Silva Bay, Pender Harbour and Social Hour

After Wallace Island we headed through Gabriola pass to Silva Bay for a brief overnight stop before crossing the Strait of Georgia. We had an uneventful crossing. We spent the first few hours sailing in 6 knots of wind which built steadily to around 20 and then died as we turned up Malaspina Strait. We finished with a short motor into Pender Harbour where we stayed in Gerrans Bay. It was a good thing we got across the Strait when we did because we were pinned down in Pender for 4 nights with the winds howling SE and stray gusts coming into our very protected spot to twirl us around and send us careening to the end of our anchor chain.

Pender Harbour became a bit of a social event for us. We spent an afternoon trading stories with Ted (thanks Ted!) whom we met via the radio and who offered to drive us around in the rain. While having coffee, we ran into Mejan & Burt of SV Curtsy whom we met in Sidney years ago. They picked us up the next evening and took us to their boat for a fantastic dinner and conversation. We saw a side of Pender Harbour by car that we wouldn’t have seen if visiting only by boat which was nice. We much preferred the shop owners we met in the Madeira Park side of Pender to those at the gas/store at Hospital bay and would visit that side for stores if we came again.

We moved a short distance from Pender to Egmont to top up on fuel and water and prepare for the 30 nm trip to Malibu Rapids and the 3.5 nm past the rapids to Chatterbox Falls. We stayed at the public wharf in Egmont and hiked over to Skookumchuck rapids which are famous for a standing wave that surf kayakers travel from far to play with.