For our next destination we chose Mill Bay on Saanich Inlet. We got there and the marina was bran new and the floats were beautiful. We went up to sign in and asked about the showers. Well would you believe that the marina was so new there were no showers, no restrooms (oops I mean washrooms, we are in Canada). Well we still had enough daylight left to pick an alternate. Cowichan Bay was only about eight miles further on and we had never stayed there before.

We arrived about four in the afternoon and chose a clear area in front of the marina to drop our anchor. We sent a shore party ahead to the marina to scope out the showers again and this trip was successful. Showers are top priority in the morning and we can tie up long enough to shower and shop.
We had a nice supper of chili dogs and played some cribbage. After supper the wind came up and was blowing about 15 miles an hour. I was about to turn in at ten and discovered that the neighboring boats had moved their mooring buoys up near our stern. There certainly couldn’t have been any fault of our anchoring technique. Anyway the only course open to us was to re-position our anchor. On come the running lights and we started the engine. We weighed the anchor, (about 50 pounds or 20 kilos, again this is Canada). We placed the anchor to our exacting specifications and put out almost all of the chain. This time the neighboring boats stayed put, but the spell of invincibility was broken and Glen and I got up periodically through most of the night to check things out. The wind dropped about 2 am and we slept much easier.
Sunday morning we pulled in about 30 meters of chain and set off for the marina floats. Glen slipped the Skookumchuck into a vacant spot about 5 feet longer that the 40 feet length of the boat. Good job!
After showers and shopping we got underway for Birdseye Cove on Maple Bay. A second sailboat started out almost at the same time. The race was on. We matched tacks all the way across Cowichan Bay. Skookumchuck had a sizable lead when we turned into Samsung Narrows and managed to hold onto the lead through the fickle winds of the narrows and into Maple Bay.
Glen once again did a champion job of placing the Skookumchuck into a slip and we are all snuggled in for the night. We have two more days of adventure ahead of us, so stay tuned.
The Crew of the Skookumchuck