The glow of the morning sunrise was a stark contrast to the dim early morning light on boats in Anacortes Marina.
Due to some of the issues on our Dent Island cruise, we got back to Anacortes Marina a few days later than we planned. Because we had to be back in Bend, we had only a few days to clean up the boat and get things in order after our cruise. The item of highest importance, needless to say, was doing more serious testing to determine the status of our house batteries.
When I was out in the kayak paddling around the Prideaux Haven anchorage, I saw this sailboat which was anchored with the best views of the nearby mountains. This is one of the prettiest anchorages we know. It’s even gorgeous with the heavy cloud cover.
We ended up staying two more days in Prideaux Haven, one of the premier anchorages in Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park. The unsettled weather persisted, including strong southeast winds in the straits. However, it was calm in the anchorage and was a good place to stay until we had better traveling weather. Our day started out cloudy and dry, but the rain set in by mid-morning and turned into a downpour for the rest of the day…and night…and next day…and night… You get the picture.
It rained hard most of our second day at Dent Island Lodge. During one of the rain breaks, we walked around on some of the paths. Looking back at the marina, this photo shows the beach at low tide and some of the larger boats that came in today.
It rained hard overnight and was still raining when we woke up this morning. It was also very foggy and the forecast called for southeast winds of 15-25 knots. Decided we’d spend a second day at the comfortable Dent Island Lodge docks. It seemed like a better alternative than trying to navigate through the rapids in fog!
Garden Bay in Pender Harbour, mainland B. C., looking Northwest. The anchorage was very comfortable and the evening was delightful.
It was calm and overcast with a light drizzle this morning. The forecast for Georgia Strait called for light winds rising to southeast 10-15 later in the morning. We really don’t like to try to cross Georgia Strait in any kind of southeast wind. We have had consistently rough passages crossing Georgia Strait in southeast wind, especially when the wind opposes the current at any point during the crossing. However, we had been in Nanaimo LONG ENOUGH, so we decided to head out toward our Pender Harbour destination and see what the conditions were like.
One of the colorful statues in the Maffeo Sutton Park along Nanaimo’s Harbourfront Walkway is “Admiral Of The Fleet,” a tribute to ‘Black Frank,’ a prominent Nanaimo community leader, who helped launch the Nanaimo Bathtub Race. A colorful pirate costume was worn to promote the bathtub event.
We ended up staying another day in Nanaimo due to weather. It was rainy, foggy and windy. Not a good time to try to cross Georgia Strait—a 35 mile trip with about 15 miles in open water—and known to be nasty when the wind kicks up. It was a good day to work on inside things…and NOT have to work on the engine! We did some reading, organized some of our supplies, and caught our breath from dealing with the engine issues.
This is the display on the APRS website showing our current location. Read below in this post about this and for the link you can click to see where we are.
Blue skies and light wind…plus a fair marine weather forecast today. And our new credit cards arrived as scheduled yesterday. Time to leave the dock!
Cruising With Phoenix 