To make up for missing a few days of blogging, I have decided to do a double day. We awoke this morning to building northwesterly winds which were not a good sign for our crossing of the Strait of Georgia. Nevertheless, we cast off the dock at 11am and headed out from Nanaimo. As we entered the Strait, we were quickly in 20+ knot winds. We had set the mailsail for a single reef, but it quickly became obvious that, unless we wanted a day of serious heeling, we would douse the main, set the jib and continue motorsailing for the crossing. Our angle of attack and the current pushed us slightly further south than we intended, and as the day wore on, the winds subsided and shifted more on our nose, so we continued under motor for about an hour until the winds began to shift in a more favorable direction. We set the jib once again and entered into Welcome Passage and furled the jib as the wind shifted directly onto our nose. We finished the crossing under motor, entered into Secret Cove and tied up at the marina. They offered us access to a fresh water hose, so we took advantage, washing off the salt which had accumulated on deck as we pounded into the one meter waves generated by the wind. The weather here on the Sunshine Coast is a great improvement from what we have experienced to date. It is actually warm and sunny. When we checked in, the marina attendant advised us that this was the first nice day that they have experienced so far this season. We are one of only 4 boats docked here for the night. One of the activities we have hoped to conduct is crab trapping, and we had purchased a license for that purpose. The area around Ganges was temporarily closed, but it is open here on the Sunshine Coast and northward. We found some crab bait at the marina store, loaded the trap into the dinghy and headed out into the harbour to set our trap for the evening. In preparing for setting the trap, I had to dig deep into the aft lazarette to recover my crabbing bucket, gloves and measuring tool (the crabs must be a minimum size to be “keepers”). As you can see from the above photo showing my better side, access to the lazarette is tight. In fact, I almost got stuck from the waist up and only through some serious contortions was I successful in escaping this trap. We will see what the trap generates tomorrow morning before we leave for our next stop, Powell River, about 30 nm north. We have been advised that moorage there should not be a problem either since they have been experiencing like weather. We should have internet access there, so we will be able to report on our crab fishing result tomorrow. We have finished dinner aboard and will be shortly settling in for the evening. That is all for now.