We’ve had Touch of Gray for three years!

We left Tacoma after lunch on Wednesday (13th), anticipating some traffic. Not bad at all.

We arrived at Skyline, bumped into the Thompsons (Salish Nomad), and then went to their house for pizza. They passed along materials from the Squalicum Yacht Club: handbooks, membership cards, and burgee.

We didn’t have firm cruising plans but Nick had Sidney B.C. in his head so that’s where we are after departing Skyline around 8:30am yesterday morning.

Smooth sailing across Rosario Strait, a little bumpy along San Juan Channel, and then smooth again across Haro Strait. Sunny!

We were looking back through SYC recipocals for 2024 and noticed Capital City YC, Sidney, so decided to give it a go. This is our very first YC reciprocal moorage experience.

Conveniently, the nearby Van Isle Marina has an easily accessible customs dock. While Nick was doing that, I switched out burgees. (Yacht clubs want boats to fly their club’s insignia.)

The tide was quite low, and Nick very carefully navigated into the very narrow channel leading to the guest dock at CCYC. Maybe a couple of feet of water under the boat. Maybe.

This fellow was not as lucky:

This boat was refloated and safely at the dock just after dark.

After tying up, we headed up the dock to find the kiosk where we would officially check in. Fortunately, an old salt by the name of Jim was there and helped us learn the ropes. Signing in, paying, and retrieving a key fob.

We walked into Sidney (6 miles round trip), returning to the boat for a Spaghetti & meatball dinner.

This morning, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at:

Then I realized it was two people walking across the channel.

We plan to take the bikes into town today, with lunch and a distillery tasting on our “to do” list.