S/V Ragtime

Time to start heading for home, so we motored north picking up some wind as we passed Porlier Pass, and had a nice downwind sail to Pirates Cove Marine Park.
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/pirates/
The entrance to Pirates Cove is narrow with drying reefs, so it can be tricky. You have to cross through a gap in the outer reef then make a left turn and motor between two reefs until you get into the bay. There is a transit, 2 markers onshore that you have to keep lined up to get you through the gap in the outer reef. Sometimes this is hard to see, but this time there was a big white cross onshore and a large white arrow painted on the rocks, both looking newly-painted, so that made life easy. The inner ends of both reefs are marked by buoys, so you just go slowly and pass between them. Inside, we saw a lovely new dinghy dock and several chains hanging from the rocks for stern-tying, again well-marked with red paint. The chains are a great idea because if there is only a ring in the rock above the high-tide line you have to go rock-climbing if you come in at low-tide. We chose a chain just on the other side of the dock, dropped the anchor and ran the stern line in record time, with no problems. But, of course, there has to be some drama! Don felt we were too close to the dinghy dock so we decided to just let out more stern line while we motored forward and picked up the anchor then set it again a bit further to the left, then pull in the stern line again. Except that after the first attempt we found ourselves back in the same place! And on the second attempt the stern line jammed in the chain. And the depth-sounder acted up again. (We later concluded that maybe it just can't get an accurate reading in depths less than about 12 feet). But eventually we got ourselves all sorted out. We were feeling a bit lazy so didn't go ashore to explore, although we have been there before.