Bedwell Harbour to Irish Bay, 7 miles, 1 hour

Today the plan is  to take the dinghy from South Pender Island to North Pender Island . I stayed back because I have strained my back, but Monica, Fred, Heather and Merlin headed over to Port Browning. They docked the dinghy and walked about half a mile up to a little area of shops. Fred & I love this little café that makes fresh scones. So they headed there. They only had 2 scones left, so Heather ordered them up for Fred & I so no one else could snag them. Heather bought a huge chocolate mint cookie and a lemon crinkle cookie to share later. They  headed back to the boat, and swung by the Poet’s Cove dock one more time because Heather forgot to take a picture of the boat ‘Dock Holiday’, which we thought was a cute play on words. We pulled anchor at 1:00 pm to head to Irish Bay on Samuel Island. We saw a whale watching boat zip by, so we were hoping to see if they had any luck finding orca.  No luck.  Once we got to Irish Bay, we had some egg salad sandwiches and baby carrots while looking at the view. We took the dinghy to the next bay over, Winter Cove. We cruised by some rock islands and maybe 30+ seals sunning themselves. They were all watching us as we were watching them. As we got close, but not too close, they started diving in the water. Then it was a bunch of seal heads bobbing around J On one side of this cove was Samuel Island, which was private property. On the other side of the cove was Saturna Island which is a marine preserve. So we docked the dinghy and went for a short .5 km walk to the point between the two islands. It was a really pretty view of the water rushing between the 2 islands, and we passed many Canada geese, marsh land and pretty forest on the way. After a quick stop at an outhouse, we headed back to the boat.  We started watching a club of about 9 sailboats all coming in to anchor at Winter Cove.  I made pork chops, mashed potatoes and asparagus for dinner. We decided to watch ‘High Road to China” which Heather brought for us to watch (love that movie) after dinner. The sunset was very pretty tonight as the sky was covered half with clouds, so of course Heather had to get up every few minutes to take pictures.