Tuesday, July 16th, 2024
We left FairWinds Marina at about 10 am for a six hour cruise to Montague Harbor. We had no problems taking the “outside” route floating past Nanaimo and around Gabriola Island, and tucking in by Silva Bay tjen proceeding through Gabriola Pass about an hour before slack. The tide in the pass was running about 3.5 knots against us, which is no problem for our boat. However, there was a sailboat just in front us of UNDER SAIL, which meant he had the “ride of way”. We could have easily overtaken him, but alas we were stuck struggling behind him until we both got through the passage. We would have been through the entire thing in about 10 minutes, but hanging back behind the sailboat extended that to 20 minutes. As we were exiting the pass and turning South we encountered three tug boats with a HUGE load of logs in tow! They were headed for the narrow pass we just came out of, only they HAD to catch the slack tide. We counted our blessings, put on foot on the Diesel and just sprinted past everyone! Other than that we had an uneventful cruise. Lots of blue sky and calm waters.
We has decided to stop tonight in Montague Harbor at the South end of Galiano Island. We have been here many times. It is a large safe harbor with plenty of room to anchor, but there is also a Provincial Park in the harbor with lots of buoys and a dock, that was not here last time we were in the harbor. Greg was “determined” to snag a buoy for the night. Marlene was less sure there would be one when we arrived at 3:15 on a perfect summer evening in July! Fortunately we were able to race in and beat two slow sailboats and snag a buoy quickly. The sailboats also ended up on buoys, but we felt fortunate to get one in this busy harbor tonight.
We are having a bit of an “attitude adjustment” being around this many boats!! We have become accustomed to Northern BC and Alaska where sometimes we would cruise for 8-10 hours without seeing another boat, and then anchor in a harbor alone. That nirvana is OVER! \
Tomorrow……HOME!
