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Prevost Island - Selby Cove

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After leaving Maple Bay we powered south down Sansum Narrows. This is the channel between Salt Spring Island and Vancouver Island. It was another lovely morning. I know that I keep saying that. But after a rocky start on the first day, it had been almost perfect (except for wind direction on the Strait of Georgia). Today was very sweet. There was that slight chill in the air that you feel just above the water when you're sailing. It was sunny and bright with outstanding visibility. The navigating was also interesting. There were some currents that spiced things up a little and kept my attention as we made our way around the western then the southwestern edge of Salt Spring Island.

We had to make a few additions to our provisions. We were running out of stuff. Provisioning was tricky because we needed supplies but we couldn't get too much because if we had extra at the end, we would probably have to throw it away. We couldn't carry hardly anything with us on the airplane. On this stop we needed water. I think we also needed more bread and a few small items as well. The books kept mentioning Fulford Harbor as this interesting, laid back place. Well... we were laid back... That sounded like the place for us. Hell... maybe we'd want to stay there. I thought for sure that we'd fit right in so we turned into the harbor. It was a pretty long approach. Fulford is way at the end and there is a ferry that comes in and out every hour. So I kept looking over my shoulder for trouble as we powered into the harbor.

The harbor directions described two docks. We chose the closest. Not sure if it was the best idea because we could only get about two thirds of the boat on it. Also, it was pretty shallow and the tide was dropping. But we only planned to be there for a short period of time so went for it. We edged the boat in really carefully and then tied it really well hoping that this would make up for the fact that the whole boat wasn't attached. Then we went shopping.

The only market that we could find was this total hippy place that didn't have boater type food. For instance there weren't any gallon jugs of water... only those plastic quart type bottles that they use for Evian. Of course this was much more expensive than we hoped for. But there weren't any alternatives so we loaded up. We felt very out of place when we were in there shopping. We were surrounded with all these overly serious hippy types who didn't have much sympathy for the needs of a family buying provisions for their vacation. I thought these folks were supposed to be laid back... Anyway, we left with water, bread and some soft drinks for the kids (mostly Spencer). After stashing the groceries on the boat; Donna, Jack and I went off to check out St. Paul's Catholic Church and Cemetary. This is an ancient Catholic church and graveyard that was built in Fulford way back when there was a Hawaiian settlement on the island late in the 1800's. As we were hiking to the church we kept in constant contact with Spencer on the boat with some walkie talkies that the boys had brought along for the trip. There were some reception issues but it was still kinda fun. Spencer could see us sometimes from the boat as we walked along the road. There wasn't much water under the boat and the tide was going out so I kept asking Spencer for the current depth readings. I think I was being overly neurotic about it but that's something for my therapist to sort out.

The church was interesting. There were some VERY old graves in front. Apparently there was a group of Hawaiians that had settled here long ago. They were Catholics and had built the church. We wandered around, took pictures and peered in the windows. It is an active church that is still used by the locals to this very day. Unfortunately I stressing about the decreasing depth of the water and couldn't really get into exploring the church the way I wanted. Was relieved when we started moving back in the direction of the boat. I guess I should mention that part to my therapist too.

It was good to be on our way again. Not sure why but I was spooked by the Fulford Harbor stop. I think that was because of the sketchy berth and the depth that was getting shallower by the minute. Once we left the harbor, we just weren't sure where to go next. We just knew... go left. After studying the books for awhile, we settled on going to Prevost Island. There were lots of coves on the island. Seemed likely that we'd find one that suited our needs. Once we got there, we poked our bow into a couple secluded coves and found one that wasn't crowded and seemed protected from most winds and waves. It was harder to anchor this time. It didn't start getting deep enough until pretty far from shore so I had to add the spare anchor line to the stern line to have a enough line to reach the shore and back. It worked out well because the anchor chain weighed down the line such that the setup automatically controled the slack. Was a neat trick. Anyway, we were settled in for the night... and what turned out to be the whole next day too. We didn't leave Selby Cove until the day after that. It's nice to stay in one place for awhile. It's fun to get to know a place and not just sit on the boat all the time.

The next day we amused ourselves with more reading, some rock stacking, some illegal crabbing, dinghy explorations and boat chores. It was a peaceful day. Throughout our time in the cove we had a view of Ganges Harbor off in the distance and Long Harbor right across from us. We were tempted to go over there but just didn't feel like dealing with people. It was too nice to just hang out here in our cove. After considerable discussion, we decided to push our visit to Ganges Harbor to next year when we wouldn't be so rushed. We definitly want to go there though because we had heard so many wonderful things about it ("the cheese"... this got to be a joke on the boat after we encountered a woman at Princess Louisa who absolutely raved about the cheese you could get at Ganges).

Spencer got out the crab pot and actually caught some crabs of legal size. They were rock crabs... my first. So we cooked em up and had a crab snack in the afternoon. I'm getting better at killing crabs. It seems so barbaric at first. But it's much less difficult for me this year. Next year we have promised Spencer that he can do all the crabbing he wants. We will definitely get a crab license first thing upon entering Canada so he can run amok and I won't be constantly scanning the horizon for the CCP (Canadian Crab Police).

The next day was a little sad because we had to leave our Selby Cove sanctuary. It was also sad because it was getting hard to ignore the fact that the trip was almost over. We only had a couple more days. My grief was getting difficult to contain. Every time I would go forward on the boat and feel my bare feet on the sun warmed deck, I would try to put that feeling away some place safe so that I would always have it to go back to. Soon I would be back in my every day world with too much to do and not enough time to do it, bills to pay and not enough money to pay them and worries about things that I didn't have the power to fix. I could feel more and more that I am just getting too tired of all this to go on. I think that this is why people retire. It's not that they can't work anymore, it's that they just can't take it anymore and will choose poverty over their everyday work life. Anyway... I am digressing.

Before we pulled up our anchor, we gently set the crab shells upside down in the water where they floated like little boats. When I let them go, they began to drift and we could see that they eventually landed on the shore where we had stacked rocks the day before. And it's comforting to think that they are there still.

Our kite and our Canadian courtesy flag		Going down Sansum Narrows - that's the channel between Vancouver Island and Salt Springs Island
What are you guys lookin' at down there?		The ferry to Fulford Harbor
This is where we were parked with only about two thirds of the boat on the dock		The view south from the dock at Fulford Harbor
Jack and Donna examining the St. Paul's Church		Jack looking over graves in the church graveyard - there were some graves from the 1800s
The view back towards the ferry landing and Sail La Vie... you can barely make out Sail La Vie's mast in the middle of the picture		Different view... you can still make out the mast
Ferries on their way to and from Swartz Bay		Another ferry
And another ferry		Spencer and Jack playing a game with their Game Boys attached
Jack and me setting up the stern line in Selby Cove		We had to put out a lot of line because we had to park the boat pretty far away from shore to so that it would be in deep enough water
Pirate boy		Mission accomplished... we had to add the anchor line to reach back to the boat from shore. You can see that the right stern line was weighed down from the chain
A bald eagle visitor... you can make him out just to the right of the center of the picture
Sunset over Salt Springs Island. This picture is taken looking in the direction of Ganges Harbor		Looking back up our stern lines from shore
Sail La Vie with Ganges Harbor off the bow		Jack on shore
Our little cove...		That cluster of boats is the yacht basin in Long's Harbor
Rock stacking
		Jack rescuing another log
Almost to shore		Our three unfortunate crabs... they were pretty good though
Letting the crab shells drift to shore the next morning... they all made it to the shore and we're sure that they're there still		Jack piloting us out of Selby Cove

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