I lost a pillow. It was bound to happen eventually in order for me to learn an obvious lesson: don’t leave a pillow in the hammock! It’s getting a bit gusty in here with the afternoon northwesterlies funneling through, and it must have blown the pillow overboard as there is no sign of it. It’s a bit disappointing as I’ve had those pillows pillow cases for many years, first aboard my 22 foot sailboat Alchemist. But on the bright side my sourdough has finally turned out, and it is delicious! Before I’d been making just regular white bread, and it was nothing to write home about, but this levain is to die for, it has so much flavour. It was worth the last several weeks of babying it along, trying to keep it warm enough. I’ve also been making apple crumble with pears and apples that are going bad. I realized today that I was going to have the oven on to bake the bread, so it only made sense to maximize on the output of my propane use and pop a crumble in at the same time, surprisingly they both fit. I’ve been contemplating my engine overheating, and decided I don’t have the parts I need to service the freshwater pump, which involves taking the whole front of the engine off. And I don’t think it’s the raw water system as everything seems to be in order there. The only other possibility is that the thermostat is failing, so I’m trying to decide if I should take it out and test it with my thermocouple, I do have a spare so I can replace it if needed. It will be a wet operation as it will involve spilling a couple quarts of coolant when I open it, but perhaps worth the mess. To be determined.

I was cooking dinner and popped my head out. I’ve been busy at work, and to my surprise I saw another sailboat across on the other side of the basin. I was very excited to see what appeared to be a varnished Sitka spruce mast, and when I picked up my binoculars I was even more excited to see that it looked like a Lyle Hess cutter — a beautiful little boat that looked very familiar, like I had almost certainly seen it around before. It was rather bizarre to see another boat here, let alone another sailboat, and let alone another wood boat. So after dinner I eagerly jumped in my kayak and paddled over and met Bob, who is on his 15th circumnavigation of Vancouver Island aboard Mabel. Mabel is a 24-foot gaff-rigged cutter, designed in the 1930s in the UK, and Bob built her himself on Pender Island. She has a cedar-planked wedge seamed hull just like Jura. I had seen her before on her mooring buoy in Port Browning. I had a very nice conversation with him. He had lots of wisdom to share from his many circumnavigations. He has also sailed to Haida Gwaii 10 times aboard Mabel, which is pretty remarkable. He said sometimes he sails from Haida Gwaii to here in one shot, about 30 hours with a strong northwesterly wind. He would probably be double reefed with just his gaff main up. He has no self-steering gear, so that’s 30 hours of sitting at the helm and steering through the night, which is a remarkable feat. I don’t know if I would want to subject myself to that. I would make the passage, but I would want to do it with some self-steering. Really beautiful little boat. I really love small boats: small, well kept, well fashioned, seaworthy, and beautiful at the same time. Mabel is one of my favourite kinds of boats. I love these little cutters. There is something so charming about them, and they are capable of going around the world just as well as any modern, large, monolithic piece of plastic.

The mystery of the overheating engine remains open. I took my spare thermostat and heated it in a pot of boiling water, using the thermocouple for my multimeter to first confirm that it opened and closed at the right temperatures. Then, knowing I had a working spare, I opened up the thermostat in the engine and removed it. It also opened and closed at the right temperatures, which would seem to rule out the thermostat failing to open as the cause of the overheating. So I put that back, and then opened up the raw water pump impeller just to confirm that it was intact. It was, as I expected, because I replaced it just a few months ago. I also opened up the raw water strainer to confirm that it was clear. I cleaned out a few weeds, but there was not enough there to block or impede the flow of water. I confirmed there is lots of pressure coming into the strainer, because if I open it just ever so slightly with the seacock open, water sprays everywhere. So it seems the intake is not inhibited. The raw water exhaust looks healthy and normal as well, so there is no indication of a raw water problem. The thermostat is working properly. There is sufficient coolant. That seems to leave the centrifugal freshwater pump as the main contender, and that is the most difficult to service. I do not think I have the parts to service it, nor do I particularly want to dismantle the entire front of the engine while I am far from help, should I run into any issues. So for now my plan is to run the engine as little as possible, keep it at lower RPMs, and arrange my plans around that. That will make it tricky to get out of here, because the only sensible way to get out of Nuchatlitz Inlet will be to motor into the swell until I can catch the wind, and to leave early in the morning. Otherwise beating into that swell out of the inlet will be excruciating, and possibly not possible, given that there is not a lot of space between the reefs to beat. It is probably an hour or two to get out of the inlet. I am just going to have to hope the engine cooperates for that distance at low RPM. It may take a very long time to get out at low RPM, and I may have to stop part way, let the engine cool down, and keep going.

It's glassy calm in Mary Basin, and the space is filled with the melodious notes of birdsong. The sun is gently reaching up over the mountain and illuminating the trees and the water, the beautiful blue sky, and some low-hanging clouds. Looks like it is going to be a beautiful day. I'm hoping that the swell will be minimal as I exit Nuchatlitz Inlet, allowing me to run the engine at a lower RPM as I get out. And then my most sincere wish is that there will be a strong northwesterly breeze once I get out of the inlet, which will be able to carry me swiftly to Nootka Sound — a place I have been wanting to visit for a long time, and am looking forward to.