7/12 Nanaimo to Silva Bay

This morning was filled – well, not filled, we had plenty of time left over – with some departure chores. I filled our water tank, and since the hose was already laid out, the Bar-T-Na's tank got filled as well. Erin and Barb walked up to the Thrifty Mart for a few last minute items while Trav and I fussed with the second monitor for his laptop.

Barb, Erin and I also walked along the waterfront promenade past the seaplane terminal to the park, where we saw quite a crowd watching dragon boat races. The dragon boats are long canoes with about 20 paddlers in each one, side by side in 10 rows. I drummer sits up front beating out a cadence and a coxswain at the rear handles the rudder. It was quite an event, with races starting every 10 minutes or so, and hundreds of people along the shoreline. Everywhere we looked we saw dragon boat participants walking around dressed in their team colors, some wearing life jackets and carrying paddles. We read later today in the paper that this event goes on throughout the weekend and includes 78 dragon boats and around 2000 participants. It's like NASCAR for the canoeing crowd. Too bad none of us had a camera along.

Around 1 o'clock we fired up the engines and headed out into the harbor, with the Bar-T-Na not far behind. As it turned out, we were pretty much on schedule for a passage through Dodd Narrows at slack current, but we weren't overly concerned about the timing. We are in a phase of neap tides, and even if we arrived 3 hours late the maximum current this afternoon through the Narrows is 3.1 knots – in our favor. We passed through the narrows without incident and continued on towards Ruxton Passage. There were several boats anchored and stern tied along the outer shore, so we swung a little wider. I wasn't concerned too much about the wake we were leaving, as we were only traveling at 7 knots or so. We slowed to view the entrance to Pirate's Cove on De Courcy Island. It's a popular anchorage with an entrance challenging to some – a reef extends out quite a ways at the entrance – about 100 yards beyond the marker that one would think indicates the end of the reef. On shore at the actual end of the reef is an 'X' nailed to a tree, with an arrow drawn on the ground with rocks pointing to it – home made range indicators. We didn't plan on going there, so headed on towards Degnen Bay and Gabriola Passage.

We were considering anchoring in Degnen Bay and then continuing on through Gabriola Passage to Silva Bay the next morning. Degnen Bay was pretty well filled up with mooring buoys, though, not leaving much room for anchorage. We decided to head on against the ebb current through Gabriola Passage to Silva Bay, which has more room. We're glad we did – it's a beautiful location and we got some great views to the south of Mount Baker as we cruised through some of the Flat Top Islands to get here.

We passed Tugboat Island to turn into Commodore Passage, keeping Shipyard Rock to our port side. We cruised dead slow through the anchored boats towards the marinas on the far side, but ended up anchoring for the night. We are situated between the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club outstation dock and the marker and buoy for Shipyard Rock. It's a great location – we can see out into the Georgia Strait to watch cruise ships and jumbo ferries go by, and we have a good view of all the coming and going boat traffic.

Trav's knee was acting up, so he iced it while we took Barb on our dinghy ride around the harbor. We cruised by the marinas on the far side, and saw that they actually do have some space, and will probably have more tomorrow when the weekenders head back across the straits to Vancouver. We haven't developed much of a plan for the next couple of days yet, so we may just stay at anchor, or head over to the dock after a day or two. There may be some good fishing or crabbing around the islands.