After lots of checking throughout the night at our anchorage off of Montague, we woke up right where we were when the sun went down.  Of course I may have been too cautious but if there had been any wind, things might have been different.  We were up against a lee shore with the anchor in a sandy bottom after all.  Not quite the ideal anchoring conditions.  Anyway... everything was okay when the sun came up.

The morning was lovely.  Some of the Christian singers were still milling around on the beach as if to attempt to relive the previous evening's religious ecstasy.  Kinda nuts if you ask me... I thought we had better get moving before they started singing again. 

We decided to go into Ganges Harbor today.  Being at Montague Harbor, we were fairly close so it would be easy to go over there, do some food shopping, take showers, get a Canadian crab license and finally see Ganges Harbor.  Last year we were unable to make it cuz there just wasn't enough time but we had heard from a number of people that it was a lovely harbor stop.  So today was the day.  After an uneventful and short trip from Montague Harbor we arrived at Ganges. 

Not real impressed with dock facilities though.  We got a berth at Ganges Marina and it was WAY expensive.  We paid over $60 for one night with power and water!  We got the same thing in Friday Harbor for $35...  AND... I know you're thinking that this must be Canadian dollars... but there was a sign on the desk that said... Canadian $ = U.S. $... OUCH!  But we needed the power to get our inverter back on line so we just resigned ourselves to paying the money... sigh... such is vacation. 

As soon as we were safely tied up to our berth we all headed off to explore Ganges.  Like I said, we had heard a lot about it.  Along the way, we stopped for lunch at a lovely (but again, overpriced) sandwich/coffee shop.  It was all very pleasant though and was a welcome change from being couped up on the boat.  After lunch we strolled into the Ganges tourist shopping area.  There were lots of shops but as it turned out we spent most of our time in the hardware store.  We had to get a plunger and something to fashion a "dick" award out of... This was an award that we were going to bestow to the person who was the biggest "dick" throughout each day.  We were already bestowing the "sow" award to the person who was the biggest pig but we needed something more.  As it turns out Donna found the perfect award!  Check it out in the pictures.  We shopped about as much as the boys could stand and overall it was pleasant however I was amazed with how little I actually wanted to buy.  I'm usually quite the shopper.  Overall, Ganges seemed like a great place to shop if you wanted to find a seashell nightlight but other than that, there wasn't much that actually caught my eye... I think we were all feeling a little let down because there had been considerable build up by other cruisers we had met out in the Gulf Islands on the wonders of Ganges.  However we did enjoy the Ganges stop... just not as much as we thought.  It was a nice break from cruising.  We made good use of the marina showers.  It has a great market ...Thrifty Foods that had plenty of fresh locally-grown produce and dairy products. We missed the Saturday morning market though cuz... it was Wednesday... but we had heard that it was fun.  Maybe that's what everyone was raving about.

One interesting thing (see picture below)... there was a hotel that had been built on a barge at the Ganges Marina.  But unfortunately, the barge sank and took the hotel with it.  It looked pretty tragic and we felt awkward asking about it.  But it was very big and difficult to ignore.  The divers who were working on raising the barge had all their gear in the berth next to us so I tried to subtly pump them for information.  Floating the barge seemed like a fun project however after talking to the divers, I sensed that the whole thing was a sensitive subject on the docks so opted to suspend further inquiries.

Thursday morning we did our grocery shopping at Thrifty Foods.  Of course we bought way too much stuff and completely filled the bow of our dinghy with food.  I love the way Canadian food is marked... In the U.S., our labels are typically in English and Spanish.  However in Canada, it's in English and French.  That's nice for me because I studied a lot of French when in school so I feel comfortable being surrounded with French.  Unfortunately, I don't have a clue how to say anything in Spanish.  Also, having your food marked in French seems a touch more classy than our Spanish.  So this is another plus for Canada.  I just wish the winters weren't so cold up there.  We dinghied the food back to the boat and stowed it and it started looking like it was time to go.

One final thing to do while in Ganges however was to get that crab license so that we weren't poaching anymore.  The Ganges Marina didn't have crab licenses so we dinghied over to the other marina (can't remember the name).  Unfortunately, they had run out of crab license forms.  This whole crab thing wasn't going well at all.  But they were gonna get more forms by eleven... so Spence and I waited and chatted with another cruising couple down at the dock. Then the woman we were talking to told me that Spencer didn't need a crab license!  He was young enough (under 16) not to require one.  So on that note, we dropped everything and sped back to the boat.  Another box checked... 

After that... it was time to leave Ganges Harbor.  Was a short visit.  I'm sure there were more things we could have done.  But we all thought that Ganges was a bit of a disappointment - probably cuz after all the talk in the islands, our expectations may have been too high.  However we checked off all the boxes on our list and it was time to get back out in the Gulf Islands.