We had our first rainy day yesterday, imagine that! Actually, the weather has been rather nice since we arrived last weekend. Saturday and Sunday were very nice with mostly sunny skies and temps in the mid to upper 60's. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were partly cloudy with some sun here and there with daytime temps in the low 60's. At night, the temps are down to the low 50's. Late Wednesday night we had a shower and then into Thursday (yesterday) it rained on and off all morning and let up sometime about mid afternoon. Today it is cool but an absolutely sunny spring day in the northwest with lots of sun. The forecast is for a warming trend and sun for the next 4 days so we are enjoying our short passage of about 26 miles to Smugglers Bay across the Straight of Georgia.

A little about Nanaimo: Nanaimo is known as the "Harbour City" (note the Canadian spelling) and is the second largest city on Vancouver Island and the third oldest city in British Columbia. It was originally home to five Coast Salish villages and was first settled by Europeans of the Hudson Bay Company that establish a fur trading outpost here. That was about 150 years ago and in the 1850's, Hudson Bay Company discovered a large deposit of coal under the city and the bay and started mining it. This was just in time for bunkering steamships and coal added quite a bit to their bottom line. Most of the miners came over from England they would sign a contract with HBC and then live in the company houses, (paying rent to the company of course) and buy their groceries from the company store. Life was tough back then. There is a sweet treat that is famous here, the Nanaimo Bar, a triple layer pastry that became popular in the 20th Century when British families sent them to their loved ones working in the coals mines.

Another local event worth mentioning: The world famous Great International Bathtub Race has been running the last weekend of July since 1967. Contestants navigate their bathtubs (yes, tubs fashioned into boats with motors!) out of the harbor around an island and back.

Today, we are heading for Smugglers Cove Marine Park on the mainland side. It's a beautiful day with unfortunately no wind so we are motoring across the Straight of Georgia. The sun is out and it's a beautiful day!