North Before South 1

We spent a provisioning day in Oak Bay, did laundry, had lunch at a lovely french bistro that had excellent local beer: Vis-a-vis and Penny Farthing. Then it was on to Sydney Spit to meet up with friends on Drømen. Except the engine started and promptly died. The kill switch on the engine was sticky, so we fixed that. Not the problem. So fuel filters were next. The big one wouldn’t come off (the wrench was still in Portland). Got everything tightened back up, cleaned up, and the engine bled and off we went. We managed to get out of the tight windy marina without crashes or scratches but it was close.

On the left: Gypsy and Drømen rafted up. Drømen has her anchor down and in this photo is also stern tied to the shore. Gypsy is tied up to Drømen. This way only one boat has to do all the anchoring. We’re rafted in Princess Cove on Wallace Island. Our respective dinghies are on the right.

From Sydney Spit, we headed over to Fulford Harbor for a lunch stop. The public dock is really short and was full so we circled around and headed off to the north side of Russell Island. One nice thing about the Gulf Islands, is they are all fairly close and we were able to get to the next island in 2 to 4 hours. Not much wind so a lot of motoring.

Russell Island was originally homesteaded by a Hawaiian family who had an orchard. It’s now a park and in years past, they’ve had volunteers who talk about the family and their history. This summer, the volunteers were renovating the buildings. There are a couple of short trails and we walked those. We anchored separately at Russell and Bill turned on his AnchorWatch ap. Boats do not stay in one place at anchor!

The next day it was on to Ganges for groceries.

More exciting travels later: the Astoria Public Library is about to close for the day.