True to the forecast, the barometer reached a high of 1031 MB Tuesday afternoon before beginning its decent and bringing in the next round of bad weather, including southeasterly winds, early Wednesday morning. Mark Bay is NOT an ideal anchorage for these conditions and by 8 o'clock we were bouncing around and continued to do so in what turned out to be one of the nastiest days of the season – it was cold, windy and raining thick droplets making it feel more like winter than fall.
Things calmed down as the afternoon turned into evening and, by yesterday morning, it was settled again and showing signs of autumn. Late season cruising is a challenge and warm, sunny days like Thursday are a true gift and go a long way to rejuvenate a tired sailor. But it'll be short-lived. There's a front, a ridge and a front forecasted to move through the area over the next forty-eight hours. At this point we know the season's over and have no plans to linger in the Gulf Island, so we moved directly down to Montague Harbour Marine Park on Galliano Island, passing several beautiful and unexplored anchorages along the way, to hide out while next round of weather moves through the area.
This isn't our first trip to Montague. We were here last year waiting out a late-season storm as well, but this time we opted to anchor in the northern side of the park where there's better protection from southeasterlies and we have a spectacular view of the white-shelled midden beach that was created thousands of years ago by the First Nations who made Galliano their home. It was a good decision. Not because the weather was bad – if it was, we surely didn't feel the effects of it – but because it was a magical night. One warm enough to sit on the deck to enjoy the muted colours of a winter-like sunset and the complete solitude of this beautiful anchorage after several weeks of “city-life” in Vancouver and Nanaimo, surely the only way to spend the final days of what turned out to be our best cruising season so far.
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