Pender Island Part 2: Are We Ever Leaving?

May 16, 2023

Well, look at that. We're still on Pender Island! We've spent the last week enjoying the peace and quiet of Medicine Beach. Paddleboarding, "working," doing a couple of projects and touring around the island have taken up most of our time. But it's time to move on; by moving on, we're returning to Poets Cove. We're too cheap for Poets and will stay at the anchorage next door - Beaumont Marine Park.

The shoreline at the marine doesn’t dissapoint.

Beaumont Marine Park is part of the larger Gulf Islands National Park Reserve. There are a handful of morning balls as well as space to anchor. There's a beach for landing the dinghies (or paddleboards) and some hiking trails. There's one that goes to the top of the "mountain" with some nice views of the surrounding waters and islands.

We were here a couple of days early for the long weekend and the BCA Rendezvous, so we had our pick of the empty mooring field. We grabbed one of the moorings close to the cliff walls. I felt like I could reach out and touch the wall, but it was more like 100 feet from the boat.

Slowly over the next day, our friends started showing up. By the time the weekend rolled around, the anchorage was packed with well over 50 boats crammed in. This caused a bit of a panic when three big sailboats rafted together started dragging and ping-ponging off other boats. Ultimately it was fine...except for the poor boat that they hit.

We came for the Rendezvous and to receive our "Leavers Package." This package is given to each boat leaving BC to go cruising. I’ve been patiently (not) waiting for the past year to get our package. We worked hard prepping the boat, learning and sailing over the last year. But getting the package and acknowledgement from the BCA that we’re leaving makes it feel official that we’re cruisers. We got ours, along with a couple of others. It was also a nice chance to see people we hadn't seen since last summer and say goodbye and thanks to those who helped us get to the point where we were ready to leave.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for a year!

All the things in our package.

It's official. We've got our package, and we're cruising. Kind of. We still have a couple of weeks to finish up at work before we're full-time cruisers.

Ok. Finally, we're leaving Pender Island. We've got to make our way back to Vancouver