A great passage, in completely calm seas and no winds.
After a few hours of keeping watch, I asked Di if she'd take over, which she was delighted to do. So I set off to finish the Portuguese bridge's polishing. Di and I had spent a few hours polishing the Port side a few days earlier and it was time to protect the beautiful shine with wax.
Popping my head up and down like a mole, I'd keep an eye on traffic when Di called me and plunge back down to "wax on / wax off"the rest of the time.
Like a few other places we crossed a tug towing a huge log float. From afar, log floats look a lot like some of the local rocks, and their very slow speed can be confusing.
Passage was long but uneventful. We saw orcas at a distance, just too far to really enjoy their show, but close enough to see some of the action.
By the time we got to Pender Harbour the Portuguese bridge was nice and shiny, and it was time to find a good anchorage and all go out for a walk. Pender Harbour is an interesting place, the locals even nickname "the Venice of the North", as when it was founded the only way around was using boats.
The harbour is a large bay with a small entry between rocks and is lined all around by small private and public marinas as well as beautiful houses. There are a few islands in the bay as well, so that creates various pathways between the various marinas, making for a decidedly sea based town.
We anchored just off Madeira Park Marina, a public marina with a public dinghy dock and not far away from easy grocery shopping. We didn't need anything this time around, as we'd filled up our provisions in Ladysmith only a few days earlier, but will definitely use it on the way back.
One surprising thing is that the waters in Pender Harbour are not as cold as further South. It seems that the cold current that follows the Coast from California all the way up here doesn't make it inside the inlet so the waters here are much warmer. My sounder indicated 72f (21c), which is still a lot too cold for this Texan/Floridian of 20 years. But I used the occasion to don my wet suit and go and check Enfin's zincs.
I found one of our zinc at the end of its natural life, and luckily enough the local marine shop at Madeira Park had a replacement zinc for me.
Pender Harbour is a natural start point to go and explore the local fjords, Jervis Inlet and so much more. So the next day we set off North. Distance to the famed Mailbu passage is about 40 miles straight up inshore, so a little long for slow Enfin, especially since we'd have to time our arrival right to go through the passage. We decided instead to aim for one of the few possible anchorages on the way.
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