Ladysmith Maritime Society Community Marina -- 6/7/2015

We wake to sunny skies promising a good day on the water to travel from Poets Cove to Ladysmith on Vancouver Island.  Just as we finish breakfast, Ray comes across the dock with a pan of fresh baked sticky buns.  Oh, my!  We have breakfast dessert and it is only later that I think that I wished I had taken a photo.  They were so deliciously beautiful!  So I put the last one in a food saver for a later time -- and much later I discover that someone has sneaked his half of the one left.

It has been a wonderful week end, and we are thankful for our friends, but wish others we think of could have been here.  After wishing everyone safe travel to their next destination, we accept the offer from Ray and Jocelyn to release our lines and ease out of the fairway at 8:55A.  There are several ways to go and Herb chooses the Sansum Narrows for less current on the nose.

We like the glassy surface of the water as we go into Swanson Channel.  Then rippled as we proceed.  Squinting my eyes reveals a hazy mountain range on our port side rising up from the foothills with snow atop as far as we can see.  

What we soon see and diligently watch for are several logs and a lot of trash.  Sometimes it is hard to avoid them even with hard turns.  Here a seagull rests while one swims away.

Going north of Moresby Island and Portland Island, we have less than one foot waves.  AIS shows the ferry, Queen of Cumberland, will come within .3 miles of us in six minutes as we round Portland south of Salt Spring Island.   I watch the stanchions as she crosses our bow at a safe distance.

We are in Satellite Channel now and my heart thinks fondly of the harbour at Sidney as we see the ferry landing to her north and I wonder if the Hotel's resident black lab, Dave, is still greeting guests.  On previous visits he allowed Dr. Jake to drink from his water bowl.

We laugh about streets having street sweepers, but it must be the current that moves debris out of our way -- or into it!  More logs and trash ahead, and skipper threads his way through as we turn into Sansum Narrows between Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island.  A few lion's mane jellyfish float by, but no chance to grab a photo.

It gets really choppy in the narrowest part of the channel as it twists and turns toward the wider Stuart Channel, and we pass a few non-eventful swirls.

We are closer to shore now as we look toward the Sansum Narrows opening and I can smell the fragrant cedar and evergreens like spices in the galley.

Beautiful British Columbia

Cruising north near Maple Bay gives a longer fetch and a sailing vessel crosses our bow with just the right amount of wind in its sails.  Seas are one to two feet.

Just as  we enter Stuart Channel we see a pulp and paper mill near the town of Crofton on the west side of the channel and south of Chemainus and Ladysmith.

 Approaching Ladysmith with the wind from  the northeast, we call Mark, the Harbourmaster, on 66A and he and Logan meet us to catch our lines.  What a joy to be here again at one of our favourite marinas -- Ladysmith Maritime Society Community Marina.

Herb takes photos of Willie's Tug docked by two lovely wooden tugs and I learn a bit of their stories from the interpretive panels.

"Saravan is a 1938 restored tug, with work completed between 2010 and 2012 by Ladysmith Maritime Society shipwright, caulker, and volunteers.

The 30 foot C. A. Kirkegaard was built in 1941 as a crew boat used to ferry workers from Sidney to James Island to their explosives plant.  She was donated in 1992 and the restoration provided vocational training to young people by a government grant."

I am impressed with the size of the bollard on Saravan.

Willie of Willie's Tug,
   and of Walldog, Willie and Jake
   Sunday, June 7, 2015