Hi All,

Here we are back home in Whaler Bay after a nice little tour of the southern sections of the Gulf Islands. Why is this? Well for starters we forgot our kayak!

We had been enjoying exceptionally nice June weather here, and with the long range forecast predicting nothing but "more of the same", we were anxious to go. We headed out on the morning of June 11th with no particular destination in mind but we thought it would be fun to join our friends Tom and Sheila who would be out on Spiritus, a 37 foot sailboat. Popping out of the south end of Active Pass there was Spiritus heading to Port Browning on Pender Island and along we went.

Port Browning has good anchorage, a nice Marina and a Pub. And there is a nice shopping area about a 10 minute walk away. Eleanor, Sheila and Tom enjoyed the shopping experience and then John joined them for lunch at the pub.

Winter Cove on the North side of Saturna Island is a short one hour trip away. It has been years since we have visited Winter Cove. It is connected to the Strait of Georgia through a very small, very tidal gap called Boat Passage. It is apparently safe to transit at high slack but check out this picture of it about one hour after low slack - a 5 foot tide.  There is a lot of small high speed boat traffic through this passage at almost any tide. While Eleanor was down by the water two kayakers were approaching along the shore on the extreme left, quite invisible to an approaching boat from the other direction, and one was coming at an even higher speed than the one shown in this picture. Eleanor warned the kayakers to wait and I think they were quite grateful when they saw how suddenly the speedboat appeared.

Winter Cove is now part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve. The one small loop trail to Boat Passage has been extensively upgraded since our last visit and is in excellent condition.

We decided we didn't want to take Galiander through at high slack - a mere 9 foot tide the next day. We took a one hour detour around through Georgeson Passage and down to Cabbage Island Park. This is an absolutely wonderful pair of Islands (Cabbage and Tumbo Islands) connected by a drying tidal area filled with oysters. It is a very popular place for kayakers to visit. The vista's to the north are breathtaking. The exposure to north west winds is equally breathtaking so this can only be comfortably visited during southerlies.




The picture with me in it was  was taken from Cabbage Island looking North. The other one shows Eleanor painting at the North end of Tumbo Island.

After two idyllic days a short two hour trip brought us home in some of the calmest conditions we have ever seen on the Strait of Georgia. In fact for the whole trip we were not even tempted to raise our sails.

The weather was gorgeous but we were ready for a shower and laundry break.We will  reprovision and pick up other small items we forgot.  Also Eleanor is taking the opportunity to unload several large bags of extra winter clothes. We will need the space for expected crew later on.

Now we have decided to stay through the weekend. John's back is bothering him, the weather report for the weekend is downright cold and our son and wife and grandchildren will be over for the weekend; we two Dad's can celebrate Father's day together.

Hard to beat that!

Our next move, when the weather is a bit more promising, will probably be up  the outside of Galiano to Silva Bay and then to the Port of Nanaimo.

John & Eleanor.