8/26 Prevost Harbor to Ganges 19.5 nautical miles

We’re in Canada, in the town of Ganges on Salt Spring Island. Or, Saltspring Island – there’s always plenty of controversy about which spelling – one or two words – is proper, but we don’t have a horse in that race.

As we approached the Canadian Customs dock at Bedwell Harbour I noticed a couple of uniformed agents walking the dock – the first time I’ve seen an actual agent there in many years. But, they hopped in an inflatable and were leaving as we approached the dock. After we secured our lines I headed up to the customs shack, and as usual it was locked. There are three phones on the outside wall – I picked up one to be connected and reported our arrival. Yes, I had a rabies vaccine document for our cat and no, I wasn’t bringing weapons or $10,000 or more in cash into the country – so we were cleared to go, with a clearance number to display in our dockside window during our stay.

The customs dock is shaped in a big ‘U’, and the only spot available when we arrived was down at the base of the U, with sailboats perpendicular to us on either side. The wind was blowing straight into the dock holding us there – which made our approach easy, but getting away was another matter. I used the “poor man’s bow/stern thrusters” to get away from the dock – hard left rudder, port engine in forward for thrust away from the dock, and starboard in reverse to prevent forward motion. I had the engines revving up quite a bit above idle to defeat the wind, so we sidled away from the dock in a flurry of turbulent water and diesel exhaust. Once we were several feet from the dock I could swing the stern out without having the bow go into the dock. Then we could just back away into the wind. We received kudos from those on the dock, but I think they were mainly relieved we didn’t take any chunks of their boats with us.

Bedwell Harbour is on South Pender Island, but the harbor is actually formed by North Pender Island as well. There is a small, narrow and shallow channel between the two islands that goes under a highway bridge. We like to take that route because it’s scenic, fun to do, and provides an opportunity to blow our air horns as a warning, as the entrance is a dogleg with limited visibility for boats coming the other way. But, we were at low tide, and in previous years at low tide we’ve looked at it and turned back. So, we just headed out the other way and followed the shoreline of North Pender Island up Swanson Channel and towards Ganges.

We were hoping to find moorage at the Government dock that is adjacent to the seaplane terminal. It provides easy access to town, and the rates are reasonable. We saw a couple of openings, but none our size. We debated whether to just anchor or take a berth at the private marina just across the way. We decided on the marina, and have a nice slip just across the way from the government dock. We were going to stay at least two days so we could go to the Saturday Market they have here, but this marina is both expensive and aggressive with their 11 am morning checkout time. So, our plan is to watch the government dock like a hawk tomorrow morning and pounce on any openings as soon as they occur. Plan B is to go out into the harbor at checkout time, anchor, watch the government dock like a hawk…

We’re happy to be at the dock tonight, though. The wind has picked up quite a bit and it’s much more comforting listening to the docks and lines creak and groan than it is to swing around at anchor in this kind of weather.

We are plugged in to electricity, so we are charging batteries, and have the icemaker doing catch-up duty. We put the arm up when we’re on battery power - it doesn’t draw a lot of power keeping the ice cold, but it draws power like crazy when it’s making a new batch of ice cubes every 20 minutes or so. So, we were down to the bottom third of ice cubes in our bin, and we all know what a hardship that can be.