We spent two cold, windy, rainy days in Nanaimo, waiting for the winds to die down so we could cross the Straight of Georgia.  We were finally able to leave yesterday morning, and had a great crossing.  We came to our SYC outstation on Cortes Island, Desolation Sound, to pick up our prawn traps that we had lost last summer.  A fellow boater found them drifting, called our cell number that was on the floats, and he took them to Cortes Bay where our outstation manager stored them for the winter.  Pretty nice! 
As you can see from the picture, not many boats here at this time of year.  It will be packed by summer.  We were thrilled to see the new Pea Patch at the outstation that managers Marvin and Heather have constructed,  It is awesome!  We harvested some fresh herbs to take with us.
The sun is finally out today, and we are heading to Blind Channer for the night, then hopefully up Johnstone Straight tomorrow and on to the Broughton Islands.  Our next big water to cross is Queen Charlotte Straight.

Friday, May 24th:  We arrived at our SYC outstation at Henry Island late yesterday.  We weren't sure we were going to make it!  What a fiasco trying to get Casey (our parrot)'s "passport" signed and returned by US Fish & Wildlife!  They have a new superintendent at the SeaTac office, and he was not very cooperative.  We normally just mail the forms to that office, they sign Casey out of the US, and we are on our way.  This guy started out saying he wanted to inspect Casey first.  That would have meant a whole day for me to take him down to SeaTac and back, and I finally persuaded him to waive the inspection.  We were now getting short on time, and he promised to sign and return the forms as soon as he received them.  Well, he didn't.  We should have had them back in the mail early in the week, and when we didn't have them by Wednesday, I called, and he told me he had mailed them on Tuesday.  We were planning to leave Thursday morning, so when they weren't in the mail Wednesday, all we could do was wait for our mail delivery on Thursday, about noon.  But wait!  About 11:00 I remembered I had put a hold on our mail, beginning that day.  So we drove down the the post office and I picked up that day's mail.  No documents!!  So now what?  We decided we would go ahead and head for Henry Island, where the Pellegrino's were planning a Bon Voyage dinner for us.  We would leave a car at the ferry terminal, then on Saturday, one of us would take the bus from Roche Harbor to Friday Harbor, take the ferry to Anacortes, and drive to the post office to pick up (hopefully) the documenta.  But we weren't sure how late the post office would be open, so we drove back to the post office and changed the hold-mail date to next Tuesday, so we could pick the mail up at our house. 
When we got back to our house, there was an envelope half-under our doormat.  It was a FedEx envelope, from US Fish & Wildlife - Casey's "passport" signed and stamped!  The supt had not told the truth - it wasn't mailed until Wednesday!  If FedEx had delivered it a few hours later, we would never have known it was there!
What relief!  We finally could be on our way.  We arrived at Henry Island just in time for a great evening hosted by Jim and Darlene, starting with a champagne toast and wishes for a safe and happy trip.  We are blessed to have such good friends!
Tomorrow we leave on our journey.  We will clear customs in Sidney and have Casey's passport stamped in to Canada, then will head to Oven's Island near Ladysmith, in the gulf islands.  Weather permitting, we will cross the Strait of Georgia the next morning and head for Cortes Island.