Saturday, July 28: Selby Cove to Montague Harbour, Galiano Island

Before I start on today’s entry, I realized that I forgot to point out something from a few days ago, when we stayed our first night in Canada.  It’s something we’ve only seen on the Pender Islands that exemplifies one of the big differences between the Gulf Islands and the San Juans.

While out for a walk, we came across this sign:

If you can’t read it, it’s for a “car stop,” sort of like a designated hitchhiking zone.  People wait there for a ride, and drivers can pick them up or not.  The rules are spelled out on the sign:  either person can turn the other down, the ride is free, etc.  There’s even a map of the islands showing where the other official car stops are.  We thought it was pretty cool.

Now on to today’s adventure:  nothing much happened.  The weather continues to cooperate and feels much warmer than the mid-60’s that were forecast.  We didn’t feel like going too far today, rather we wanted to go somewhere in an hour or two where we could just relax in the sun.  Montague Harbour, on Galiano Island, fit the bill.

Before we got underway, we dinghied ashore and explored a small peninsula that would be an island in a few hours when the tide came up.  The main part of Prevost Island is on the left and the future island is on the right; the shells I’m standing are what will become the seafloor. 

In one of the trees off to the left, a bald eagle was perched up high looking for breakfast:

We’ve been to Montague many times – I even went there once in Junior High as part of a YMCA Camp Orkila session.  It’s a big, protected bay, probably the biggest we’ve stayed at so far, and it’s all a provincial park including campsites on the shore. 

We mainly wanted to be lazy, as I said, but we did go ashore and hike some of the trails that make up the park.  We found an isolated shell beach and some clever artwork:

As boring as it sounds, we went back to the boat for the afternoon to finish a couple of books, work on our tans, and enjoy the scenery.