Friday September 8, 2017

(Day 100!) We were originally planning on spending 3 nights in Campbell River, and had in fact already paid for 3 nights. But looking at the forecast, this afternoon is nice, but tomorrow, the wind is up. We'd like to get across over to Desolation on a calm day, so we decided to leave here a day early. Slack is at 1:30, and the wind comes down in the afternoon, so we decided to leave at slack.

Of course we still had some things to do here. First, up to the recycling center to get rid of a boat load of recycling, and then over to Starbuck's for a coffee. For Bella. Then over to the grocery store to stock up on fresh veggies and anything else we missed. Then to the private liquor store. This place was great! The BC LCB store was out of a couple things we were looking for, and they have never had a great selection. But man this private one had a fantastic beer selection! So we picked up some big bottles and we headed back to Miss B and the boats. It started getting a bit sunnier as the day progressed.

When we got to the marina, a fellow on the dock pointed out a black beer sleeping on the breakwater. No one is quite sure how he got there, other than he "probably swam". We were able to see him from the flybridge of the boats. He lifted his head at one point, and then put it back down on the rocks for more sleeping. The theory was that he was tired from swimming.

We eventually had a bite, checked out of the marina (where they gave us a refund for the extra day and also for the WiFi), and Byron returned the rental car. We took off at 1:30 with camera's ready to take photos of the bear. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a look at him and I took some photos of a bear rock! He was gone by the time we went by

It was nice and sunny and calm heading over as you can see in the photo above. We took a peek in Galley Bay and there didn't appear to be anyone in there, so we continued on to check out Tenedos Bay. There were 4 boats in there already and we found a nice little nook in the back that we waited in. EG tried to anchor and just found rocks, so wanted to go check out another part of the Bay. That looked a little too open to the weather that was coming in, so we decided to head over to Prideax Haven. We went through there and into Melanie Cove. It had quite a few boats in there already with only a couple using a stern tie. There was a big spot in the back that we left for EG to use and just waited to make sure they got settled. Once they were done, we chose a spot to stern tie next to another sailboat that was stern tied. Unfortunately, there was a small sailboat anchored in the middle who was drifting around all over the place. At first it looked like we had enough room to be where we were, but then as he drifted around more, it looked a little tight. The couple and their dog ended up coming back in their dingy, and they thought we were too close to them. They politely declined our offer of helping them stern tie, and said that they would prefer to swing and that we should move. Fine. They *were* there ahead of us. Fortunately, as we were pulling up our anchor at dusk, another boat that was using the stern tie 2 over from us left, and so we popped around the sailboat on our starboard so that it was now on our port. We ended up anchoring and stern tying again in a bit of a hurry this time. And then headed over to EG for a late dinner. Long day, so an early evening.