Saturday, August 20, 2011

Twenty four miles of travel was all it took to get from Chemainus to Ganges on Salt Spring Island. We unloaded the dinghy and Trenton and I headed in to find a spot at the dock, with no luck whatsoever. It was farmer’s market weekend along with a street fair, making this location even more popular than usual. People were arriving in droves by boat and seaplanes. We dropped anchor in a bay just south of the docks and took to the streets. We spent most of the day walking around, had lunch and ice cream and headed back to the boat. We pulled anchor for the U.S. around 6:45, anticipating a bit of a late arrival into Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. GPS software showing our position and tides and currents:

Long exposure of our boat wake:

It was only a 32 mile trip, but we didn’t make it to the customs dock until 10:30. As usual we picked up the phone at the custom’s dock to talk to an agent and were surprised to hear they did not plan to clear us by phone this year. They told us to remain where we were and they would send a custom’s agent down from town for a formal inspection. Great…we’ve heard about these inspections; they can literally spend hours tearing apart everything on the boat. An agent arrived in about 30 minutes, had us all meet with him in person and display our passports and informed us we would not be searched. A huge sense of relief for us, considering it was already after 11:00 p.m. The agent told us we could stay tied to the custom’s dock for the night but had to be out before 8:00 a.m. the next morning when they open. He left the Sandollar and headed down to a boat tied just north of our location. He was knocking on the hull, shining his flashlight in the windows and asking the captain to come out. Apparently the captain of that particular boat decided to tie up to customs for the night and not declare customs until the next morning. Big mistake, he got his butt chewed.