Pender Island

Just what the Doctor ordered - a long weekend at Pender Island. I have my groove back.

We slept in, socialized, cooked elaborate meals, played 18 holes of disque golf at a really cool free course in the woods and roasted franks over our friends' campfire. We had a sunny motor to Pender and a lovely sail (beating down Haro) for 75% of the way back. For folks on a schedule, with a specific destination, this is as good as it gets. The only way to sail a lot is to not make timing or locational plans or at most make location goals and wait for the right wind direction.

Pender Island is special for us because we married there. In fact, on Friday as we motored through the sun into Bedwell Harbor, we passed our very own grassy knoll:



Which looked like this during the ceremony from up top:





Speaking of weather differences, the light house on Trial Island was much sunnier than the last time you saw it on this blog.



A common sight in the Strait of Juan de Fuca:



And a couple of shots of the lighthouse on Stewart Island. Light houses are just cool.





Bedwell Harbor is an easy anchorage. Huge, mostly 40 foot or shallower, good mud bottom. There is a fancy schmancy resort and other stores in walking distance depending on where you anchor. The kayaking around Skull Islet is good although we didn't do any this time and we've yet to do any hiking in the marine park. It is a bit bigger and more populated than we generally prefer but we end up there regularly because it was convenient from Sidney, has great holding in windy conditions, and we get to visit our ceremony location. Poet's Cove resort will let you pay something like $10 to use the larger on-the-water pool and showers which  we found a little overrated. The pub at Poet's Cove is a great place to have a beer and you can dinghy to their docks to get to it.