08/18/2009, Reid Harbor, Stewart Island
After 76 days in Canada, Dreamtime returned to the US of A today. We had to delay departure until about 1230 so we had enough water to get out of the Capital City YC basin. Truthfully, there was probably enough a couple of hours earlier, but stirring up a bunch of mud with the props, then having it all sucked into the cooling system didn't seem like such a smart plan. So we waited.
Haro Strait was glass calm as we came across. We made The Call reporting our arrival to U.S. Customs and humbly beseeching them, in their infinite power and wisdom, to allow us to return to our homeland. After giving it some thought, they relented and let us into the country. It was nice to return to a country not being run by Junior Bush and his cronies. (We heard similar sentiments expressed by not a few Canadians, too.)
Our plan was to head for Reid Harbor to rendezvous with Sidetrack for a night. They were picking up one daughter and host of granddaughters. A call to Gary disclosed that he was sitting in Friday Harbor, waiting for all the women to return from "shopping." He had no idea of an ETA but at least we confirmed the rendezvous. Reid Harbor was, not surprisingly, packed with boats. We may be past the worst of High Season, but there are still plenty of people up here. (A late evening count showed 85 boats at anchor and at the park docks.) Reid, however, is big enough to hold everyone so we had no trouble finding a spot to drop the hook.
Sidetrack arrived about 1600 and we had fun catching up during Happy Hour. Gary and Charlie were able to trade stories about broken belts, starters that wouldn't start and assorted other disasters.
Tomorrow we'll move down to Deer Harbor, hopefully to the TYC outstation dock, though that may be wishful thinking.
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08/17/2009, Sidney/North Saanich, BC
Arrived at Capital City Yacht Club yesterday about 1130. Getting into their guest check-in dock had us lifting our feet. The water was decidedly "thin." But we got in, found a member's slip that was available, then headed into Sidney via the local transit system. We wandered around town, doing a few geocaches (following right behind our TYC friends Chris and Willow, who'd been there the day before).
Today, with nothing better to do, we went back into Sidney. We didn't have the correct change for the bus so we had to hike out to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal for change, then ride the bus from there. Picked up a few more caches we hadn't gotten yesterday and checked out the shops, not buying much of anything.
Today is noteworthy on two counts. First, it's "Boating Day #105" for 2009, which is a new record for us. It is also our last day in Canada. Tomorrow we head back to the US of A and hopefully to a rendezvous with Sidetrack at Reid Harbor on Stewart Island. We tried to get reservations for next weekend at Friday Harbor and, to no one's great surprise, they are booked solid. So we'll go in early and try to get one of the first-come/first served slips.
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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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