We left Victoria last Sunday and sailed/motorsailed up to Sidney Spit, just east of Sidney, BC. There is a BC park located there and is a VERY popular spot for locals. A small ferry services the island and the park put out 22 mooring buoys. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and there were probably 50 boats anchored and moored at the park. We dropped anchor. A few hours later some friends that we had made on the North West Coast of Vancouver Island motored up to say hi. They had just come around and were headed into Sidney to reprovision.

On Monday we took the dinghy to shore and explored the park. There are several miles of well groomed trails as well as camp sites. After exploring the trails we headed out the spit. The wind came up with gusts to 30 knots while we were headed out the the end of the spit and were forced to walk against it on the return walk. I'm still picking sand out of my teeth!

As we were getting ready to leave on Tuesday morning a commercial crab fisherman was pulling his traps. They are allowed to put out several traps on one line and only need to put out one buoy for each 5 traps. This makes it hard to tell where the long line of traps are. Turns out that we had put of anchor chain right on top of one of their lines. As they were pulling their traps, up came our anchor chain. They were cool about it, told us what what had happened, cut their line and went on their way. We pulled up our anchor immediately and were on our way, too. We heard them thank us over the radio as were were heading out.

We moved the boat into Saanich Inlet about 3 hours away and are now anchored in beautiful Tod Inlet. The big attraction here is Buchart Gardens. We didn't go. The entrance fee is now $29 each and we were there recently so instead we walked around the small community of Brentwood Bay and the park trails located here. The sun was out so we enjoyed an afternoon on deck absorbing some heat. Ken and Kaye (the people on the boat that that I mentioned earlier) are here too so we've spend time on each others boats visiting.

We are going to head north today. We've never been to Ganges and they are supposed to have a fabulous Saturday market so we are heading there. I'm sure it's going to be a very crowded anchorage as it is a long holiday weekend for both Canadians and Americans.

Things are going well. The forecast is for warm weather and clear skies. Most of the friends that we have made along the way are either home already or are headed home next week. We intend to stay out for another 4 weeks or so. As long as the weather holds out, we'll stay out. Besides, someone is in our slip until September 15th!