The Boat

Paradigm Shift in the Travelift.

We have owned Paradigm Shift for over seven years now, and she suits us well. She is a 1984 C&C 35 Mk III, a relatively fast boat at the expense of not carrying a lot of water, fuel, and stores. We're used to traveling light. With 65 gallons of fresh water and 16 gallons of diesel, we have to conserve. No long showers, for sure. We do carry a couple of small solar showers, so if we can find fresh water we can top them up and shower in the cockpit.

 Just under 35' long, with a maximum beam of 11'2", she draws 6'5". Overall design weight is just under 11,000 lbs, with 4500 lbs of lead in the deep keel. She is going to be seriously overweight for this passage. She is a sweet sailing boat, and in our opinion one of the best-looking boats in any anchorage. We're a little biased...

We have put a lot of time and money into upgrading the boat to make it comfortable to live on and easy to sail with two people. An electronic autopilot means we don't have to hand-steer for hours, a forced-air diesel furnace keeps us warm, and we have hot water if we run the motor, which we have to do periodically to charge the batteries since our solar panels aren't big enough to keep them charged by themselves. No microwave, no flat-screen TV. There is a good 3-burner propane stove with oven, although we frequently cook on the propane barbecue on the stern. With an inflatable dinghy with a small motor serving as the station wagon to get crew ashore and about, we have a decent exploration range from the mothership. An inflatable kayak gives us a second mode of transport. You can see the kayak nuzzling the stern in the picture below.

So far, the furthest north we have been is the Octopus Islands, just north of Surge Narrows on Quadra Island. We enjoy the secluded anchorages and pure noises of nature when we're on the boat, so going up the Inside Passage in the summer is going to be a bit of a change for us. We hear it's actually crowded some places. We much prefer the off-season.

At anchor in the Octopus Islands, mid-September.

We're going to be moving quite quickly so we should be away from civilization within a few days. Sidney to Cape Scott in ten days shouldn't be too difficult if everything goes exactly according to plan (cue hysterical laughter).
 We are leaving the dock for points north July 5, all the stars being aligned correctly. Weather will be a major contributing factor in the progress of this endeavour, so nothing is written in stone.