With the boat repairs completed to our all important generator and windlass, we were up and underway at the crack of about 9:15 heading North. We cleared customs without incident at 11:15 at Bedwell, something that this season will not be taken for granted after the last horrible experience at Bedwell where every inch of the boat was searched by two agents for a full hour.
My goal this season is to spend as much time at anchor as possible, but already I’m second guessing that thought as the weather is looking a tad unstable. After the two hour run from Bedwell, I’m pulling into Ganges harbor. I’ve spent a sleepless night in Ganges at anchor before. I have some information that suggests Maronna bay may be a better anchorage, but I’ve never been in there before and my comfort level with unstable weather and an unknown anchorage gets rather thin. I decide that if we can find a spot on the public dock, we will stay safely there, but otherwise will not spend the money to stay at Ganges marina.
I spot an open aread of dock that I think we can fit into, though it will require me to back down the length of the fairway before I’ll know for sure. Luck is with us and we are able to squeeze in without incident. The flipside of course is that since I’m at the deep end of the fairway, we will have the least amount of traffic going by us and won’t have to jump to fending off other boats every few moments. It’s a nice spot and we are in Ganges harbor, a fantastic place to be on this planet! The nightly rate on the public dock is $41/night and they now have both power and water.
The public dock is one of the best places to provision in all of the Gulf Islands due to its proximity to a good sized and well stocked grocery store that is mere steps from the top of the ramp. We shopped there twice on our way back to the boat, careful to only fill up one of their mini carts each time and leaving us with only as many bags as we can easily carry.
Around 10pm I noted the winds starting to kick up, though strangely not from the South as I expected. I noted the flags which had been flying suddenly changed direction over about 30 minutes just after the sun went down. That’s the kind of thing that gets my attention and not long after they were flying just as strong as before but now from the North. I did not feel that we were in any danger whatsoever on the dock, but just the same I went and put on an extra bow line and a long outside stern line, while also adjusting our springs to give a nice long arc. This way the boat would be able to ride parallel to the dock but without any short lines to jerk upon. This way I could get a nice nights sleep without feeling like being on a roller coaster. An hour later the winds were up to a good pace and with satisfaction I notice a few other boats tending to their fenders and lines. It was not too long after that the real gusts started coming over the hill. They came in waves as they pushed over the mountainous hillside just to our North, spilling straight down into the marina with considerable force. Around midnight things were really roaring and I was glad that I was not anchored in the harbor. See, its not necessarily your own anchor that is going to give you the most grief. Most of the boats in the harbor had set their anchor to the south and now that the wind was roaring in the opposite direction, many of these anchors would pull out as they changed direction and some of them would not set again. Not all of the boats in the harbor have someone on them either. In the darkness we watched as a large steel vessel slowly dragged from one end of the harbor to the other. We could see other boats dragging as wel, watching their small white anchor lights slowly move across each other. This was not a night to be anchored downwind!
I helped three boats land sometime around midnight and they were all glad to spend the rest of the night at the public dock. In the morning the harbormaster told us that he had clocked 45 knot winds. He was concerned that the same forecast was supposed to repeat again the following night, so we stayed another day, but the winds never showed.