The Islands – Part One

Part one of our Alaska adventure took us to the San Juan and Gulf Islands just north of Seattle Washington.  These islands are rich with history, full of wildlife and have some of the most beautiful and peaceful anchorages we’ve ever seen.

(Remember to click on the photos for a full sized image)

The plan was to first spend a week in the San Juan’s (USA) then head up into Canada to explore the Gulf Islands and finish up with another week in the San Juan’s as we headed back towards Seattle for our trip to Oregon for Allie’s graduation in mid-June.

The first week in the San Juan’s consisted of just two anchorages, Garrison Bay, just south of Roche Harbor and then Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island.  Both place were perfect, lots of wildlife as shown below as well as great hiking and shore activities.  The sculpture garden outside of Roche was very interesting as was the hike to the Turn Point lighthouse on Stuart Island.  The weather over the first week was nearly perfect, warm sunny days and cool nights, couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Our next leg of the trip took us to Canada.  We decided to check into Canada on Pender Island at a resort called Poets Cove.  The check in was interesting, much more involved than any of our check ins coming from Mexico to San Diego, basically opening every cabinet and drawer in the entire boat.  Not sure what they are looking for but it all went smoothly in the end.  We stayed the night at the resort not doing much other than sucking up internet bandwidth.

The next night we headed to Port Browning on the other side of Pender Island, a beautiful spot and nice rustic resort on shore.  We provisioned a bit and gunk holed around on the dingy but left the next morning for Ganges.

Our plans were to anchor in Ganges for a couple of days and enjoy the town and the famous Saturday Farmers Market.  However, as we approached, we saw that the public dock was wide open, this just prior to a busy Canadian holiday weekend.  We decided to grab some dock space for the weekend to make our stay a bit easier.

Just to give you a clear picture of the difference between anchoring and taking a dock, anchoring is more preferable to us.  We love the peace and quiet, the slow swinging of the boat and the lack of noises on the hull that we get when tied to a dock.  On the other hand, we need to use the dingy whenever we want to go ashore.  We also like to bike and need a dock to offload the bikes.  It’s also easier for Nancy to run to a store for some quick provisions.  In all, a coin flip but I prefer the anchorages. Oh, and anchorages are free!  Docks typically cost us from $50-70 per night.

Anyhow, the weekend in Ganges was excellent, the market very nice with lots of local artists hawking their work.  We focused on food and picked up some nice breads and cheeses. Nancy and I rode bikes for about 20 miles over the two days exploring different parts of the island. A dinner at the Treehouse restaurant was a great ending, Nancy and I enjoyed a date night and they had a great band as well.

We left Ganges on Sunday, in the middle of their holiday weekend, a bit worried about finding a good anchorage close by.  We poked into Prevost Island, a 4 mile distance away and found a beautiful spot.  We kayaked the day and enjoyed the best sunset of the trip so far.

Last anchorage for this report was Montague Harbour (I have to spell it wrong here in Canada!). Another beautiful bay, lots of anchored boats, but still plenty of room for us.  We enjoyed the bay, the marine park and the Wi-Fi as Adam wanted to spend his birthday playing video games with friends. We had a nice party with cake and ice cream and Adam got presents, all downloaded video games, what a surprise!

The next installment will cover the town of Chemainus, Butchart Gardens, Orcas and the last anchorages in Canada.  Stay tuned!