It was really nice to pull in to Pender Harbor after the long long long beat across. We pulled in anchored up and went for diner and a well deserved beer at the pub in garden bay. The food was good and again the beer was great. We did have an awesome dish though. We had We next headed out across the straits to Garden bay on the sunshine coast. Whiskey Gulf was closed that day so we where able to make a direct crossing. Whiskey Gulf is a very large area of water that has been set aside for the Navy to test their torpedoes and do various other military like activities. The winds on the previous two days where twenty five to thirty knots and where to slacken to fifteen to twenty on the day we left. The seas where lumpy but we made it across after an all day beat. We found all the things that needed to be put away on the port side on the cabin floor. Calamari steaks that where fantastic. The pub has live music on the weekends and we enjoyed the entertainment. After a couple of days of rest we headed out for Princess Louisa.

Our first real cruise was to Princess Louisa. Wow! So very beautiful! We left Oak Bay on the first of July and headed to the Gulf Islands. The first night we stayed at Portland Island in a nice little niche we are fond of. The next morning we headed for Kuper Island and stayed in a little bay all to ourselves. We then headed to Nanaimo. We (as in I) miss read the Canadian tide tables for Dodd narrows and hit the narrows an hour before slack and ran the rapids. It was great! We zipped through like a shot. We anchored up by New Castle Island.

The anchorage is great for summer time. There is a pub near by that is called the Dinghy Dock that serves good food and great beer. People from the mainland have to take their boat or a passenger ferry. We took our dinghy of course. The wind was up in the Straits of Georgia of course so we spent two extra days around the Island. Newcastle Island is a very special place. It is a sacred place where the natives would go for spiritual training and learning. It later became important to the coal mining industry and then the sandstone was world renowned for the use of paper grinders. In fact the bases for the pillars for the San Francisco Mint came from Newcastle Island. Later the Island became a place of recreation as it still is today.

Its now cruise time. July first Lisa moves on board and we are hit right in the face with what to do with all our stuff. Lisa was not to sure about all of this but has settled in pretty well now. She is a real trooper.

There a still a lot of things that need to be sorted for comfort sake like hot water. The water heater we have is electric and has hoses for running the coolant form the engine through the tank to warm the water but It doesn't work at all. We are going to install an instant hot water heater. We are also going to install solar panels and a chart plotting GPS.

Beautiful Cloud!

We sailed up to Sidney. We anchored out by the ferry landing and picked Don up in our dinghy. We had a great time on the way back. The wind was calm and we decided to have lunch just drifting in Hairo Strait. We saw some beautiful cloud formations. And one rainbow cloud formation looked almost angelic, it was beautiful. We had a great visit with Don and had a lot of fun.

For the month of June we spent time in Lisa's apartment getting her ready for the cruising transition. Lisa has great neighbors too they threw a party for the whole house as a going away party. I really feel Lisa and I have such quality people in our lives. During this time our friend Don came to visit.

We sailed up to Sidney. We anchored out by the ferry landing and picked Don up in our dinghy. We had a great time on the way back. The wind was calm and we decided to have lunch just drifting in Hairo Strait. We saw some beautiful cloud formations. And one rainbow cloud formation looked almost angelic, it was beautiful. We had a great visit with Don and had a lot of fun.