08/15/2009, Fulford Harbour, Saltspring Island
Sam Cooke, where are you when we need you most? (Yeah, I know. Cat Stevens and Jimmy Buffett did it, too. But Sam did it FIRST.) Besides, it's totally irrelevant.
Departed Otter Bay about 1000, making a beeline across Swanson Channel to minimize our exposure to BC Ferry traffic. Then we throttled back and "beachcombed" up the shoreline at low speed. We still got to Fulford Harbour at 1130. But the whole crowd from the night before was pulling out and there was plenty of room.
It feels like maybe we've gotten "over the hump" in terms of the crowds. There were a few empty slips at Otter Bay last night. No way that would have been the case a week or so ago. Could be that a lot of the people with school-age kids are heading for home for the "back to school" sales. Oh, scratch that. Those sales would have taken place in June. Now the stores are busy decorating for Christmas, right?
Weather is still pretty blah. Not cold. Not raining. Just overcast and, well, blah. "Fulford Days" is going on across the bay at the park. They're roasting various small animals and have a beer garden. Not sure we'll make it over there, but it looks like at least half the population of Saltspring Island has.
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08/14/2009, Otter Bay, North Pender Island
Yes, I freely admit it. That's the worst title yet. We're getting desperate.
Arrived at Otter Bay yesterday after a grueling hour and fifteen minute run down from Ganges. I mean, the engines were hardly warmed up and we were here. As feared, the weather is cloudy and cool, not particularly conducive to lying around the swimming pool. And that's too bad, because Otter Bay has come up with one of the greatest ideas we've ever seen: two pools, one for adults and one for kids. Great concept.
We trekked over to the ferry dock and picked up a geocache there. We managed to arrive just as the ferry did, so we had to wait while they unloaded, then loaded, before we could get across the access road to where the cache was hidden. Then, today, we put the Waugal in the water and went across the bay to where another cache was supposedly hidden. This one, however, apparently disappeared soon after it was hidden. No one has yet found it, including us.
Tomorrow, we'll head down to Fulford Harbour, at the south end of Saltspring Island. There's a little craft store there, along with a sort of general store. The ferry to Swartz Bay comes in there, too. After that, the plan is to go down to the Sidney area for a couple of days, hopefully taking advantage of our reciprocal privileges to stay at one of the area's yacht clubs.
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08/12/2009, Ganges, Saltspring Island
Another layday in our slow trip south through the Gulf Islands. Truthfully, if we had a slip to go home to, we'd probably have been home by now. But it's not altogether a bad thing to be forced to take it slow. It is also significant that today is our 100th "Boating Day" of 2009. We've managed over 100 days twice before, most recently last year, when we achieved a record 104 days of using the boat. The real milestone will occur 5 days hence, when we break that record. By the end of the year, we expect to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 125.
Ganges still appears to be thriving. We got some exercise by finding some geocaches, one of which involved a couple-mile hike out to the Long Harbour road, followed another that took us up the hill beyond the bakery. The weather has shaped up again and the forecast for the weekend is for sunny with increasingly warm temperatures. This, of course, is scheduled to occur AFTER we leave Otter Bay, which has one of the nicest pools in the area. Figures.
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08/10/2009, Telegraph Harbour, Thetis Island
Okay, not Spain. Telegraph Harbour.
Oh, yeah. Go cruising in August because the weather is SO much nicer. It blew "with gusto" most of the night and, when it finally stopped blowing, the rains came. As in BUCKETS. There was probably 20 gallons of water in the dinghy this morning.
Fortunately, we'd scheduled this as a layday from the start. We had toyed with the idea of taking the ferry over to Chemainus, just for something to do. We decided we didn't need something to do quite that bad. We did scope out a couple of geocaches nearby (another unfortunate addiction Charlie picked up a few years back) so we may go search for those. Other than that, it's a good day to sit inside and watch DVDs.
We did take a moment to note that, had we gone through with our plan to go to Vancouver, we'd have been coming back across Georgia Strait today. How fortuitous THAT decision turned out to be!
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08/09/2009, Telegraph Harbour, Thetis Island
If you've been following this tiresome tome from the beginning, you'll recall that Telegraph Harbour was our first stop after leaving Friday Harbor back on June 4. Here it was that we almost caught up with Night Music as they were ignominiously towed out of here to Nanaimo.
So today we have returned. The photo above is our attempt to recreate the one we took in June. If you're energetic, you can compare the two. Actually, there are still empty slips here tonight. Amazing! It's still pretty full.
We came around from Clam Bay, arriving about 1330. There are a couple of other TYC boats here, too. But it's not the Broughtons. No group Happy Hours here. Everyone does their own thing and keeps to themselves.
Layday tomorrow. We may take the ferry over to Chemainus. We've done it a zillion times before, but it's something to do. There's a good grocery store over there, if nothing else.
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08/08/2009, Clam Bay, Kuper Island
What's better than cruising in August along with just about everyone else who owns a boat? Doing it in crappy weather! It just doesn't get much better than that! We left Nanaimo at 1045, timing our departure to arrive at Dodd Narrows (which everyone up here seems determined to rename "Dodd's" Narrows) a little before slack water. The wind was the typical "we're heading south toward home" wind, i.e. 15-20 knots right smack out of the south. It's happened so often that we're only surprised when it doesn't.
Okay, so we had some foolish idea that if we got there half an hour early for slack, we'd avoid some of the crowds. Yeah, right. Dodd Narrows looked a little like Highway 16 in Gig Harbor and Tacoma used to look at rush hour before they built the new bridge. There must have been 30 or 40 boats waiting on the south side, afraid to buck the blistering two-knot current that still trickled through just before slack water. Wimps.
On down Trincomali Channel we went, crashing into waves that were worse than those in Georgia Strait two days ago. Needing to find some place to hole up for just one night, our plan was to see how crowded Princess Harbour was, keeping Clam Bay as a backup, one we were fairly sure we'd need. We didn't even get close to Princess Harbour. From two miles away, we could see the boats anchored deck to deck the length of the harbor. We turned around and headed back to Clam Bay.
When we'd passed Clam Bay, we'd noted half a dozen boats already there. It took us maybe half an hour to get back there, by which time the number had increased to eight. We were number nine. Clam Bay is big and open (making it not the most ideal of anchorages when the wind is blowing) so we were able to find an acceptable spot to anchor. Then we sat back and watched as boat after boat after boat arrived. By day's end, there were 22 other boats at anchor. Remember, in our opinion, Clam Bay is a somewhat marginal anchorage in a blow. It is a good illustration of how horrendous the crowds are that that many boats would be forced to use it.
We'd love to have someone complete this sentence honestly:
"We LOVE to go cruising in early August, along with everyone else, because..." And if they say something about the weather being better, we would simply note that the forecast for the next few days is "periods of rain" and continued southerly winds. Oh, yeah. Good stuff.
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