Dawn Kostelnik: 77 books

I love tying up. Anchoring out is wonderful, but being able to meet new and unusual people is always welcome after weeks of challenge and solitude. One of my favourite marinas is Thomas Basin in Ketchikan, Alaska. It has an entry that is easy to miss, as it is tucked in behind a great sea wall and...

Saturday morning arrives muffled in grey. Not exactly fog, just silent and still water and pearly-silver sky. It is surreal, seeing sail boats float in the glimmering clouds…no I have not been smoking anything. Our next-door neighbour is a sailboat with a man attached to its mast. The man...

The Audrey Eleanor leaves Meyers Chuck, Alaska early in the afternoon. We have made plans to meet up with the “Jenny” and her crew, the floating dentist and his wife for cocktails, but the Inn was full. Anchoring looked to be a bit precarious so we felt it was best to head for the next horizon....

We spend an uneasy night tucked slightly behind Aurther Island in Mathieson Channel. The hook is dropped, our only barricade from a Sou’ easter is a small log boom. There has been no defining wind direction for the past few weeks; just a continual blow with ratings from storm to small vessel warnings...

YOU MISSED IT! Any event that is held in Pender Harbour shouldn’t be missed and that is especially true of the wooden boat festival! Still intimate, but with a broad spectrum of participants that provide incredible variety, this show allows you personal access to most boats and their owners....

In the previous adventure; the Audrey Eleanor and crew take a beating while trying to creep undetected past the furies and Mother Nature into Milbanke Sound and through Reid Channel.They manage to escape after 20-foot seas threaten to roll them side over side and dredge them into the ocean floor:...

Dent, Yuculta, Green; names of rapids that you need to pay attention to.This is where you need to know about current tables as well as tide tables.The whirlpools; the sinkers in two of these rapids can get up to thirty feet across and the rapids can run 8 knots.We run at 8 knots, so you know that...

If you feel confused by the chronological order of the latest episodes of the Adventures of the Audrey Eleanor, you should be. Quite frankly I left the “rat” episodes until last because I struggle with the nightmare of them still. This was not the summer that we envisioned; it was a fight from...

Hurricane force winds mean it’s just another day on the west coast.We had weathered two such storms in Potts Lagoon, located towards the north end of Vancouver Island.These are the winds that flattened Stanley Park in Vancouver B.C., Canada. Four days of sitting in the rain is wearing on us.The...

We are docked in Prince Rupert, B.C. It feels great to be back in Canadian waters. Audrey has been de-registered in record time thanks to Sheila (she is amazing) and we are once again Canadian registered with our home Port being Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. We were never boarded by the U.S. homeland...

It’s time for a little magic. The end of what we thought wasn’t a bad summer is drawing to a close. The locals in Pender Harbour and Madeira Park complain about climate change and in their minds, lack of a summer at all. I admit that it wasn’t as hot as I would have liked it, but the days were...

Audrey is moored in Deep Bay, B.C. on the mid-section of Vancouver Island. We had crossed the sandbar in front of Comox early the following day. This is a notoriously rough area because it is shallow and the waves stack. The range markers lead you directly from Georgia Straight towards Vancouver Island....

This is the end my friend. After hurricane lashings, cold wet nights,(the toothpaste was frozen some mornings) and dock disputes, spring has finally beaten up old man winter. The Furies still try to push their way around the docks and stir up shorelines but are losing much of their ability...

In the previous episodes the Audrey Eleanor had come under attack by an ex-navy cutter/gunboat.The crew now need to determine if Audrey has met the end of her days.The other consideration is whether the US boat that hit her has insurance to cover the damage that he has done. Sunday roars in...