Tuesday-Wednesday, September 29-30, 2026

The rain and wind retreated during Monday night, and a cloud-filled sky greeted us on Tuesday morning when Walt’s alarm sounded at 7 am. By about 8:30, I had used a cloth and a squeegee to remove moisture from the cockpit enclosure windows, inside and out, and was setting up the little portable plastic fan that we use to circulate air around the front windscreen to keep the screen clear. Walt had moved Coracle around from the side of the boat to the stern and hoisted the outboard engine up to a point where I could grab it and attach it to its mount above one ot the two stern seats. Off we motored through Roscoe Bay toward the sandbar, since, again. there was minimal wind.

There was plenty of seawater over the bar, and we were soon out of the narrow entrance channel and heading southeast along the B.C. coast in the direction of Vancouver, our Saturday goal. Breezes came and went as we motored, the skies gradually brightened as the sun shooed the clouds away, and we were treated to lovely views of the coast on our port side and of a fine collection of islands of various shapes and sizes and manners of “decoration” with shrubs, trees, rocks, and driftwood on our starboard side. From time to time, small waves wearing lacy foam caps followed us, and rocked the boat gently from side to side.

Walt called several fuel docks as we traveled to see where our propane tanks might be refilled, with no success; the place that was most likely to sell propane provided him with a recorded message only and did not take voice messages, so he made three attempts to reach someone there and finally gave up. We did find a spot at the dock in Sturt Bay below the town of Van Anda on Texada Island for tonight, and one at the reciprocal dock at the Burrard Yacht Club in Vancouver for Saturday and Sunday nights; that means we can enjoy an early Canadian Thanksgiving visit with our son Martin and his partner Karen this weekend—cheers!

We arrived at the Sturt Bay docks at around 2 pm after a pleasant and easy five-hour journey, and had no difficulty docking there.

We spent a restful time in the sunny cockpit after checking in and paying for our night’s moorage, slept well for an hour before dinner, and engaged in our usual tasks throughout a quiet evening.

Our night in Sturt Bay was perfectly still, and shortly after 10 am on Wednesday morning, Walt and I were walking along the dock and up to the shore in the town of Van Anda, which was a mining town and is still active in limestone production. We had a good uphill walk to the excellent Texada Island Heritage Museum,

during which we were surprised by a young deer trotting across the road just ahead of us. At the museum, which adjoins a school, a we were given a very enjoyable and educational tour by a most pleasant and personable guide. She explained the many well-presented exhibits covering the history, famous people, work-life, home-life, etc., of the Van Anda area in particular and of Texada Island in general. An outstanding exhibit was of extremely-detailed handcrafted model ships produced by a local man over a lifetime of pains-taking labor. The large, densely-forested island of Texada (about 30 miles in length and an average of about 6 miles wide) has a population of only about 1200 permanent residents, but over the years since white colonization has produced an astounding amount of gold, silver, copper, iron, and limestone, and is beginning to welcome an increasing number of tourists. We learned a great deal of intriguing information about the island, its resources, and its history!

After our enjoyable sunshiny walk back to Sturt Bay,

Walt filled Braesail’s water tanks while I enjoyed a conversation with a Texada Boating Club volunteer who was working on the dock. By about 12:30 pm we were motoring on a bright, wind-free day toward Gerrans Bay in Pender Harbour on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, and by about 4 pm we were investigating John Henry’s Marina and Resort in one of Pender Harbour’s many smaller coves and bays to see where we’ll be going on Thursday to buy some diesel fuel and, we hope, some propane with which to refill our tanks. It didn’t take us long to find a good anchoring spot, and once we were settled, we enjoyed using the hot water produced by Braesail’s engine to take lovely hot showers before filling our evening with our usual round of activities.