The following morning we share a home cooked breakfast of avocado smash and scrambled eggs before we say our farewells to Chris and drop him off at his pattern making class and Beth and Mike drive us on to the airport in Millie. Tomorrow the next chapter in their adventure begins with their honeymoon in New Zealand.

Our last morning afloat. Banana pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast before we haul up the anchor and sail back to Nanaimo Harbour. Once re-fuelled, Ian deftly sails Stargazer back to her berth and we disembark. Over the past week we have cobered 162 nautical miles and sailed all the way down through the Gulf Islands to the Canada / USA border and back again. It has been great. We board the ferry back to Horseshoe Bay, sitting in the front row of the loung...

Todays itinerary centred on the time at which we need to pass back through Dodd Narrows, slack water being at 1.46pm. It was hard to predict how long the journey would take but we could not afford to miss this timing as the nexy slack water would be after darkand therefore we would not get back to Nanaimo in time toreturn the yacht to the charterers. With that in mind we were awake early and Bill and Chris had the yacht motoring out of Booth Inlet by 7am. Admit...

Today we had to begin the serious business of our return journey north, back to Nanaimo Harbour. The day started very well with Mike bringing tea at 7am and watching the sunrise over Tortoise Islets up on deck. This was followed by an excellent breakfast of banana pancakes with blueberries, yoghurt and maple syrup in the sunshine! After breakfast, we changed into running kit and motored to the small dinghy dock in Princess Bay. We left various bags and jum...

This morning was one of the most memorable of our trip. We rose early when Mike delivered tea in bed at 7.30am but as it was so sunny, we all went up on deck to sit and drink tea in our pyjamas in the sunshine. The wooden pontoon next to our boat overlooked the ocean and the wood was old and smooth - a perfect setting for our yoga session, led by Chris (to the amusement of other mariners having breakfast nearby!) After that we made the most of the hot showers ...