Bedwell harbor to Dogfish Bay

I was awake at 5 this morning, woken by a rather insistently full bladder, but then couldn't get back to sleep.  I knew this was a "sleep in" day with a late start, but I just couldn't, so I lay in my berth and read the last of the book.  Maybe I dozed too, but if I did, I was unaware of it.  Then, around 1/4 to 7, I grabbed my computer and wandered up on deck to do some writing.  Not long after Tina was up and eventually Rod.

The morning was quite breezy and we were all wearing light, but warmer, clothing as we pulled up anchor.  This one came up quite clean, as opposed to yesterday where I felt we were actually dredging up half the bottom mud and it took a boathook to dislodge some of it and send it back to the green depths.

The reason for the (planned!) late start was to take advantage of favourable currents.  We wouldn't be able to get through Gabriola passage until early evening anyway, so there was no real reason to rush.  In fact we throttled down and let the current furnish 1 to 2 knots of our speed over ground.  Despite that and a brief stop to view a rookery, we were still going to arrive almost an hour early.  More throttling down plus a nap by the captain, after he turned the watch over to the crew, two idling rectangles to burn off more time, and we went into the passage about 20 minutes early.

The passage was mostly uneventful, though eddy currents did push us around a bit, with our nose pointing almost 20 degrees off our direction of travel at one point.

Arriving at our destination, we settled the boat.  The sun was high and warm (we had shed our warmer clothes a long time ago) and so there was every reason to do my ritual plunge into wherever we anchored.  I don't know if I'm acclimating to the water or its getting warmer, but this time rather than calling upon a deity, I confined my commentary to a mild, "Oh my."

Dinner was left overs from the last few nights - walnut chicken, thai basil rice with chicken, and beef stew, clearing out some room in the refrigerator for laying in more supplies at our next stop, Nanaimo.

The rest of the evening was occupied with reading, writing, a few boat repairs such as re-affixing one of the navigation lights to its mount and changing out the zip tie on the anchor shackle as a just in case.  So now we're sitting in a quit anchorage, our last with the three person crew.  Tomorrow is another late start to take advantage of currents as we motor around to Nanaimo to debark Tina, lay in some more supplies, and then it's just Rod and me for the rest of the trip.