Tuesday, September 13, 2011

AAAHHH ... WE NEEDED THAT (Post 1 of 2)

Got back yesterday afternoon from a week-long cruise -- not very far away, but every minute was wonderful. (Warning: long and photo-heavy post here)!
We made a bee-line for Bedwell Harbour, as we've done every year - the difference this year is that it's less than 1.5 hours away, instead of 4! Our first three days there were very relaxing and hot -- we wasted no time getting into the pool and hot-tub, and even treated ourselves to a hamburger one night in the pub.The food's great, and the view is wonderful...
On day four we had our first (and only) 'mis-adventure'. Just to orient you to the depth of this disaster, you need to know that, on land, the pool is across a lane off to the right in this photo. And the anchorage, Beaumont Marine Park, is off to the right behind the ivory-colored shed you see, centre-right in the photo. In other words, you can't see the anchorage from the pool or the pub. (The boats you see in the background there are actually in the Poets Cove Marina).

So... Michael gets out of the pool to join me in the hot tub one day ( a distance of about 5') and happens to glance out toward the marina -- just in time to see our boat going by, about 75' from the breakwater in front of the marina! We flew out of the hot tub, dried off and dressed in about 30 seconds, ran down the dock to our inflatable ... and chased our boat! Turns out that a big cruiser had come in and tried to anchor next to us -- they must have landed right on our anchor and then lifted it when they moved on to another spot instead. In the process, the Wind Walker was set adrift, and was slowly making its way across the harbour when we spotted it! Good thing Michael happened to look up when he did, and amazingly, it didn't hit any other boats or the breakwater before we 'caught' it.

We had a few other, more pleasant, dinghy adventures:
I took lots of pictures of scenery, too -- I hope, for you, that they don't all start looking the same!
Every year, one of the things I enjoy the most is watching what I call the 'cast of characters', and in this case, that means lots of different vessels:
And this year, for the first time, two other Chris Crafts were anchored in Bedwell at the same time as we were -- both of them a bit smaller, and built in different years, but still interesting to see.
After 5 days at Bedwell, we moved on to our second favorite anchorage in the Gulf Islands, Prevost Island. Post #2 to follow in a few hours!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous pics! You had a perfect weather week to take a break, that's for sure.

Esther V. said...

how long is a few hours in Saltspring time??? lol
great first blog....waiting for second one before I responded...