THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

So we finally got out of our slip at about 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon (hey, it was still Sept. 1st!), and the adventure began before we even got under the bridge. First of all, I stepped sideways to avoid a rope at the back of the boat, and scraped my right leg against the edge of the stairs -- I now have a 1" sq scrape and much larger bruise on my leg. Then we almost ran into this...

I have no idea what this rig was up to at the foot of Swift Street, but it sure caught us by surprise! Then this old fish boat got in our way when we were coming in to the fuel dock...


Anyway, we got out onto the Juan de Fuca and there was just a slight ripple on the water ... nice. Made it through Enterprise Channel uneventfully, and headed up Haro Strait -- we had already decided we wouldn't make it to our intended destination (Bedwell Harbour, South Pender Island), but with a 10kt Sou'easter on our tail, we were anchored at Sidney Spit by about 6:30 pm. We passed this cutie at Cattle Point...

... probably on its way into the Victoria Harbour for this weekend's wooden boat show.

Had an amazing sunset... this is looking out over the anchorage toward Mt. Newton...

(CLick on that pic to see it bigger ... it's one of my favorite photos ever!)

And then the moon came up..... aaaaaaahhhhhhh.....


Off the Sidney Spit buoy at 10:00 a.m on Wednesday after a great sleep and a good breakfast, and en route to Pender under calm seas and sunny skies. Made it into Bedwell by Noon, and managed to get a buoy right away -- last year at this time there wasn't a single one left when we arrived.

We were in the pool and hot tub at Poet's Cove Resort within the hour, I think. (This is last year's pic, but it hasn't changed).


What we love about Bedwell Harbour is that it's the best of all worlds! We are anchored out at the base of Mt. Norman (off the right edge of that photo), with a few other boats around, but it feels like complete wilderness. Yet we can jump in the dinghy and a quarter of a mile away, be sitting here in this world-class resort sipping lattes, hob-nobbing in the hot tub with the rich and famous who fly in on their private planes, and accessing the wireless in the bistro. :-)

Thursday we never left the boat. It was a mix of sun and cloud all day and lovely in the anchorage (after a major downpour/thunderstorm in the night); Michael 'putzed' around the boat all day, and I knit (surprise)! I got the purple tabard done:

It's lovely, and I've since knit a toque to go with it. I'll have pics next time I post. And four dishcloths ... it seems to be becoming a September holiday tradition, to knit my dishcloths for the year. I have 6 more to go.

A new mishap: we were out in the inflatable yesterday afternoon and stopped to chat with a neighboring boat. I was standing up and leaning on the guy's hull when Michael noticed that our dinghy was rubbing up against his fancy-dancy boat ... so he 'pushed off', without thinking and without warning me, and I almost went in the water! He grabbed my shirt and pulled me in to the inflatable, and down I went in a very undignified heap ... I now have a matching large bruise on my butt!

Yesterday morning the anchorage emptied out, but by 4 pm it was full again ... it's the Labor Day weekend, and there is a SeaRay 'Rendezvous' here on the docks. Everyone is in party mode, it seems, which is tricky for us folks who just want peace and quiet, but everyone seemed to quiet down by about 10 pm. So when a VERY large thunderclap happened just before I was going to bed, it scared the you-know-what out of us!

It took about 10 minutes for the adrenalin level to go down and I had just gotten back in to bed and was dozing off ... when a rogue wave, or some complete idiot's wake (we still don't know what it was...) hit us broadside with about a 3-ft wave that just kept building, as wakes do. I leapt out of bed all dis-oriented, couldn't find my glasses, and stumbled out to the salon -- Michael had been up on the bridge when I tucked in, and I was terrified that he'd gone over, but he was hanging on to the galley counter while we rocked from side to side, really bad, for about 30 seconds. Stuff was flying everywhere...

By the time we cleaned up the carnage, and got ourselves calmed down again -- a gorgeous handpainted seascape plant pot with a jade plant in it got broken, my books were all over the floor, and my knitting needles, which normally sit in another handpainted vase on my desk, were EVERYWHERE. I still can't find three of my size 0 double-pointed needles! -- it was almost 11:30, and we were exhausted.

But we're on holidays .... and having lots of fun! lol

We'll be here for another 3 days at least, so I'll try to post at least one more time before we head out to our next stop, Cabbage Island.