If that last entry seemed to end a little abruptly, this is why.
I was sitting up in the cockpit, typing merrily away and enjoying the quiet morning in the harbour, when suddenly a Coast Guard Zodiac came screaming up the channel nearby (we're anchored near one of the entrance markers). Since it's nominally a 5 knot limit in the channel, I figured something was up, so I flipped on the radio and turned to one of the common working channels the Coasties use up here. Then the Zodiac turned into the harbour, and I started looking around for trouble nearby... and saw that some time in the night, the powerboat anchored two or three slots down had capsized.
There wasn't really much to be done at that point so we just spectated. In between the Coasties, other cruisers out in their dinghies offering to help, and random kayakers in the vicinity, it was quite a circus for a while. I caught some of the conversation on the radio between the Coast Guard and the sailor who had first noticed it and called it in; he said he'd tapped on the hull and heard no reply, and dove on the bow enough to tell that the forward hatch was open. You would think if someone had been inside and made it out, though, that they would have called in themselves, or most likely would have ended up first at another nearby boat looking for help and/or refuge.
The Coasties seemed a little befuddled, and so would I have been... there isn't really much of an emergency, nor a significant hazard, and what are four guys in a Zodiac going to do about an upside down boat? They tapped on the hull themselves, walked around on it a bit, then headed over to a nearby public dock for some unknown reason before heading back to their station. We were surprised; in the US, at least, it seems likely they would have had a dive team out to check for bodies or survivors as long as there was any question at all. And although the boat may have been left for commercial salvage rather than wasting government employee time babysitting it, I'm pretty sure that a spill boom or something would have been put up around it to contain any fuel leaks and prevent other unwary boaters from running into it.
It's possible that there were some communications that resolved the matter that didn't come across on the channel we were monitoring. That could have explained the stop over at the marina, if perhaps the owners were ashore already and had been located. We're hoping that they were off the boat at least when it happened, although we don't envy them the weeks ahead (which we're already painfully familiar with ourselves).
So, apart from that things are pretty nice here. We spent most of the day today on Newcastle Island Park, which island is the closest landmass to us (about 30 yards, although it seems further when rowing). It's a very interesting place, home to a sandstone quarry, First Nations (Indian, that is) villages, a coal mine, an old amusement park, and vast fish salteries at various points in history. Remnants of each of these are scattered about the place, all connected with some very fine walking trails which are only marginally impeded by snakes.
There are also supposedly a large colony of albino raccoons, but we only saw the regular kind. And a deer. And many, many geese.
We're enjoying it so much here that we are probably going to stay for an extra day (total of three; we'd already planned on one to see the sights, one to fix the boat... the usual ratio, it seems). After that, we'll probably head south to Victoria and Butchart Gardens.
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