Thursday – Saturday, June 23-24-25, 2005: Friday Harbor to Ganges

Our cruise began at Friday Harbor with John & Kathy Youngblood aboard “Mystic Moon” and Don & Linda Sanborn aboard” Interlude” and our “Kasekuchen." We were all heading for Canadian customs in Bedwell. The day was warm and sunny and the trip took about an hour. We were only allowed two bottles of wine each to be brought into Canada. Kathy & John are Northern California wine collectors and paid duty on their two cases that they brought in, which was hefty but worth the price to have their fabulous wines.

We are officially in the Gulf Islands. We are headed for Ganges on Salt Spring Island where we will stay a couple of nights to wait for our fourth boat, “Koinonia” and Mark & Roseanne Tilden. The day has gotten windy and unfortunately the wind pushed us into the breakwater which had a nice wooden dock with big bolts protruding and our beautiful green hull got it’s first boo -boo. Nothing major, just scratches along the port side.

Ganges is a very pretty small town with some great shops, restaurants, and a hardware store to rival McGuckins in Boulder. We walked around town and shopped at the large grocery store and went to dinner at a great restaurant(Artist’s Bistro

The next morning we enjoyed the bustling Farmer’s Market where there was not as much produce as we expected, but great bakeries, cheeses, and lots of natural products. Bob had his horoscope done, and we both bought Funk hats, which are made on the island by Mr. Funk who raises sheep, spins the wool and creates the hats.

That night we had a progressive dinner aboard the boats, starting with Don & Linda who were anchored out—so we took our dinghies to their boat for appetizers, then back to dock to Mark & Roseanne’s for salad, onward to ours for Bob’s famous prosciutto, brie, and pesto sandwiches and lastly we topped it off at John & Kathy’s for ice cream and chocolates. John is a former Dreyer’s guy and ice cream is a food group for them (both very slim) .We all got to know each other and had a great time. Our departure in the morning had to be early because we needed to get through Active Pass during slack tide at 8 AM.

Linda Sanborn with one of Bob's famous prosciutto sandwiches

Very sad, we had to say good-bye to Don and Linda aboard "Interlude." Don needed to get to Nanaimo to get some business done by fax and internet and Linda needed to fly back home to Las Vegas. Don did some great photography of “Mystic Moon” and “Kasekuchen” cruising in the straights and set it to music. Wow it was awesome! Our time together has been memorable. We plan on meeting them in the fall and cruise together.