Today is Sunday the 21st of June. It's hard to believe that this vacation is already half over but it is. Tonight finds us moored in Montague Harbor on Galliono Island, Canada.

On Friday we crossed the border and entered Canadian waters, clearing customs at Poet's Cove Marina on Bedwell Harbor. This is a NICE place.

Poet's Cove Hotel right behind the marina.

Everyone tied up secure for the night

Everyone took advantage of the facilities. The staff was beyond friendly to us. I can't recommend the place highly enough. A couple of the boats chose to take mooring balls nearby but still had the opportunity to use all the facilities at Poets Cove for a $5 day pass. Initially, a lot of the group planned on doing that, but the forecast for strong winds overnight  made  a lot of crews opt for the better protection of the marina.

Larry checking out the harbor in Corndog's tender...Pickle

It was pretty windy in the early evening, but eventually calmed down and the boats that took the balls reported the night wasn't bad at all. While we were there, the Jeannaeu Owners Rendezvous arrived in their 40-50 foot yachts. They had about 25 boats there. Could we be at any more opposite ends of the spectrum? Looked pretty funny with a Montgomery 17 berthed beside a 49 foot Jeannaeu.

Life aboard!

In the morning, we were heading for the town of Ganges on Salt Spring Island. Small Craft Advisories were up for strong winds starting out at 5-15 knots then building to 20-25 knots by late afternoon/evening. The first part of the trip was going to be in some pretty open water which could have gotten pretty rough. As it turned out, the winds never materialized....at all. We motored, encountering some light rain, all the way to Ganges. Although we were all disappointed that we didn't have any wind for sailing, I know I breathed a sigh of relief once we got in the protected lee of Salt Spring Island before the "big blow that never was"occurred.
 
Ganges is a good size town that afforded us the opportunity to restock on everything we needed, wash laundry,  and do a little bit of touristy stuff as well.

Montgomery Fleet tied up at Ganges Marina

The "Ganges Welcoming Committee"...and no..they are not intimidated by dogs...trust me!
 

On Saturdays they have a huge open air farmer's market type of affair just up the street from the marina and also it just so happened there was a jazz festival in town. The place was packed and very busy. 

Ganges is a VERY busy seaplane base...coming and going all day long

It was quite a change from the locations we have been finding ourselves at over the last week. Most of the group got together in the evening at the Salt Spring Inn for dinner and it was excellent.  One thing up here that is really different is that it doesn't get dark till 10pm. Your brain says "hey it's still daytime let's keep going." Problem is, it gets light early too! Man, those hours that we are sleeping, we are sleeping good cause by the time you get into bed you are tired!

On a boat moored near us....just thought this was the coolest figurehead I've seen.

At about 8:30 this morning we were still in our slips at Ganges Marina and it was raining pretty good. Jo and I had to take Bosun for his "pre-departure walk" and for the first time he had to wear his raincoat. What a goofball he is strutting around in his own foul weather gear! hahaha. We got lots of teasing about it but it did it's job and kept us from having a soaking wet puppy aboard. We left Ganges about 10am, right after the rain stopped, catching the very tail end of the ebb tide to help get us out of Ganges and the beginning of the flood tide to push us up the Trincomali Channel. Coming out of Ganges you have to negotiate a mine field of crab pots. They are everywhere.  A little ways out of Ganges the wind came up, skies cleared up, and we had a really nice sail over to Montague Harbor. Some of the boats are at the Govt. Dock, some are on mooring balls, and we took a slip at the marina right next to them so we'd have an easier time with Bosun.
 
We'll be catching the flood tide around noon tomorrow for the sail up to Wallace Island, Conover Cove. I'm sure there will be no internet there. The next day we'll round over the top of Salt Spring Island and start moving south again with planned stops at Maple Bay, Sydney, possibly Blakely again and then back to Anacortes for haul-out and the beginning of the long road trip home.
 
So, that's it for now.

They're still  smilin'!

Wish us continued good weather!
 
—Sean, Jo, Bosun (and the Monty Group)
Montgomery  23 Dauntless