After spending a few days at Sucia, we headed over to Sydney, BC to check into Canada. Clearing in was very easy and quick, and done over the phone once we were at the customs dock. From there, we headed up to Van Isle Marina on the north end of Sydney for the night to take care of getting a few groceries ashore.

From Van Isle Marina, we headed up to Ganges Harbour, Saltspring Island and spent several days enjoying life at anchor and going into town. The Saturday Farmer’s Market was especially good, as was True Love Pizza and Cassette Dive Bar.

A short motor away was Montague Harbour where we stayed for two more days, going ashore in the Provincial Park to walk around and see various birds. Lots of gulls, bald eagles, and sparrows, with the occasional great blue heron as well.

After Montague, and needing to stock up on provisions, we made a brief two hour stop in Chemainus for groceries, then proceeded north to Telegraph Harbour, where we remained for several more days. Swallows, purple martins, and river otters were frequent sights, in addition to the ever-present gulls, bald eagles, and various water birds.

To get to Nanaimo, we decided to go around Gabriola Island, stopping for the night to anchor in Silva Bay. Anchoring was very tight there; truthfully there wasn’t really anchoring room but since it’s before the busy season we were able to find an open spot in the mooring field and drop the hook in the fairly shallow waters.

And now we’re in Nanaimo. We’ve spent most of the week on the hook in the anchorage on the south end of Saysutshun (aka Newcastle Island), and are on a dock for two nights for my partner’s birthday. We’ll probably be here through the weekend, and hopefully not too much longer, but are waiting on a part for the watermaker.

Boat Work

Of course, there is never a lack of boat work to be done. Over the past two weeks we’ve hooked up the solar shade (an extra 370W of flexible panels on Sunbrella canvas), run the wiring for the underwater lights (a task nearly done, but I had to pick up an extra length of wire here in Nanaimo so we can finish it), repaired the water circulation pump on our heater (I’ve had the parts for a few months but it wasn’t a critical task compared to other things that needed doing), and swapped out the windless/bow thruster battery whose negative terminal had a major issue.

There are still a few other things I’d like to get done while here, but one of them requires a very calm day (no wind) so we may not be able to get to it.