Waiting for the Bath Tub Races to begin

We headed up slowly through the Canadian Gulf Islands with a few nice light air sails. Anchored in Pirates Cove Park, DeCourcy Island. We went ashore to look for the bare chested lady with the whip who used to run the place when it was a cult commune. No luck. It was pretty sunset with light winds.

About 11:30pm the wind decided to pick up. A couple of power boats started to drag anchor. The smaller one got themselves reset pretty quickly. The bigger one with baby blue Christmas lights around the cabin spent about 45 minutes using their noisy bow thruster to try and hold their position. Then they spent about another hour re-anchoring, ending up with them right on top of us. I finally went back down to get some sleep about 1am.  About 45 minutes later I heard their engines roaring again. Not a lot of sleep that night for me; Chris, on the other hand kept true to form and slept like a baby.

The next day we headed up to Naniamo via Dodd's Narrows. The Narrows has some wicked currents through out, maxing out at about 9kts. We headed through a little early, just before absolute slack tide.The currents were still pretty strong. Here's the middle ground on entry followed by the swirls on the exit.

 
We visited our friends Don and Sandra in their new house in Nanainamo. Great view from the deck and kitchen. They treated us to some hot showers and good BBQ. Chris and Sandra have been friends for about 150 years, since their California hippy beach girls days.

The anchorage in Nanaimo is pretty packed now. Sunday is the start of the International Bath Tub races. Contestants come from all over the world to compete in racing a bath tub (yes, a real bath tub) glued to a small surfboard hull with an 8hp outboard stuck on the back. Should be interesting since the start is right behind the anchorage. Here's the anchorage from New Castle Island. We are somewhere about mid-pack.

 The seaplanes take off from the anchorage too.

The anchorage is created by a bite in New Castle Is sitting in front of Nanaimo. We circumnavigated New Castle Is. on the hiking trail. Here's Chris examining the world's largest Madrona tree on the west side of the island..

The night before the Bath Tub races the city puts on a great fireworks show. No cheaping out on the explosives.

Paul