Cruise to Princess Louisa
02 September 2013 | Sunshine coast of BC
Duane
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.