The Garmin 3210 chartplotter started the voyage as a great backup system to our paper charts. Now with much improved understanding and repeated confirmation, electronics is vying with paper as our primary navigation guide. The two systems together have made many tight passages far less concerning. Still the helmsman and first mate must remember to watch the water. It is easy to see how plugging in can lead to dropping out of touch with what is happening in the immediate surroundings. There is much to learn from reading the water, the waves, the ripples, the smooth upwellings and of course the contours of the land, steep cliffs, gentle hills and long spits and the wind, if gusting, or steady and how it plays with the water and with your ship.

Today the wind is calming. We will make the passage across the Strait of Georgia from Secret Cove past Smugglers Cove through Welcome Passage and out into the Strait to Silva Bay. A flood tide is slightly against the diminishing winds. THe seas will be a bit choppy but wave and wind trends at Halibut Bank (roughly midway in the Strait) have been markedly dropping through the morning. One half meter at 0800 and 5 to 13 knots, down from 1 meter with 4 sec periods and 20 to 25 knots last night.

Tomorrow we will be back in the States through Customs and hopefully catch a mooring buoy at James Island, poised to catch the next morning strong ebb south into Juan de Fuca and the equally strong afternoon flood through Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound.