SOME WET, GREY DAYS

Since we had a couple of boats tied up behind us, we didn't get off to a very early start from Victoria Harbour on Tuesday morning. We left the slip around 9AM, then spent a while searching for the pump-out station to empty our black water holding tank. We found it, got pumped out & passed the harbor breakwater around 9:30. We retraced our route around the south end of Vancouver Island, but then went north through the Gulf Islands on our way to Nanaimo. Originally we thought we might make it up there in one day, but a combination of the late start and pushing against some tidal currents, we decided to call it a day around 4:30 and anchor in Montague Harbour on Galiano Island.

The forecast was for increasing cloudiness with some showers in the afternoon, and the clouds definitely increased through out the day, but the "shower" part was off a bit. It started raining soon after we anchored and rained steadily throughout the night and most of this morning. There was also strong wind forecasted to accompany this cold front, but it was surprisingly still overnight and the wind didn't pick up this morning until around 9 or so.

We had another challenge to follow the Warriors game last night. We didn't have any TV reception where we were anchored (no surprise), but were able to get a scratchy AM station which was broadcasting the game. I also had a bit of cellular reception, so I tried using my phone as a "hot spot" and we started watching the game on the computer. That actually worked out quite well -- until I exceeded my daily hi-speed limit of 500 megabytes. We had changed our plan to get "unlimited" data while in Canada, they just didn't point out the small print that said after 500 megabytes in a 24 hour period you went back to old-fashioned dial-up modem speeds (wiping out any possibility of accessing the internet for the rest of the night). Naturally, that wasn't enough to stream the game, so for the second half we went back to the scratchy AM radio broadcast. In any case, it was a good game with an exciting finish in favor of the Warriors. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow night - not only with the outcome of the game, but how and where we will watch it. We have quite of history of trying to watch the Finals in unique places. It seems like we are cruising during the NBA finals each year and have had to be quite creative at times to watch the Warriors play. We have streamed the games, gone to marina lounges, bars, laundromats, other boats, etc. just to keep up with the games.

Back to the weather - the forecast also called for high winds today, in the 35-40 knot range from the SE clocking around to the SW. Luckily, this put the wind behind us, so we started out early, expecting a possibly bumpy, but tolerable ride. We pulled anchor around 7:30 to get to Dodd Narrows three hours later at slack tide. The narrows is only around 120 feet wide with lots of water coming through during the tidal exchanges. Currents can run up to 9 knots or so and be quite turbulent, so one needs to time it to go through as the tides are changing and the water is slack. This happens a couple of times a day, but only lasts for a half hour or less before the currents start up again, so timing is everything. Past Dodd Narrows, we pulled in to Nanaimo and got a slip at the marina so we could conveniently get to the grocery store in anticipation of not seeing many more big stores as we head north from here.

Nanaimo is a neat little city - the second largest on Vancouver Island after Victoria. It has a very organic, earth-muffin vibe that makes those of us from Marin County feel right at home. Nice restaurants, nice shops, a good marine supply store - what more could you ask for?

The forecast is for remaining strong winds for another day, and this means it would not be wise to cross the Strait of Georgia tomorrow. So, we're going to spend another day in Nanaimo, but this will give Elaine a chance to get to the Farmer's Market tomorrow (and maybe even visit the yarn shop she discovered tonight) and then, hopefully, we'll cross the Strait on Saturday.