My wife and I sailed our Pearson 30 all around SW Florida for 6 yr visiting anchorages, and then to various destinations departing Long Beach, CA where we stayed aboard several nights to more than a week at a time, etc., for another 5 yr. A Catalina 30 is a larger boat, probably more comfortable. Our most frequent companion boat sailing with us in FL was an Islander 30, the Bahama 30 model. All these boats were more than adequate in accommodations for a couple for extended periods.
However, for long trips where you will likely often face contrary conditions, such as the trip you mention (post #75) I couldn’t recommended anything smaller than 32 ft. This is due to the difficulty of small boats meeting such conditions. Remember, in the Salish Sea and other points such as in the Johnstone Strait, etc., the prevailing conditions are either from the northwest or the southeast. Those are largely your travel directions. Good days in the Sea—heading NW on a good SE wind and flooding tide during daylight. Turn that around (NW wind and ebbing tide), and you are likely to have a slow, perhaps miserable day in a small sail boat. Wait it all out for better travel conditions—maybe. Prepare for the long haul. Read Raban’s Passage to Juneau for insight.
Summer of 2017 we were chartering a Hanse 495 out of Vancouver. On our return from the Octopus Islands we stayed a night in Secret Cove. The weather report for the morning of our departure from there was SE winds near 25 kt, gusting higher, 4-ft wind waves at the mouth of a pass we wished to use. Our travel direction was of course SE heading back to Vancouver. Just before and as we were hauling up the anchor a few “small” boats, probably in the 35-ft range, came pouring into the anchorage. Quite a sight. A crew on one of them when passing close shouted: “You should be okay out there in that” (referring to the Hanse). We were, but it was a rough ride until the wind abated later that afternoon. That was our 5th charter in BC.
This past summer we crewed on a friend’s 45-ft Hunter CC with full enclosure. Our leg was Nanaimo to Echo Bay, the Broughtons. We had to spend a few hours in the Johnstone Strait in 22 kt (where we were) on the nose heading NW, so we were motoring. It’s hard to imagine a 30 footer w/o enclosure out there in that doing what we were doing. Cold, wet, pounding—a little on edge—with poor VMG. Obviously better to stay holed up another day or two if in a small boat. Come out when the conditions improve. A Beneteau 40 was out there with us; a Tartan 34 remained another day in shelter.