Pender Harbour

A very smooth, quiet ride south now. We are on the last stretch of water before hitting reality.

We have a nice dinner in the pub and in the morning say good bye to our new best friends - Bob and Pat on "On the Edge"!

Thank you viewers for tuning in for another summer of exploring, learning and playing. A new book is coming your way soon, with all of the best of the best photographs from the participants of our travels these last two years, great narration (by yours truly) and maps, charts etc so that any and all of you may either visit these places yourselves or arm chair travel through my blog and/or book!

Be safe, enjoy life and remember - we are only gifted with a few usuable summers in our lives, enjoy them to the fullest - look, listen and you will be amazed at what is out there.

Desolation Sound - Teakerne Arm

It was a bit of a dreary, soggy day, so no-one ventured up to the lake for a hike. I have opted instead to upload some photographs taken by Dave T of their time previous to meeting up with us. There is always something to see no matter how many times you go into a bay or cove that you have seen many times before.

Thanks Dave - Great Photographs!

Desolation Sound - Laura Cove

Quiet Time in Desolation


Not as much sun as the last time!

Back where we started 10 weeks ago.....Desolation Sound. Pretty quiet in here...the tourists have all gone home, except of course, those without children. The weather is rainy, low overcast and a bit colder than the last time we were here, regardless, it's still nice to be here. We anchored in Laura Cove as we thought that 7 or so boats in Prideaux was a few too many. Turns out by the time we woke up the next morning there were 12 boats anchored in Laura! Its a bit windy and lumpy overnight, so the Admiral decides we are going to lift anchor and go over to Tenedos Bay.

Until Next Year!

Day 74 - Gorge Harbour Marina

Shark Spit at the entrance to Gorge Harbour


Pool and Hot Tub await the weary traveller


Lots of Apple trees on the grounds


This is a great Weathervane!


Customer Service 101 - that is where we believe the owners of Gorge Harbour should send their employees. It's a shame that the owners spent a dump truck load of money making their "marina resort" a star attraction but did not invest in their employees the same way.

Gorge Harbour is pricier than most marinas that we have visited on the coast, but the lure of the swimming pool, hot tub and 5 star restaurant drew us in. We last visited this marina in April of last year and although the docks were rickity, the restaurant was excellent and the service and people were first class. Perhaps we have come into the tail end of a busy season and the staff are tired.....none the less, the attitude should be like we are the first boats of the season. The girl behind the fuel barge said that although they had a great busy season, she does not understand why the last 10 days have been so slow. We know it is not a shortage of yachts, we have seen quite a few travelling south in our travels. That would lead me to believe that not everyone knows of the upgrades or there might not be repeat business from some of their summer guests.

We can live and abide with all of the rules you have in place, we respect that this is your place and we are your guests. What we will not tolerate is rudeness, abruptness and lack of information to first time guests and friends. For 3 of the 4 boats in our group, this was their first visit, nothing was told to any of us during our stay except to "please drink your liquor behind your boats or go onto our boats with your drinks as the owner was in residence and he does not like the children to see drinking on the docks." We assume there was some bad customers during the summer heat falling down drunk on the docks...?? Guess "Happy Hour" is out of the question. We find out 1/2 hour before we leave that the marina includes free internet in the moorage, not a lot of time to check emails etc. We also tried to get water out of your taps and were told (albeit nicely) that due to the lack of rain, someone in the summer drained the cistern dry so all the water to the docks is turned off during the evening - again, had we not asked, we would not have known and we would have left for other ports to go and find water again with a lingering question as to why the pool had plenty of fresh water, but we couldn't get water for our boats??

Had service been better, we might have all stayed another evening and perhaps even had dinner in the restaurant (this is what we had planned prior to coming in) We guesstimate that between the group we would probably have left an additional $1000.00 behind, but we were pretty put off on our initial visit with the attitude and probably won't be back for a while. Its a shame, its a beautiful place and has a lot to offer boaters on their visit to Gorge Harbour.

Day 73 - Octupus Marine Park

Some of the Treasures left behind in the Cabin


The cabin of "Remembrance"


The strange sights you see when the Tourists have all gone home!


Even the seagulls have all gone home


Empty everywhere

After leaving Cardero's we decided to head down through the rapids, turn right through "Hole in the Wall" and go to the Octupus Marine Park. 2 of us almost got done in while travelling through Hole in the Wall by opposing boat traffic. I don't think the other boats realized how fast the current goes through there after the tide swing. We also didn't realize how quick the change occurs in Hole in the Wall compared to all of the other rapids. We all manage to traverse the rapids safely with only a few tense moments. Contrary to the name, we did not see any octupus!

We had a lovely stay in one our favorite marine parks on the coast. The cabin is a great lure while gunkholing with all of it's eclectic carvings and donations by the boating public.

Day 72 - Cardero's

Schnitzel Anyone?


Guest Cabins for rent also


Bring your private planes to Cardero


A dreary day of travelling through Johnston Strait brings us to Doris and Reinhardt's famous Schnitzel Haus. We went via dinghy up to Blind Channel Resort to the Liquor store and Food store. Very quiet in Blind Channel with only 3 boats in for moorage.

