8/29 Ganges to Glenthorne Passage 5 nautical miles

After last night’s little power brown-out, we left things plugged in overnight, and the battery charger was still going to town in the morning. It’s a 3 stage 40 amp charger especially designed for our AGM house batteries – it runs full bore with its cooling fan going for 15 minutes, pauses for 30 seconds to check the state of the batteries then cranks up again. We have eight 200 amp 6 volt batteries wired in series/parallel to make two sets of four batteries, each putting out 12 volts – so 800 amps total at 12 volts. We actually recharge at a higher amperage when underway – the port engine has a 100 amp alternator with a 3 stage regulator. But, if you’re only cruising across the harbor or less than an hour a day it’s not going to keep up. Enough about that.

I never did find the harbor office unlocked to pay our moorage yesterday, so went over there at 9 this morning, where I caught them opening up. I fessed up that we used their power overnight, which is an extra charge – but our two nights’ moorage at the city’s dock was still less than one night at the marina next door.

The CYA flotilla was scheduled to get underway by 11 o’clock to head over to Glenthorne Passage. It’s not very far, about 5 miles from here, across the channel. Glenthorne Passage is one of our favorite anchorages and was on our list of likely places to go to anyway, so this fit right in with our plans. We pulled away from the dock around a quarter to eleven and headed out of the Ganges harbor at an idle. We didn’t pick up speed much once out of the harbor, either – accelerating up to the breakneck speed of 6 knots.

Glenthorne Passage, although we think of it as being on Prevost Island, is actually between Prevost and Secret Islands. Our hosts today, Curt and Marsha, have a cabin on Secret Island, facing into the passage. They had arranged for the use of several of their neighbors mooring buoys, and as we approached, Curt was out on his dock telling us to take an empty buoy or go ahead and anchor anywhere in the harbor. For us it’s less trouble to just anchor, plus we could head to our favorite location, which looks out through a small passageway on the south end of Secret Island. We anchored near a rock face, and just like when we anchor next to other boats, it always looks like you’re too close. Whenever we think that, we take a ride in the dinghy – the perspective is different, and you can then see you have all kinds of room.

The Olympus came in just a few minutes behind us. They are 92 feet long, and their procedure was to set their anchor, then tie their stern to the mooring buoy in front of Curt and Marsha’s cabin. When the Westward, the other big one, arrived, they set their anchor in the opposite direction from the Olympus and tied their stern to the same buoy – so the two big boats were anchored facing away from each other with their sterns essentially tied together, with the mooring buoy in the middle just holding up the lines. It was a good technique to keep a couple of huge boats from swinging around in a relatively narrow harbor.

The Olympus has a classic tender called the Junaluska – a little inboard runabout with a story of its own. It was the original tender to the Olympus back in 1929, but the two were separated for many decades until the present owners located it in a barn and had it rebuilt. Anyway, Diane and one of her crew members came by in the Junaluska to tell us that the crab feed would start around 4, but to come to the cabin early to explore the island.

We’ve been marinating some flank steaks for nearly 5 days now. We were going to have them last night in Ganges, but decided on the fish & chips instead. Now we’re being fed again this evening, so we got out the barbecue and cooked the steaks early this afternoon. Once thinly sliced it’s good pickin’ food, and we’ll snack on it in the coming days.

We headed over to the cabin a bit before 3 o’clock in the dinghy, and after a few introductions between various guests, we headed out on the footpath. The island has a ridge down the middle with a path along the ridge. There are about 3 dozen lots on either side of the path, most of them with homes or cabins. A few were vacant, or had just a wooden platform for pitching a tent. We’ve been anchoring in here for many years but had never had the opportunity to explore ashore, as there is no public access. We walked to the south first, eventually coming to the backside of a cabin that’s at the very end of the island – one we’ve taken many pictures of in years past as we cruise by. Heading back in the other direction, we saw cabins and buildings of all shapes and sizes. We learned from Curt that none of the property owners here are full time residents. We met one lady further down the trail who was out collecting rocks or shells. She and her husband live on a lake near Abbotsford, have a seaplane and can be at their island retreat in 29 minutes. Turns out they were invited to the party and we met here again there later in the afternoon. At the very end of the trail to the north was a small beach of white shells and sand – a beach I remember rowing over to over 30 years ago – probably in the dinghy of the Ojos Verdes. The locals here believe that beach is part of an old Indian midden.

Power Margarita Blender

Turns out the crab feed didn’t start until 5 o’clock, but there were hors d’ oeuvres aplenty in the cabin, and upon our return from our hike we were both provided with power margaritas, courtesy of Curt. I say power margaritas because, as this is an island with no electricity service, one has to be resourceful to power their blender. Curt’s blender sat atop a small gasoline engine, perhaps from a weed whacker or small chainsaw. With a few pulls of the starter rope, we heard that familiar 2-cycle motor sound as he revved it up with the blender on top. The margaritas were prepared in no time at all, and were top notch. I didn’t have our video camera, but I did put Erin’s Sony camera in video mode and take a shot of it. Once we’re closer to civilization again, maybe I can upload it to the blog or to YouTube.

Dinner time approached, and a couple ice chests full of cooked crab appeared. The crab were all caught locally, right here in Glenthorne Passage over the past few days. We each took a half crab and retired to our seats, at a table under a gazebo-like structure with an active fireplace at one end. The crab turned out to be just the first course – soon racks of ribs appeared and took their turn in a large stainless barbeque, next to the fireplace. Baked beans and coleslaw were served with the ribs.

We left the party a little early, I suppose, but we were both ready to head back to the boat. After all, we can only do so much socializing, especially while on vacation.