Reflection on the Crew Training Voyage

By: Phoebe, Bosun for Pacific Grace
At the beginning of Summer 2021, the SALTS crew took to the seas for a month-long training voyage in preparation for sailing once again with trainees (you can read more about the voyage here). Phoebe, one of our Bosuns, reflects on her experience below.



After fourteen months tied to the dock, it was lovely to be back on the water, free of the harbour, working the Pacific Grace as she was built to be worked; out there with an eager group of people, sail-training.

All the crew from the two SALTS schooners and a few family members made for eighteen of us onboard. That is a big change from a full boat of forty, so raising the sails, often with only eleven of us on deck, gave a feeling of triumph every time, and situations requiring lots of sail handling, such as beating to windward up Johnstone Strait, kept us quite busy!  The purpose of this 30-day voyage around Vancouver Island was to refresh our skills, as well as to spend time deepening our navigational knowledge and sailing experience. Lessons from the captains included RADAR plotting, using a sextant in pilotage, and sail trimming – subjects new crew members learn when joining SALTS, but that may have less of a chance to develop in depth during a regular fast-paced season. Time was also spent revising and using our own risk-assessment tools to evaluate places around the coast where our ships may stop again in the future to explore with groups of trainees.

A tiny cove nestled in the thick green maze of the Broughton Islands area was one of our favourite stops. We had to stay there to wait out some adverse weather, but it was a heavenly prison complete with a freshwater lake, ferny walking trails, and a resounding choir of land birds to serenade our RADAR lesson.  Veritably burgeoning with life, the Pacific rewarded us as always with both familiar and new wildlife encounters. Salps (jellylike chordate animals) and hooded nudibranchs were two small creatures that caught our attention with their unearthly appearance (see picture for a close-up look at the hooded nudibranchs). We were also enthralled with the highest number of sea otters any of us can remember seeing before, and with the expected – but no less wondrous – visits from humpbacks, sea lions, orcas, and gray whales.

Although we enjoyed the beautiful places and the unique voyage dynamics with the focused time it gave us to learn, we all found ourselves looking forwards to the day when again we can take SALTS schooners, every berth full, to share this kind of experience with youth; learning, exploring, and living with delight out on the water.

Editor’s note: since the time of writing, Pacific Grace has resumed sailing with trainees! The first trainee group trip since March 2020 departed October 1, 2021, and we are so grateful to be out on the water in community again.