We said goodbye to the Crown Islets and worked our way through the other Flat Top Islands, heading northwest around Gabriola. This part of the trip hinged on good weather because we were out on the relatively-exposed Straight of Georgia. The weather held and it was bright and sunny for most of the day. There were more seals and sea lions that we saw near a lighthouse. I also tried to call Canadian Public Health and some company called “Purloator” about picking up my Covid test, but didn’t really learn much. I turned my phone to airplane mode for most of the day.
The cliffs here had dark staining that sometimes looked like faces to me.
The main paddling challenge today was that Vincent’s boat seemed to be sinking. It had started earlier, but after he’d paddle for a little while, his boat would get lower and lower, and when we would stop we’d have to pump out the rear hatch.
I backed into this slot around a corner so I could hide and surprise Alice and Diana when they came around, but some boat wake interrupted my cunning plan.
We reached our campground in Descanso Bay, across from Nanaimo, and, according to our original plan, this would be as far north as we would go. Am I hinting enough that things won’t go to plan? There were two potential beaches to land at. One with a nice beach but a bit of a carry to get to the campsites, and one right next to our campsites, that was full of sinking mud and broken, sharp, oyster shells. I noped out of the oyster-beach and was later joined by everyone else when the tide started to go out and threatened to leave everyone’s boat trapped in the mud. We saw otters here and a pileated woodpecker.
That evening we walked about a mile to town and went to a very fancy pizza restaurant & I bought a mojito because I’m fancy. These wild turkeys were standing in the parking lot when we got out.
