Ganges – Riveted

Day 1 – Anacortes to Ganges Harbour

Laura Domela — Mon, 18 May 2015 17:36:32 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 1

We left Anacortes at 7am on Sunday morning, and headed for Bedwell Harbour where we were to clear Canadian Customs before continuing on to Salt Spring Marina in Ganges Harbour (on Salt Spring Island) for our first night. There are 7 boats in the flotilla right now, and we'll be joining up with an 8th in a day or two.

Just before 7am, about to cast off lines and leave Cap Sante Marina:

Gray and calm heading out of Anacortes:

The cruise to Bedwell Harbour was calm the whole way, and when we were about 2 hours out, I called the number listed on our new CANPASS authorization to let Customs know our ETA.

Me: Good morning. We're expecting to arrive in Bedwell Harbor at about 11:20am.

Customs lady: By boat?

Me: Yes. I have our CANPASS numbers here if you'd like them.

Customs lady: You have to have NEXUS to call by phone.

Me: Hmmm, it says right here on our CANPASS Authorization form to call this number between 30 minutes and 4 hours prior to your arrival at a Canadian Customs port.

Customs lady: That's only for private aircraft.

Me: The box is checked that says "Private Boat Authorization" right here on my authorization.

Customs lady: Okay, hold on.

Then she comes back on the line, and starts asking the usual questions… our boat registration number, asks if I'm Laura Domela and if Kevin Morris is with me, and then all the questions about whether we are carrying any weapons, alcohol, tobacco, and then food. I tell her we have no produce and no poultry products at all (those are not allowed right now), and that we have some frozen cooked pork, beef, and some frozen vegetables.

Customs lady: Do you have any frozen chicken?

Me: No. No poultry products.

Customs lady: No poultry products at all?

Me: No.

Customs lady: Any eggs?

Me. No.

Customs lady: So, no poultry products at all?

Me. No.

She then told me to go to the customs dock in Bedwell Harbour and if I didn't see a customs agent by 11:30, to call that number back and they'd try to find out where one was. When we got to Bedwell Harbour, we were informed by the very helpful customs agent right there on the dock (they're all over…up in the office, on the dock…) that things should have gone very differently on my phone call. (No surprise.)

The agent on the phone should have given us a clearance number, and then when we arrived at Bedwell Harbor and came up to the customs dock, the customs agent would have already had all our information and we could have even cleared without docking as long as we communicated and all was square. Oh well…the Bedwell Harbour agent gave us a bunch of good info and was super nice. She said we did everything right, and that next time we'll know how it's supposed to work.

And now, we're in Canada!

On to Ganges Harbour!

We got our slip assignments and then took the dinghy over to the public dock (which happens to be REALLY close to the grocery store) and picked up some eggs, vegetables, and wine. We hung out on Airship for a bit after that and did some work, and then the whole group met up for dinner at Moby's Pub last night:

Kevin and I shared an order of fish & chips and the bistro burger (both were delicious) and had a couple of local beers. There was a great band playing last night (the Ange Hehr Band) so that was a total bonus.

We went to bed earlyish, and got up at 6am for another 7am departure. Next stop: Silva Bay on Gabriola Island. Here's Sunday's route (45.67 nautical miles, 6 hours 40 minutes):

Cabbage and Tumbo Islands, B.C.

Laura Domela — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:55:09 +0000

Warning: Today was a picture-filled day. I tried to pare it down, but I didn't do too well.

This morning before we left Ganges, we took advantage of the very nice free Wi-Fi for a couple hours of work this morning, and then headed up into town for breakfast (and to grab those smoked bacon chips already, sheesh!) We were heading out of the harbor just as this Salt Spring Air flight was taking off ahead of us:

The sun came out today for our cruise down to Cabbage and Tumbo Islands and it made for such a nice cruise:

Passing the Java Islets, there were a handful of adolescent eagles (along with one adult that we could see) hanging out:

Nice rock formations on Saturna Island:

Cool contemporary home on Saturna:

This was as we were coming around the south point of Saturna Island…and Boiling Reef. During flood tides and rougher waters this point can be pretty treacherous, but today it was totally calm and we noticed only the slightest of eddies as we were taking photos of the sea lions and eagles on the reef.

Sea lions on the rocks:

More eagles:

Eagles and sea lions, hanging together (look at that face!):

We snaked our way into Reef Harbor (flanked by long reefs) with no problem and grabbed a mooring buoy.

There was one other boat anchored in the cove, but they were just day users and left before sunset. Here's a wide shot of the cove on the right (boats on the right) looking out into the Strait of Georgia. This is how calm it was all day today.

A heron, fishing in the cove:

Cabbage Island:

We put the crab trap out and then took the dinghy ashore to explore.

It was low tide, so there was plenty to look at on the shore (including tons of oysters, but we didn't feel like shucking again today, so we pinned our dinner hopes on catching some crab).

Purple starfish. They look so happy and chill. "Oh heeaay eyyyy. We're starfish! How ya doin?"

Another eagle in a tree. Yawn. (I know when we get to Alaska we'll probably be saying this for real, but for now, it's still cool, and it's fun to test out my new lens as well.) This was SUPER zoomed in.

We took the dinghy out to the rock with all the seals and said hi:

After our dinghy ride, we headed back to Airship and pulled up the crab trap. Hm. An oyster shell. How'd that happen? Alright…crab trap went back in the water and it was time (and weather) for a top deck cocktail and some charcuterie. We tried the Salt Spring cheese (two of the three we picked up) and both were yum (with a Perfect Manhattan and some salami and chorizo):

I could see the crab trap on the bottom from the top deck (25 feet down and clear water, that's fun!), and one of the times I looked down at it, I was pretty sure I could see claws yammin' at the bait container, so we pulled it up, and what d'ya know? A keeper! (Bait today was a chicken leg and more Canadian bacon, since that worked well the first time.)

Back up to the happy hour deck with one Dungeness crab in the bucket! The view from here is hideous, isn't it?

We pulled the trap up once more before sunset and had two crabs…too small, one male one female. The female's underside female part looked JUST like Jesus from South Park, don't you think?

We watched the seals playing and eating over by the shore and I really wished they would just come over and play ball with me already. They're so dog-like….their big eyes and splashy, um, fins. Okay whatever.

More pretty pictures of Reef Cove at Cabbage Island:

We cooked our crab in our new big pot and served it with some garlic butter, a kale/lemon/parmesan salad, and a bottle of wine from our friends at Gourmet au Bay. Delicious.

I'd say this is a successful last night in the Gulf Islands for our first trip up here. Tomorrow we're headed back to Anacortes. (We'll let you know how the whole "clearing Customs at our slip" goes.)

Here's our track from today (25.8 nautical miles):

That little 90ish degree turn up there is us changing our minds about going through Active Pass at max ebb tide. The current would have been 3.7 kts against us right at the time we were heading through…so even though we could have done it fine (we were following a 46' catamaran), it would have slowed us down quite a bit and we opted for the longer way….because, hey, more time on the water!

The Sun’s Coming Out at Ganges

Laura Domela — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:54:26 +0000

I think before we head out of here we'll go up to town for breakfast (and get those smoked bacon potato chips already).