Saturday July 21st – Today we are leaving windy Howe Sound to trek up the Georgia Strait to Pender Harbor. We called two different marinas in Pender Harbor, both didn’t answer after repeated attempts. Finally, one of them answered and took our reservation for moorage that night. It’s about a 40nm run and the weather was not great. Forecast is for calming wind in the afternoon, so we hung out at our anchorage in Howe Sound for more favorable conditions. They never came.

So, we left our anchorage in 15 knots of wind and headed for the entrance to Howe Sound that would take us to the Georgia Strait. Not too bad to start but as we entered the Georgia Strait we had wind against current combined with the tidal flow from Howe Sound created some large steep waves. The boat got rocked around really good but this time we were prepared with everything put away and lunch already taken down. I told Julie and Ava to sit their butts in the pilot house and look up the whole time. They did, and that helped keep the sea sickness to a minimum. The boat took it on the nose like a champ, but it was unsettling as the boat plowed through the waves then what felt like a freefall off the other side. We spent about 2 hours in the real snotty stuff then conditions improved a little for the remainder of the trip.

With an extremely salty boat, we pulled into Painted Boat Marina hoping to make it to the grocery store before they closed. When I made the reservation they never gave us a slip assignment, so I called them on the phone. The guy on the other end took my name and boat name, then there was silence on the other end as he was obviously trying to locate my reservation. “I’m sorry sir but we don’t have a reservation for you” he said. “I just talked to a guy this morning and made the reservation” I said. Again, there was silence on the other end then he said, “did you give a credit card or get a confirmation email”? “No, they never asked for that information” I said getting a little more frustrated. “Well, I’m sorry sir but we don’t have your reservation and we do not have any room for you”. In a slightly more stern voice, I told him I was really frustrated because I just made the reservation this morning. Again, he said, “I’m sorry sir but we don’t have room, I hope you can find a place”. I hung up the phone and instantly realized I was the idiot trying to dock at the wrong marina! During my multiple calls to two different marinas in Pender Harbor I thought I was talking to Painted Boat but actually I made reservations at Garden Bay. Silly me.

Garden Bay took us right in, but the grocery store is across the bay, so we quickly got the dinghy down to get to the store before they closed. Loaded up with pizza for dinner and a full basket of groceries we dinghied back for a late dinner on the boat after a long day.

But it wasn’t over. At 1am the band that was playing at the Garden Bay Pub decided to extend the party on a small boat right in front of ours. It all started with Mama Mia blasting as loud as the stereo would go and then just kept going for another couple hours. 6am departure is going to be tough.

Sunday July 22nd. 6am the alarm goes off. After not much sleep due to the Mama Mia party boat, Julie and I got up and stumbled through the coffee brewing process. 6:30am we fired up the engine for the long run to Pendrell Sound in Desolation Sound.

Finally, some smooth water! The run was beautiful all the way into Desolation. Some friends of ours were already up in the area and we are going to meet them in Pendrell. We arrived first, anchored and stern tied in an area perfect for swimming.

Pendrell Sound has some of the warmest waters in the area. We measured 72-74 degrees and clear all the way down to about 30’. If I didn’t know any better, you would think we were in Hawaii. In this long inlet the water is 1,300 feet deep and the mountains shoot straight up. It’s absolutely amazing!

We settled in and brought out all the water toys. New this year is a 5’X15’ inflatable dock that we planned on tying off to the swim step to extend our swimming pleasure. Its big and took some work to get blown up, but once in the water it provided a super fun platform to swim off of.

Our friends arrived and rafted up to us. We all swam in the heat and enjoyed the warm waters of Pendrell.

Friday July 20th – Our schedule today had us leaving Vancouver headed to Howe Sound, just to the north east of us. Howe Sound is the closest semi remote destination for vessels leaving Vancouver and there is a huge vacation home community on Bowen Island. It’s an area we have always wanted to see but have never been in there. The Union Steamship Co. marina we wanted to check out was full, so we decided to find an anchorage.

The wind forecast didn’t look good especially given the fact that we would be exposed to the Strait of Georgia much of the way. It called for the wind dying down in the early afternoon, so we waited until about 1:00pm then left the dock, got fuel and headed out to English Bay. The seas just kept building as we made our way out to open water. Suddenly 4-5’ waves were stacked due to the wind against current. We secured the boat but a little too late. A couple large stainless-steel cups in the galley zipped off the counter denting the wood floor and sending water all over.

We slogged through it, taking lots of spray over the boat. The motion of the boat didn’t agree with Julie and Ava. They were feeling terrible, especially Ava got pretty sick.

We decided to anchor in Gambier Island’s, Port Graves. Even in the anchorage the wind was still blowing a steady 15 knots. After waiting a while to make sure the boat was secure, we took the dinghy to shore for a walk in the woods. A beautiful trail showed signs to Lost Lake but no telling how far it was. We kept going and going up the mountain until our “walk” turned into an unplanned hike. I got out my phone map to try and figure out how much further. It Looked quite a bit further, so we turned around (Skylar was not happy). Turns out the lake was about a 6-mile round trip ordeal. Our walk in the woods turned into a 4-mile hike, but it was fun!

The wind calmed down late in the evening for a restful night sleep. Only problem now is the wind forecast is about the same for tomorrow and we have to make our way up the Georgia Strait.

Wednesday July 18th – Thursday 19th. After a quiet and rest full first night in Vancouver it was time to check out the city. So many things to do here that we decided to add a 3rd night to our reservation. We were lucky that the 130’ boat who’s spot we were occupying, was not due back for another 2 days.

A little water taxi shuttled us to Grandville Island (not an actual island) where we checked out all the little shops and market. Brian, a friend of mine in the coffee business who owns Blendz also has a tea and kombucha bar in Vancouver called o5. It was 1 mile away from our location, so we decided to make the trek. This is not your ordinary tea bar. It’s very high-end tea and all the kombucha is brewed onsite. I knew Ava especially would love the experience where the vibe is slow, relaxed and fancy. We tried a few different teas, some fancy snacks and had the best kombucha ever. Ava had so much fun, leaving she said, “I will remember this experience forever”.

We had Dinner on the boat that night as we watched all the people walking our dock to get to the water taxi pickup station.

The next day we grabbed a taxi and headed for the aquarium in Stanly Park. Very busy with kid groups but what an incredible aquarium. A few days ago, we saw a dead sturgeon floating in the water in the Gulf Islands. We had never heard of sturgeon in these waters and figured someone must have caught it in the mouth of some river then chucked it overboard. However, we confirmed at the aquarium that there is indeed White Sturgeon in these here waters. We had lunch in the only restaurant in the park then took a taxi to Gas Town to check out more of the city. After a delicious dinner in Yale Town we prepared for our departure northbound tomorrow.