Interlude in foreground & Alliance in background

Sunday May 26th

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing now from our boat anchored in Telegraph Harbour. Telegraph Harbour is tucked in between Kupper Island and Thetis Island and is northeast of Chemainus on Vancouver Island.

We are now starting our second week of heading generally North, but with a few side trips. We have no schedule to be any place at any specific time but there are a lot of places that we want to go at sometime. We do expect to be in Nanaimo a week from now, though.

We spent our first four nights anchored in Montague Harbour at Galiano Island. Our activities were walks on trails and roads, visiting the marina store, (they have ice-cream cones) and playing Scrabble on board. Also, John took me fishing one sunny afternoon. We caught several rock cod that Linda fixed for dinner that night. We also caught a lingcod that was legal, 26 inches, but the season doesn't open till the 1st of June. We threw it back. I had another that was larger than the first up to the boat but it wouldn’t stay in the net. He wasn’t hooked but had a rock cod that was hooked half way down his throat He must have decided after considering the alternatives that he would look for another fish to eat that day.

On Wednesday we left for Ganges. Ganges is the largest town in the Gulf Islands and is on Salt Spring Island. It was a warm and sunny afternoon and a beautiful 1 hour cruise. We anchored a short dinghy ride from the dinghy dock that is provided by the local Rotary Club and the Thrifty Market. We did some things in Ganges that we needed a town for: e-mail, groceries, and a fax machine.

On Friday we hoisted our anchor. More of the mud bottom came up with the anchor than I can remember ever seeing before. It took over half an hour to get the chain and anchor up and washed with my new wash down pump.

Again we had a beautiful afternoon and an hour and a half cruise to Conover Cove on Wallace Island. Conover Cove is quite small and shallow. Because of the limited space you need to stern-tie to shore after you anchor. The anchoring went normally but the tying to shore was a comedy of errors on my part. This included an unplanned jumping in, up to my waist. I had run over the shore line and gotten it between the dinghy and the outboard. Nothing to do but get wet ! So while jumping in the water with my clothes on, I was thinking, Boy! this is going to be cold. But to my surprise and relief, it wasn’t that bad. The next morning I realized my second error. I hadn’t figured the amount of water that I would have under the boat at low tide. Oh-oh, you say! Right! We ended up being pinned there for about 2 and a half hours waiting for the tide to refloat the stern of the boat. No amount of pulling with the dinghy or with Johns fishing boat could budge it. If I would have been 20 feet farther out in the bay there would have been no problem. Thank the Lord, there was no damage, though.

As of this writing all systems are operating. I have been making a list of all of the pumps on board. The list is up to 21 pumps as I keep remembering others. This does not include engine pumps. I haven’t started to count the electric motors that are used for other purposes. I don’t think that I will.

We just spent one night at Wallace Island but we went to shore and walked trails twice.

Yesterday with another nice afternoon we traveled up here to Telegraph Harbour. We woke to a light rain this morning so hence I am writing to you now.

John and Sandie are coming for dinner tonight. We were with them on their boat for dinner on Wednesday. We are planning to travel together for most of the summer.

I enjoy writing these things that we are doing. Hope that it is not too boring for you to read.

All for now
Spence and Linda