the Gulf Islands

The Gulf Islands

Saturday, June 19, 2010TheCambrians

Morning in Ganges on Salt Spring Island

We left Bedwell Harbour yesterday morning and motored up to Ganges, a small town on Salt Spring Island, in search of veggies not grown in Mexico, the internet, and inspiration. What we found is a quick reminder that Ganges isn't one of our favourite places.
A lot of people like it here because of the town's many restaurants and shops, but it's too busy for us – both on land and the water. The anchorage is crowded with mooring balls and boats and, from dawn until dusk, float planes that take off and land regularly. The town itself is dirty with few places to walk Sally, the main destination being a park which seconds as a hang-out for the homeless during the day. I suppose the best way to sum up Ganges, for us, is depressing (if not depressed).

For the first time, our visit coincided with the Saturday's Farmer's Market, reputed to be one of the best in the area, so I took a look around while doing laundry. There were more than fifty stalls set up, but most of the vendors were hawking arts and crafts – wooden bowls, knitted hats, candles, soaps, jewelry, etc. – rather than produce which was disappointing. So I spent most of the afternoon in the laundromat reading an old copy of Cruising World and visiting with a local guy named Derek.

With the laundry done, we'll leave in the morning for Nanaimo timing our departure for slack tide at Dodd Narrows, one of the many saltwater rapids along the south coast of British Columbia, to take care of some business and cross the Strait of Georgia.

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