A windy Day in the Marina.

Yesterday was like today, but the wind blew hard all afternoon. It made me nervous about docking in Campbell River. I'd have to thread Quijote down a narrow fairway between two piers into a slip on the opposite side of the finger dock with little room to turn in blustery conditions. And by the way, slide her in next to a big, beautiful motor vessel with gorgeous wood trim.

It was the same slip I was assigned last time we moored in Campbell River on the way up. Last time, with little wind, I slipped her in without a thought. This time I knew enough to be nervous about it. It all came out well in the end, although not without hanging onto those wooden hand rails to keep Quijote from being blown toward the big boat before Mick and Yoshi could tie her up.

Half an hour later while the three of us were cleaning the deck, connecting the power cable, and filling the water tanks with fresh water, I saw activity on the big boat. I was wondering how it was going to handle the wind with so much surface area. Those big guys have bow thrusters to allow them to maneuver in tight spaces. They can thrust their bow left or right without the need for forward movement. Quijote has no such luxury. Without water flow over the rudder, she won't turn.

The vessel's operator backed the boat out of the slip and turned. Now broadside to the wind, he couldn't maintain control. He tried to gun the motor to use the prop wash and turn the boat into the wind and regain the center of the fairway, but the turning radius in that wind was too great. It just served to turn the stern into the pylon with a crunch.

He gunned it again and the behemoth shot forward toward Quijote. Thankfully he hit a second pylon instead. Crunch. A large section of the wooden hand rail broke off. From the back of our boat we pushed on what remained of his railing with all our strength and managed to push his bow clear of the pylon where his bow thruster and propeller took over and gave him back the fairway center line.

Yoshi ran after him waving his broken handrail. The man's wife yelled back to leave it on the dock.