We left Gowlland Harbour yesterday morning around 7:30am and had a nice push out past Cape Mudge (and the gazillion little fishing boats, holy moly were there a lot of boats…wish I’d have taken a photo, but was too distracted by going 11 kts at 100rpm lower than usual).
Most of our cruise down the Strait was a little bumpy (which we were not used to after our last several days of FLAT) due to wind over current, but not terrible.
We thought we might pop into Comox harbour again, but when Missie called in the morning they said they were full up (yesterday was Labor Day in Canada too, only they spell it Labour Day, with a U). 🙂
So instead, after we crossed the Comox Bar, we turned left and anchored out at at Sandy Island, which is a really great spot in settled weather. It was still a little crowded with beachgoers earlier, but got pretty quiet by late afternoon. Kevin and I went for a walk on the beach to stretch our legs and enjoy the sunny summer day.
We walked along the western shore, all the way to the end of the spit and back.
There were so many whole sand dollars on the beach here…all sizes (only sand 73 cent pieces back home).
We checked for aurora (the forecast was good for last night and tonight) but saw only stars (which were pretty, but expected). Maybe tonight.
Here’s a photo of Melissa Lynn with the sun setting behind her:
This morning when we were pulling our anchors, this was our view of the sun coming up through the marine layer. It wasn’t this dark, but the exposure made it perfectly dramatic, don’t you think?
Here’s more like what it really looked like (probably a bit of wildfire smoke in there I would think).
And now it’s gone.
On toward Nanaimo today!