For boaters, Nanaimo is known as a stopping-off point and a good place for provisioning, but a visit to the Vancouver Island city wouldn’t be complete without sampling some of the delectable dessert bars it’s known for. The Nanaimo bar has achieved almost cult-like status among Nanaimoans, who mobilized to have it elected Canada’s favorite [...]

We walked into our townhouse last night and looked around, as if seeing it for the first time. It looked huge. “It seems too big,” Marty said. “It feels decadent.” By American standards, our place — around 1,300 square feet — is a small home, hardly decadent (though it could reasonably be argued that having both a [...]

I rolled out of my bunk, looked at the low, dark clouds outside, and then checked the weather forecast again. I had gone to sleep the previous night thinking of the strong wind warning the Canadian weather office had issued for the greater San Juans and Gulf Islands area.  Now they were calling for gale-force [...]

We were getting tired. The wind was blowing more than 20 knots out of the southeast, right in line with our intended destination. The white-capped seas were square and steep. We crashed into oncoming waves every few seconds. The boat was heeled over, and each carelessly stowed item seemed to make itself known with a [...]

I didn’t know exactly what to expect as we rounded the point and entered Snug Cove. But after two days in the bustle of Vancouver’s Coal Harbour, we were looking for someplace quiet and relaxing.   The cruising guides agreed that this was a must stop for us on our quick tour of Howe Sound. But [...]

Sitting in the cockpit the other day, looking across Coal Harbour at the glittering Vancouver skyline, all glass and sharp angles, the city I’d grown up knowing seemed at once familiar and foreign. Arriving by boat, of course, provides a much different perspective on a place known previously only by land. Neither Marty nor I [...]

There’s one important thing to remember if you’re planning a cruise in the South Sound — bring food. There are very few restaurants or pubs in the small communities of South Sound. And unless you’re stopping in Olympia or Gig Harbor, which have grocery stores within walking distance of marinas (and in Olympia, a spectacular farmers market), [...]