August 24, 2021

Rest day! Steve has had us on a tight schedule to get back so he can see his new grandson (not yet born) but the schedule allowed for a stopover day in Ganges.

The first order of business was transportation. We headed up to the marina parking lot and conveniently there is a car/scooter rental business there. And we were lucky. The scooters were rented out later in the day but we could get in just before that reservation. We filled out the paperwork, fitted ourselves for the designer helmets, and took a practice lap in front of the staff to prove we were scooter worthy. I’m wondering how many people wreck them doing the practice?

Off we went. We decided the first stop was going to be almost the furthest away and it had cheese. We zoomed towards the Salt Spring Island Cheese Farm Shop. Zooming may be a stretch. Should have described it as putted towards. Back to the cheese. The Salt Spring Farm shop is a wonderful place. Why? You get to see, and pet, goats and they have cheese!

About the cheese, they make wonderful cheese from, you probably guessed it by now, goats’ milk. You can tour around their property, check out the goats, and get some free samples. And then of course buy some cheese for the trek home. Hope they don’t get to picky about cheese when we cross the border tomorrow. Bonus! Steve got the call from his daughter while we were eating cheese: his grandson was born earlier that morning!

After we had some delicious cheese we headed down the road to the Ruckle Provincial Park. It’s a large park on the south end of the island that was donated but still keeps active farms so they have a wide range of animals for your viewing pleasure. We arrived right as the cattle were fed so it was awesome to see them eating and playing with the hay.

Our time was almost up on the scooters so we started making the way back to the marina. We made one last stop before town at the Ciderworks. They had so many options we didn’t know what to choose so we went with a flight. As with all beverage flights there are good and there are not-as-good but it is was a fun time and a nice location with a great view!

August 23, 2021

The weather looked good so we had made the decision to get up very early and make the long run down to Ganges so we could spend a day on Salt Spring Island before heading back to the States. And a long day it was. The longest of the trip in fact. We clocked in 13.86 hours and traveled 108.24 nautical miles. Phew…. but a very smooth ride minus a few ferry wakes!

After settling in at the Salt Spring Marina, we headed up to Moby’s Pub for a small bite to eat. We were joined by our fellow Tyee members Todd and Andrea. It was great to see them and see more boaters expanding their season up to Canada.

June 12, 2021

We were up and at ‘em this morning. Got in the last run we’ll probably do for a couple weeks and then headed over to Coda for morning coffee. Do miss him being my neighbor because he makes a great cup.

We were off at 7:45 am and headed to the Canadian border. Put out the quarantine flag as we crossed the border and had a nice easy trip into the Port of Sydney. There was already a boat on the dock, so Coda took up the other space and we waited about 30 minutes to dock. While we waited, we did the final call in for the prep work and only had to wait a few minutes after we arrived for the custom officers. The experience was great. The officers were really friendly and easy to talk to. They asked the standard questions about our intent, experience, stuff to declare, and all the normal border crossing questions. One question I found funny is after we told them we didn’t have any firearms they asked how long it had been since firearms were on the vessel. We’ve never had any on the boat since we moved on because we live in the Pacific Northwest, which is pirate free.

As we were getting ready to be cleared, they had the final call with the clearance folks and at that point they pulled me aside and said there was an issue. Uh Oh! I was asked when the last time I came into Canada, if I was ever denied access to Canada, if I tried to cross the border during the pandemic, and if I had any issues with law enforcement. The answers were pretty much no for all, and they said they’d look into it later and it’s probably because my common name. I guess I may have to move to Alaska if they don’t let me come back in the fall. 😊

After the final questions we were cleared, put up the Canadian courtesy flag, and off north we go.

The remainder of the day was wonderful. Nice calm winds and calm seas. About an hour before the anchorage, we got a notification over the radio that a wind advisory was going into effect starting Sunday morning. We contemplated getting farther north so we could avoid it tomorrow but after 10 hours (customs time included), we called it a day and anchored in Northwest Bay just north of Nanaimo (photo at top of post).

Voyage Info: