Now that Jeanne and I are with out a full time income, we are pretty careful with our budgeting. In that same vein, we are careful to know what we are spending, and what some thing costs. Here in Canada, we have been in for some real surprises, as every thing is quite inflated, compared to prices back in the states.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you might remember our excitement about the music that was played on Sunday afternoons at the Garden Bay Pub, in Pender Harbor. It is an open mike/jam session, where anybody can play. It has turned into a huge success for the owner as the place is packed, and he gets entertainment for free.

The real reason for this little story, is all from a glass of ice tea. We were enjoying the music, and after several hours of great music, we decided to call it a day. We had been at the pub the night before for drinks and dinner, as well as the afternoon, the day before that. When we got our bill, it seemed a bit high. I am sure my mouth dropped open when I found the ice tea to be $4.50 a glass, at that again for each refill. Now we drink a lot of tea, and Jeanne makes a pot of sun tea every now and then, so I have a pretty good idea of what a hand full of tea bags cost. Accounting for all of the overhead he faces, with insurance labor and etc, I fully understand his wanting make a profit. But...almost $10.00 for two glasses of iced tea? The well drinks we had the night before were only $4.75. Instead of ice tea it appears we should have been drinking rum and coke.

I just could not let this set...I had to at least ask the owner if there was a mistake. We had spent over $200.00 in his establishment on this weekend alone, just did not feel that that his pricing was justified. Kevin from Andante was there with us, and I am pretty sure he was madder than I was. When the owner showed up at the table, you would have thought we had insulted his Mother. He was several levels of indigent. He informed us that we obviously did not understand business, and that no one had every complained about it his pricing.

There is no one to blame but ourselves, as it is our responsibility to know the pricing, and at $4.50 for the glass, with free refills, I would not have even blinked. If he had offered to give us a free refill, we might have sat there for a while longer and spent another $50.00. I guess we are just transient boaters, so why have good customer service...

Oh well, like they say, buyer beware!! Just don't drink tea at the Garden Bay Pub

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We left Pirates Cove early this morning, 6:30 AM and made the short run down to Wallace Island. It was flat calm, and very little wind.

We motored for a couple of hours and made some water, then set the sails, in a 3-4 knot breeze.

We are stern tied again, along with 21 other boats

We will leave tomorrow for Port Browning, getting ready to cross over to the states on Thursday morning. we will check in at Friday Harbor

Tom

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Eagle and her hearty band of pyrates hoisted the colors of Brethren of the Puget Sound, as we sailed into Pirates Cove on De Courcy Island in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

We are traveling south, with a stop at Wallace island scheduled for tomorrow.

We had a very easy crossing of the Straight of Georgia, and motored through Dodd Narrows with no problems. The traffic at Dodd was pretty incredible, with over 20 boats going thru ahead of us on their way north, and 12 boats going south. We also had three tugs with log booms being pulled thru right behinds us!

More tomorrow from Wallace Island

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Here's a savings plan for you!

Get yourself a stopwatch type timer and an empty jar. Take it into the bathroom with you, and prepare yourself for a shower. Set the jar aside for now. Just before you turn on the water- any water- start the timer. Take your normal shower, however long that is, then as you turn off the water, stop the timer. Let's say you spend an average of 8 or nine minutes. The soaping, shampooing, shaving, scrubbing, and letting the water run super hot on that aching back...... hey, it all adds up!
Now, let's turn that into a cruisers shower.

With a pay as you go shower, three minutes worth of 'water' is averaging about $1.00. Keep in mind that the timer starts from the moment the coin drops, hot water or cold. Now if you have to wait 40 seconds for the water to get hot...well, now, that doesn't leave you much time, does it? It's usually just long enough to get yourself wet, throw some shampoo in your hair and get your body fully soaped. Times up! Now what! Well, since you're in Canada the coin box doesn't take quarters, it takes the one dollar coin, or a "loonie", and you've just used your last one. It looks like it's going to be a cold water rinse.

That was the scenario when we cruised up the Gulf Islands several weeks ago. Tom and I had opted for one three minute shower apiece, because the selling point was 'they're really powerful'. Wouldn't that help to wash the stuff off quicker? Neither one of us thought to turn on the water in the sink to get the hot water at least to that point. Oh, and I don't think I mentioned this was back when it was still 40 degrees inside the shower rooms! That cold water rinse was really brisk! BRRRRRR!

So, here's The Shower Savings Plan. For every three minutes of shower you take, put a dollar into the jar beside the timer. See how quick that adds up, or how much shorter your showers become. You'll be saving either way! Add to that the decrease in 'products' you'll be purchasing, because you won't have time to use them, and you'll be saving your way towards whatever it is your heart desires. Hmm, could it be a longer shower?



Savings Plan, Part 2:
I'm currently sitting in the laundry room of a 'resort' that caters to Rvers, boaters and other vacationers.
It's about average as far as cleanliness and equipment. Three washers, one that doesn't work, and two large commercial type dryers. $1.50 per wash load, runs about 30 minutes. The dryers run for 3 minutes per each quarter..... cha ching, cha ching. Then, of course, you get the dryer that doesn't dry...... more quarters or the laundry shuffle............but there's an answer to this craziness!
Move to someplace were you don't have wear clothes or very little!

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Eagle and her crew were up and moving before 6:30 in order the catch some of the favorable tides on our way to Pender Harbor. This would be a nearly 50 mile run and we wanted to get as much of the tide with us as possible.

The morning broke with a mostly sunny day, but rather chilly, at 56 degrees, and light winds. The weather guessers had again predicted a 15 knot NW wind....nope. We motored for almost three hours until we were able to get a 7-10 knot SE wind. That then swung around to a NE wind, which then became a NW finally but now only 7 knots. We pulled out the Eagle spinnaker, and finished our day with a nice long spinnaker run to Pender Harbor.

We had been here a couple of months ago on our way north, and had the bay all to our selves. Not this time, as there are 23 boats in the harbor. The biggest surprise is that 90% are all sailboats! Very few power boats, so perhaps the gas prices are slowing down the gas guzzlers!

We plan on staying here until Monday morning when we will cross the Straight, weather permitting, and head down the Gulf Islands.

The last time we were here, we were treated to incredible music at the Garden Bay Pub, and plan on trying to catch them again Sunday before we leave!

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On what is to be the first leg of our return to the states, we made the 7 mile run from Squirrel Cove to Cotes Bay Thursday morning. The weather guessers had predicted a 15-20 knot NW wind, which would shoot us right down there.

Now, you have to understand, they have been predicting NW winds the whole time we have been in the Canadian waters, have have come to consider them mythological as they have never appeared. You can then imagine our surprise when we woke up to a 10 knot NW wind!!

As we left the protection of the inner bay, going through the narrow channel the helps form the bay, we encountered one of our neighbors from Des Moines marina. Don & Donna off of MV Biancia. We tried to hail them on the VHF but no answer. So, if you get this blog post! Hello Don & Donna!!

As soon as we cleared the channel, we had the sails set and were on our way, with a steady 12 knots and some times up to 16. The wind carried us as if we were going back to Refuge Cove before gybing and heading to Cortes Bay. As we rounded the end of the island, we were in the lee and almost ran completely out of wind. Then we got a big surprise, as we were hit by 20-25 knot winds coming nearly on our nose! We settled back in after a little mini round up and flew the rest of the way to Cortes Bay.

This bay provided some protection from the wind, not allowing any fetch to build, but still hitting us with 15 knot gusts most of the rest of the day. The wind died down at about midnight, and the crew was sound asleep shortly there after.

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