With Heidi away, I had agreed to head off with Adam and show him how a sloop rig sailed.  (Adam had recently bought a custom made feo-cement gaf rigged ketch and was pretty new to sailing, having never been on any other yacht.  We headed off on a beautiful day in the early afternoon and set our sights at going round Discovery Island.  As ever the sail up and round the south of Discovery island was a glorious reach.  The south of Disco Island was pretty packed with kayakers camping - probably about a dozen tents.  As we turned north to go up Disco's East shore, the wind died and I rigged the bow line as a preventer as the sails flopped around on a run.  Soon enough though the wind picked up and we headed north and rounded the north tip of the islands after spotting one or two likely anchorages.  Once round we went through Baynes channel.  We were at nearly slack tide but there was still some current moving us around.  After clearing the channel though we had a clear shot down Plumper passage and the W side of the island.  Somewhat quieter than the South and East sides. 

We then lined up to tack and make the south side of trial Island.  Once we tacked though we ended up on a reciprocal heading from what we had come down the passage on - there are some seriously squirrelly currents in this area!.  Well, as we weren't making any progress we decided the right course of action was to head further out and see if we could get some clear water.  There was still some current running as we went through the west direction sea lane but as we go into the separation zone we had good wind and clear water.  Once we thought we would make the islands tip we tacked again and headed West.  As we did this though we realized  we were now on a collision course with a ship coming from Vancouver.  We held our course and determined that we would tack again into the separation zone once we hit the main traffic lane.  As we both headed together it was an interested stand off with the ship and as we went back into his lane we tacked, heading back out to sea.  Once we had successfully gone about we looked back and saw.... The ship had also dramatically changed course and was now heading out to sea - AT US!  We stayed the course though and soon enough he reverted to his original heading and passed by to our north.  Once clear we turned back onto our westerly heading and, after that tack, we were well clear of trial Island.  As we approached the island though things did get choppy, yet again with current, and we noticed a real calming as we came round the West side and back into clear water.  We pinched the tack all the way down to clover point and then pushed out again to find more wind and make sure we were well clear of the shore for the run into the harbour.  It was a fine sail back into harbour from there and we got back to dock around 19:30