June 21 – Nanaimo to Pender Harbour

Pender Harbor Northwest

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.

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Anacortes to Nanaimo

phoenix at port of nanaimo

Phoenix tied up on the docks at the Port of Nanaimo.

We arrived in Nanaimo yesterday (Sunday) and are staying here today as well. We’re tied up at Port of Nanaimo, our choice of a place to tie up where Jim can do some work on our engine. We started out across Georgia Strait in the late morning yesterday, thinking we would take advantage of a brief weather window. But after a half hour or so, we noticed that our engine was running a little hot. We decided it would be better to get to a dock and check things out before we made a 15-mile crossing of a large body of water.

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