Flotilla meet up – Montague Harbour

I cannot believe how fast that time has flown! Are we ready? Only time will tell.

Our stern thruster has given up the ghost. We only use them when docking, and do not plan on doing much of that this trip. There should be lots of hands to help wherever we go. Jim is diagnosing the problem. Maybe our shore mama, Sophie, can bring us the necessary part when she flies into Wrangell on July 11th. (I suppose I should tell her she is our shore mama right now – she already has some Amazon packages headed her way)

We had a FANTASTIC time at the rendezvous. 56 boats – 120 people. A quick trip home – smooched the boys and flew back. What dummy scheduled our flight to arrive around 10:30 pm? We were up and at ’em bright and early the next morning – laundry, shopping, last-minute chores and we were pulling out of Van Isle Marina promptly at 11 am.

Once out of the breakwater, boy was it spicy until we turned north, then we were headed with the wind and the current and it was a pretty nice cruise, albeit windy and cold. We were glad to get to Montague and already know the lay of the land.

I bought a stove-top pressure cooker as an instant pot is not practical unless we are in a marina. We gave it a test run last night – Honey Mustard Pork Chops with potatoes and cabbage. The recipe was a keeper.

I’m glad we have the extra time to relax before everyone arrives. We are meeting at 1615 at the dock. The Hummingbird is sending a pub bus to pick us up. They usually don’t start doing that until July but they are going to dust it off for us.

Two boats had to drop out for medical issues and (not surprising) – one other boat is having mechanical issues and will catch up with us down the road. We are at 7 boats including our trusty leader.

Tomorrow we have our first “gate” of the trip – Dodds Narrows. We need to arrive about slack tide which will be 1353. It’s 3 hours to Dodds from here, so we won’t have to leave very early. Both times we transited the Strait of Georgia we avoided Dodds by using Gabriola. We hope the traffic is light!

Time to get cracking! I am watching the flotilla on Marine Traffic and they have already crossed the border.

Talk Soon.