Another Long Day...
18 July 2012 | Nanaimo Yacht Club
Walt/Sunny
July 17/18, Mon/Tue
Another Long Day...
Photo of Nancie's Birthday Cake.....Another fantastic travel day for us starting at 6:00 AM again. We were again blessed with favorable conditions even though the first half of the day we had 2-3 ft swells coming from the port side which made for a rolly, but not bad ride for us. This portion of the route passes alongside Vancouver Island's east coast and past the notorious "Qualicom Beach" area, noted for high winds due to a gap in the mountains ranging the entire length of the island. Apparently this gap allows westerly flows from the Pacific that funnel into the Georgia Straits and cause nasty conditions quite frequently. We were fortunate today, and of course we followed the weather reports and predictions before attempting this passage. It went very well for us today. We arrived in mid-day and pulled into the Nanaimo Yacht Club (again) for a couple of days to recover and catch up on e-mail and the blog posting, which were way behind as you may have noticed. On Wed. we plan to continue our southern route headed for Victoria and expecting to arrive there in about 10 days.
July 18/19 Tue/Wed
Spent the remainder of Tue enjoying the great weather and having wi-fi and telephone for the first time in a while. If you have been paying attention, I got caught up on past posts I had previously written, but had not sent out. It should be noted that I have not figured out the last bits of technique to updating the blog using the SSB from almost any location. That will happen in due time… It was also nice to have access to long hot showers. Ah, the simple pleasures of life!
On Wed. we did some dinghy exploring. First, a trip to the grocery store a couple of miles away. We dinghy over to the big commercial marina, stash the dink, and walk 2 blocks to a nice grocery and get some of the harder-to find items we’ve been missing. The store encourages boaters to use their carts to transport their purchases back to the marina and then stash them at a “collection point” they maintain nearby. After returning to the boat and storing the refrigerated items we headed across the bay to the east to search out some new friends we had met on the morning SSB net, Neil & Nancy on Moonstruck. They were anchored out near Newcastle Island where we found them. A short visit to get acquainted and we were off to explore the huge Marine Park grounds available. The view of the city is impressive (see photo). Next, we stopped at the Dinghy Dock Pub and enjoyed a great sunset with local brew and burgers. All in all a very nice and relaxing day. In the AM we plan to get an early start and head south to Montague Bay. But first one has to time the Dodd Rapids slack time to get into the Gulf Islands from the north. It’s not a dangerous pass, but the currents can be sporty ~ 7 kts I’m remembering. That’s going backwards if you time it wrong and are going upstream! Just another day in paradise!!!