Haha! I know. Portland is landlocked so how could I sail there?
North of Victoria, BC, is Portland Island. On Sunday, John and I had the pleasure of sailing there from the Northern tip of the Saanich peninsula with our friends Susie and Peter. Susie is my friend Angela’s sister and Peter is her sailing and life partner and they live in Victoria. They have a C&C 37 sailboat named Cilantro and are experienced sailors who go off for several weeks at a time on their boat every summer to places with names like Desolation Sound.
We were lucky enough to have a beautiful, sunny day to enjoy a day sail in the Gulf Islands. For me, it brought back memories of my many sails with my first husband, Jamie, on our J/105. It’s something I’ve missed so I was happy to get out on the water in a sailboat for the first time in a while.
John has had little sailing experience beyond laser lessons when he was in his 20’s so we weren’t sure what to expect but he ended up loving it and, in what I’ve now come to recognize as a very male pattern, immediately started fantasizing about buying a boat and becoming a sailor. I was studiously non-reactive since this is not the first new idea he’s had in the last couple years as he stares down retirement.
Portland Island was presented to Princess Margaret (did you watch The Crown?) in 1958 to commemorate her visit to British Columbia. And I ask you, why aren’t people giving me islands when I visit? She kept it for 9 years and then gave it back to BC in 1967 to be preserved as a marine park, which is now known as Princess Margaret Marine Park (thanks Maggie!).
It’s an absolutely gorgeous, uninhabited island with a wonderful 6 km (yes, I’m now doing metric) walk that circumnavigates the island. It took us about 2 hours to sail, and motor, our way there. Then, we ate our picnic lunches and started our walk around the island. There are absolutely stunning beaches and views out to the gulf islands. Here’s Susie modeling happy beach attitude and our group of four managing a selfie.
And the water color was gorgeous. While not quite as rainbow as Kalamalka lake in Vernon, I thought this photo captures the green in the water.
We saw an odd sea creature on a rock that we decided was a large and very dead skate. It was about 5 feet long and had quite the mouth!
There are also mature forests to walk through. That’s John and Peter making their way through the trees.
Just as we got back to the boat, little tiny drops of water started to fall from the sky. But, as we who are from San Francisco like to say, it wasn’t rain… just heavy fog!
We motored back to the marina, washed down the boat, and headed back to Victoria. It was a perfect day.