You certainly wouldn’t call Saanich Peninsula hilly, undulating maybe, so it’s a great place to cycle. On the occasional day when the sun shines we hop on our bikes and explore the area. The north end of the peninsula is mostly forested; it is sparsely populated with expensive houses hidden in clearings at the end of long curving driveways. It’s a thirty minute ride across to the pretty bays other side of the headland or Horth Hill is just a ten minute ride away. It has numerous walking trails (but not cycling unfortunately) and there is a great view south eastwards over Sidney and the islands in the Juan de Fuca channel with snow covered mountains on the mainland in the distance.

Exploring Horth Hill on the Saanich Peninsula

On rainy days we potter around with the never ending list of boat chores. Having got stuck in the aft head a couple of times I decided it was time to repair the locks on our four internal doors. Tracking down parts for a thirty year old mortise latch was a bit of a mission. We found a great store called General Salvage; it was an Aladdin’s cave of salvaged hardware with more knobs and knockers than Nana Plaza but sadly nothing to fit our doors.  We spent two days scouring the suburbs of Victoria and after twelve buses and five hardware stores we finally found a suitable lock from which we could scavenge parts and make our toilet safe again.

Friends Anne and Mike from S/V Nimue

Life in Canoe Cove continues to be fairly sociable. We met an Aussie family who had their boat Midnight Sun in the boatyard for a couple of weeks but are now back at anchor in the bay. Another cruising couple Anne and Michael have just returned from UK and are living aboard their yacht Nimue while they get some work done. We had dinner together last night and it was great to hear their plans for the next couple of months are similar to ours so we will be sharing a few anchorages together.

Hopefully we will be floating again in the next couple of weeks!

Suzy