Seattle Trip Day 13

Thursday August 27 

Today we took on fuel (for the last time, yahoo!) and headed down the Strait of Georgia for a marina in Ganges.

Today we also had another time constraint in that in order to get to Ganges we had to go through one of 3 or 4 passes, and each of them had different times of slack tide. 

Another time constraint was that the staff at the marina in Ganges had told me that I needed to be there before 5:30 PM in order for someone to be there to assign us a slip for the night.

I selected Active Pass as my doorway to Ganges and it had a slack tide at 4:12 PM.  It is about 9 miles from there to the Saltspring Marina, and so it would be tight to make it before 5:30 PM. 

Here's a more detailed view of the last part of the route, through Active Pass, and on into Ganges.

 

My guide books also show me the direction and speed of the current in these narrows and passes and so I knew that even at peak current it was only 4 knots of current, running in the same direction that we were traveling, so my hope was to get there early and cheat a little and go through early.

Active Pass was indeed very active.  I did get there a little early and started on through.  The current was not a problem, but the 3 huge and fast running BC ferries going through in both directions at the same time were a bit of a challenge.

The passage was made even more confusing when one of the ferries which was behind me (I did not know at the time that it was there) called another boat, and I thought it was the ferry in front of me calling me.  Very confusing and a little scary.  These ferries are large and they go fast.

But we made it through just fine and also made it into Ganges before all the staff had left.

Entry into the Ganges area was unlike anything I had experienced before.  It is a very busy and very shallow area, with numerous boats anchored and on mooring buoys. 

There are a few marinas and several private docks.  But the real danger was all the crab pots set with very small and hard to see buoys.  Even though I was running in high alert mode, we still almost ran over a couple of them.

The Saltspring Marina was an OK place to spend the night.  There was restricted fresh water on the docks due to drought conditions in the area.  (Interestingly enough it poured rain over night!)

I was so busy dodging boats and watching for crab pot buoys on the way into and out of Ganges that I only took this one photo, but it was a good one.  We were treated to a stunning sunset from our slip in the SaltSpring Marina.

664 miles to this point.