Again, 3 of the 4 of us had never been to Cardero's, so this was a bonus dinner out night for them. We had a great meal (as always) and rowdy night of cards (Congratulations Penny on your two wins) and awake energized the next morning in the sunshine and on the ready to ride the rapids to Octupus Marine Park

Day 71 - Port Harvey

Lots of chowing down before the winter!


Our Hosts, Port Harvey - Great Store


The Neighbors have a great carving


Petroglyphs enroute to the end of the bay


What a delightful place. This is their first year open and they will certainly do well in years to come up. Attitude is everything, they are upbeat and friendly, have a great store, great baked goods and very clean and tidy docks. We will most certainly stop in there next year. There are petroglyphs 1/2 up the channel to Port Harvey and there is lots of activity in the area.

Perhaps on a real high tide you might get a dinghy up Canoe Pass to see Lagoon Cove!

We booked in for dinner and had great Hamburgers and French Fries (almost as good as mine!) There is ample room for dogs on the little isthmus beside the marina. We were also told that perhaps next year, a liquor licence would be in place and there are plans for laundry and showers.

Good Luck to George and Family on your new venture and we hope to see you for many years to come!

Photo's Compliments of Dave T (This photograher took a day off!)

Day 70 - Lagoon Cove

Even Fuel Dock is used for moorage!


Good bye Bill and Jean - until Next Year!


Still stacking them in! Lagoon Cove is still busy with every inch of dock space taken up by boat footage. It was good to see Jean as we missed her last trip. Nice group of boaters in here this time of year and most of the same boats we have seen along the way. It has started to rain after the spectacular sunny afternoon we had yesterday and during the night it was a tad windy.

We all filled up with Propane, Dinghy gas and water.

Jean and Bill will be heading out in the next couple of weeks for a well deserved "warm" southern vacation. We hope to see them next year.

Day 69 - Thompson Sound

Some of the Dolphins surrounding the boats


View up the River


Gordie playing with the Dolphins


Old Logging site on Thompson Sound


We arrived in Thompson Sound early afternoon to find Oceanaire tied up to a small log boom and the sight of a school of dolphins cavorting around his boat. The dolphins stayed in the area until late afternoon and then went on to thir night stop.
Around 8:00 pm in the evening, the current kicked in and the raft of 4 boats goes spinning 180 degrees at mach speed, well actually around 3-4 knots. It was wild to watch and it was good to experience so that we wouldn't panic when it happened again in the middle of the night.

Oceanaire was in Thompson around a month ago and told us of a fantastic trip up the valley they took with a guide named Charles. They went fly fishing, saw grizzlies and learned alot about the area through Charles. As luck would have it, we met Charles and he joined us for a spaghetti dinner on Oceanaire with many tales of the valleyand some historical information about himself. What a well spoken, knowledgeble young man he is! We hope to take the tour next time we stop in and have more time.

The weather breaks out in warm sunshine for the afternoon and it rains during the evening.

Thanks for some of the photos DT!

Day 64 - 68 - Shawl Bay

Mike's First Ever Halibut!


Always "Welcome"


Neighbour Coming Home after Fishing


Dave & Penny going uphill in Broughton Lagoon tidal Rapids


Pacific Whiteside Dolphins do not disappoint!


Acrobatics at its finest


Hoopla


Happy to see us


A 4 day enjoyable stay with the Browns and the "Bead Lady", Carol. All the boys went out fishing and Gordie took Lorne out. As you may have read in past posts, Mike has never caught a Halibut. This 4 day stay was to change all of that! Now we need Lorne's harpoon gun to deflate his ego!

The first day out fishing yielded 2 halibut for the Gordie boat and 2 halibut for the Bob boat. Mike is still at halibut 1, Mikey zero! The second day of fishing yielded a 45 lb. halibut for Mike and a smaller halibut around 15 lb., a broken fishing rod for Bob and zero halibut for the Gordie boat. For those of you who know Mike, he came back a 6' smile and talking a mile a minute! Thank you Bob for enduring your pain in silence, it can't be easy being with Mike on this momentus occasion!

Lorne and Shawn break out the deep fryers, potatoes and fish batter and voila - a Fish Fry is in the works for dinner!

On the second night there, we are having dinner on Oceanaire and Brenda takes a stroll to her boat for a coffee and enroute falls right down Dave's open hatch. The foot is painfully swollen and the other leg has a large bleeding gash. Brenda and Pat go to town with Robbie the next day and it is discovered that Brenda has torn all the ligaments in her foot and has had to have a tetnus shot for the gash and antibiotics for the infection in her leg. It pays to have these things looked at! Through all of this, Brenda has continued to stay a non-smoker and has been a real trooper!

Speaking of smoking, I am down to 1-3 cigs a day and the champix appears to be working. Will let you know when I make the 7 day "no smoking" milestone.

We leave to head out to meet up with Oceanaire in Thompson Sound. It's always sad to leave and we hope to come back in the spring for amonth or so.