Becoming Legal

We arrived in Nanaimo at about 10am this morning and found wind blowing onto the customs dock. Tying up would be easy, but I was concerned about our ability to get off again. So we called the same number we tried a few days ago. This time we told them we were at the dock, which we were, just not tied up.
In any case they gave us our clearance and we're on our way north again.

The diversion gave Opus a chance to refuel, which they were able to do on the leeward side of the same dock.

The sea state at the south end of the Georgia Strait was better than it often is. North of Nanaimo in the lee of all the small islands it is quite comfortable - sunny and relatively smooth.

The radio has been bristling with chatter this morning of a boat taking on water and preparing to abandon ship. The boat is east of us, so the coast guard rescue boat came flying by us a few minutes ago.

We did some sailing today. We entered Nanaimo Harbour under sail, crossed the Strait under sail. Unfortunately that was about it. Winds follow the channel. Today they were from the north, so on the nose most of the day.

The wind eventually died down this evening, so it gave us a chance to raft up to Opus for the first time. It turned into a lovely, clear, warm, social evening. Matt and I washed our hair on the back deck, then whipped up dinner, a creamy herbed salmon on rice concoction that came from… somewhere. The newspaper? I forget. The Opus crew: Kevin, Kay, and Sam, brought their dinner to Quijote's cockpit, to join us for dinner. Quijote provided the Apple pie for dessert. It was nice to share company with fresh faces for a change.

Now the sky is lit up with an orange glow and it's time to call it a day.