Sailing the Gulf Islands

Vacation. I love it. Christine and I took last week off to go visit Livia and Carol on their sailboat in Canada and sail in the Gulf Islands. I hadn't been on a boat in a long time and I had never sailed before, so it was sure to be an adventure.

After a flight delay, we arrived at the Victoria airport late Friday/early Saturday. Fortunately, the marina is just a 15 minute drive away. We hit the sack after a short briefing on boat operations.

We slept in Saturday and went out for breakfast before stocking up on groceries and alcohol for the week. Sailing and alcohol don't mix, but anchoring and alcohol sure do. :) We usually kept it under control with a beer and a bottle of wine a night, but we did have one blockbuster 4-bottle night of wine.



We left the marina in the afternoon and had enough wind for our first sailing experience. We sailed around for a bit as our captains filled us in on what all these funny ropes do. (And I thought they were just for swinging around.) I learned that a halyard is used to hoist a sail and a sheet is used to adjust the sail. When the wind died, we anchored at the Sidney Spit, just across the water from the marina, and met up with a couple people for dinner on their boat.

Time is a weird thing on vacation. We didn't even usually roll out of bed until after 9AM, and then we'd eat dinner around 9PM and go to bed around midnight. Sunday morning we took the dingy to the spit and walked around the park there. Afterward we had some more good sailing wind and headed north to a place called Princess Cove. It turned out that there wasn't a good anchorage for us there, so we turned around and anchored at Montague for the evening.




Christine and I packed along a little surprise in the form of swimsuits. I don't have any pictures from my camera, so I'll have to post some later. It all started when Christine found a pirate bikini at Target. I was unsuccessful at finding matching pirate trunks, but a friend gave me the brilliant idea of having some black trunks screen printed. It came out great. Later in the trip we busted out our second stylish swimsuits. We both had American flag swimsuits. Take that Canada!

We spent the next day in and around Montague. Christine and I took the 2-person kayak out and check out the shore line. Carol set the crab trap, and we enjoyed a fresh crab as a pre-dinner snack. In the evening we enjoyed a great sunset; Christine and I in the dingy, and Carol and Livia in the kayak.



On Tuesday, we sailed to a place called Panther Cove. It was new to Livia and Carol, and it was fun to check out a new place with them. It seems way easier to scope out a new area when you have extra people. There is only room for one boat in Panther Cove, so if we got there before anyone else, we'd have it all to ourselves. We left early enough that we did get there and find it empty. After spending a couple nights in a busier harbor, it was awesome to have our own little cove.



Livia had found oysters in this cove before, so we went on the hunt. We didn't get any oysters on our first trip, but I did manage to catch a couple rock crabs by hand. It was pretty cool actually. Combined with a crab that was in our crab trap, we had quite a nice snack. It doesn't get much fresher than that.



Tuesday also marked the 1 year anniversary of Christine's hip surgery. I had been trying to find a goofy way to celebrate, but was coming up blank. Thankfully, Christine's goofy friend Julie gave me the idea of presenting her with a hula hoop since she wouldn't have been able to hula hoop last year at this time. Brilliant. Livia and I found a hoop in Sidney before we left and we stashed it on the boat. You've come a long way Christine. Check out your mad hula hoop skills:



Later on, we did manage to get some oysters. Most of them we grilled when we arrived at our next anchorage, Ganges Harbor.



From Ganges, we went over to Portland and stayed there until Friday morning. There's a nice trail that goes all the around the island, and all 4 of us walked it on Friday morning.





I could easily take a nap on the boat every day. It's like being rocked to sleep. After a week of dealing with some real greenhorns, Livia finally had to crash.



We rounded out our trip by hanging out in Sidney and Victoria. We went to the greatest fish and chips place by the water in Victoria (Red Fish Blue Fish). I salivate just thinking about it. In the evening, we went to the local Sidney theater and finally watched Harry Potter.

The whole week we lucked out with amazing weather. It was sunny every day, and the only time it rained was on Saturday night when we were walking from the theater to the boat. Just a gorgeous week.

I figure I'm more of a mountain person than a water person, but I could spend some time sailing now and then. I can't wait to ambush this boat somewhere on the other side of the world when they're on the circumnavigation. Thanks again Olivia and Carl Livia and Carol for an awesome trip.

Many more pictures on Flickr.