Wednesday, July 25: Sucia Island to Medicine Beach, North Pender Island, Canada

We woke to a sunny morning today, the first time!  Finally!  And the forecast is for continuing nice weather.  Things are looking up.
A short report today.  We crossed over into Canada and are now in the Canadian Gulf Islands.  Geologically, these islands were formed at the same time as the San Juans, but they always appear different to us in both appearance and character.  They’re not nearly as populated as the San Juans, and the people who do live here are very nice, low key, rural living folks.  Over the last decades the San Juans’ population has grown considerably, and with that comes a completely different attitude – more like the suburbs of a big city.  We really like the Gulf Islands.

We cleared customs at the port of Bedwell Harbor, on South Pender Island.  A quick, routine stop.  About one half hour later, we were putting down the anchor at Medicine Beach, North Pender Island.  These two islands used to be one, connected by a thin strip of land, but in 1903 they cut a canal through the strip so boats could pass and built a bridge over the canal so cars could too.  We stayed at Medicine Beach for the first time last year and liked it.  It’s uncrowded and peaceful.  Here’s what it looks like from shore, we were the lone power boat among three sailboats::


We took a walk up the hill and found that the small grocery store had gone out of business due to family problems, too bad.  The adjacent liquor store was still open, however, and some cold beer sounded pretty good on what was turning into a hot day.

That’s about it.  We lounged around in the sun the rest of the afternoon, commenting several times on how good it felt!

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