GANGES

Well, we are in Ganges on Salt Spring Island until tomorrow, and I broke down and paid BroadBand Xpress $10.95 for 24 hours of internet access. It's SO nice to be sitting on my boat and not have to lug my laptop up the dock, find a shady spot, and try to type thru the glare on the screen. (I know, whine, whine, whine....)

We are still having an amazing time -- and, just so you know, I have lots of stories to tell and photos to share, but because of this spotty wireless thing, I'll save them until I get home. But here's a 'synopsis' and a few highlights, again....

Cabbage/Tumbo Island Marine Park is two tiny little islands that wrap around one another, which creates a beautiful sandy basin in the middle.They are the outermost Gulf Islands, less than two miles from the US border, and looking straight across the Strait of Georgia to Blaine, Washington and Vancouver, BC.

That's the physical description, but the EXPERIENCE is a lot harder to describe!

Cruising past the American San Juans...

And dodging freighters ...


Here we are coming up Tumbo Channel past the East Point Lighthouse (on Saturna Island) ...

And we were barely tied up to the buoy when Michael went into the water!

First to swim, and then to clean the bottom of the boat off...

(I went in, too, but not until the next day. For about 10 seconds).

Then we went exploring, and found this...

Our best guess is that it's the first cuts on an ancient First Nations totem pole that, for some reason, never got finished.

I already showed you the full moon, and the sunsets there were no less spectacular ...


TUMBO ISLAND

On our second day at Cabbage/Tumbo, we dinghied over to Tumbo, which has only recently been added to the Marine Park boundaries... it was off-limits when we visited last year. The cruising guide books say the history of Tumbo includes coal mining and fox farming, of all things. It's a horse-shoe shaped island with a salt-water marsh right in the middle, and there are hiking trails everywhere. We went to see the original homestead...






Which turned out not to actually be the original homestead at all, because we found an even older wooden foundation with the remains of this stone fireplace in it... (the picture is fuzzy because I couldn't get enough light through the trees no matter where I stood). My understanding is that this is over 100 years old:

There was also an old orchard with apples, plums, pears, and ... something else.

This fruit was the color and shape of a pear, but was fuzzy like a peach -- we have no idea what it was.


I'll post again in the morning about the next leg of our journey so far!