were doing a respectable 5 knots average SMG.

When North Sails cut this jib for me, they kept it fairly full low down, but the luff only goes about 2/3rd of the way up the forestay – so I does make sense that I’m getting less heel even with the full main.

I like this combination a lot, keeping the main full means more power through the chop.  I do think with the 100% jib and a reef in the main I might have a bit more speed, but also a lot more heeling and not as much punch through the waves – or at least that’s my theory.

Even though it’s the middle of September, we spent the afternoon swimming at Plumber Cove.

I’m not sure what the daytime high was, probably in the low twenties, but the sun felt hot, and it was a delight to swim and play with the kids in the salt water.

Around 10:30 on Sunday, we got word that the normally ‘bear free’ Keats Island had suddenly become home to a black bear.  He or she swam over from the mainland, and park managers were running from camp site to camp site asking visitors to pack out their food.

Black bears are strong swimmers, and Dane, the park guy, told me that there usually is one incident a year of a bear swimming over.

I guess the bear thought the water was just too fine to pass up, like the rest of us.

It was a pleasant surprise to find Erramus at Keats Island while we were there for the weekend.

She’s Ron and Merideth’s beautiful Valiant 40, and they were up for the night with some other friend so ours.  I first met Ron at SFU doing the summer publishing series.

I had a good look at Ron’s freshly healed hand – he had a pretty scary encounter with a windlass while they were sailing up coast.  All’s well, though hand modeling is apparently out of the picture.

Madsu feels mighty small after stepping aboard Erramus for a quick visit.

Spent a good part of the afternoon swimming in Plumper Cove on Keats Island.

Friends and their kids were camping on the island, so we spent a fabulous afternoon playing in the crystal clear cove.

I spent most of the afternoon swimming off Madsu while at Plumper Cove.  With record temperatures in BC this week, a dip in the ocean is about as refreshing as it gets.

All around the anchorage you could hear the sound of people diving into the water – unusual on any but the hottest days on the BC coast.

Plumper Cove, Keats Island, British Columbia.

It won’t win any National Geographic photo contest, but here’s what I did to get this shot.

I leaned over Madsu’s starboard side while at the dock on Keats Island and submerged my Pentax Optio W30 about six inches into the water and clicked the shutter.

Then I went back to sipping my coffee and reading my book.

Another tough day at the office.

Pentax seems to have upgraded these significantly since I bought mine on the advice of a counter guy at London Drugs Park Royal.  I’m more than happy with it for worry free shooting in the water and when snowboarding.

This is the ramp to the floats at Plumper Cove, Keats Island.

This couple is heading to their tiny dinghy for a row back to their Kelt 760.

You can see part of Madsu under her boom tent, lower left frame.

We had a super quiet night at Plumper Cove on Keats.  The only dock party involved a Great Blue Heron, who decided to fish from the outside float.

It was a super still night weather wise as well – which resulted in a bumper crop of mosquitos in the cabin.

Given that there’s a small schooner in the cove, and the water was super clear, and it was hot hot hot,  this could easily pass for a quiet little bay in the tropics – except for all the cedar trees.

This was shot from Keats Island, Plumper Cover is the left, across the sound is the town of Gibsons Landing.