Popularity is it's own curse

Like everyone else, we keep going to all the popular places mentioned in the guidebooks, only to find that is exactly where all the people are.

We're in Telegraph Harbour right now, and it being a Sunday evening, managed to find a spot to drop the hook in the crowd of permanent moorings and raft-ups. Some other people have managed to squeeze in later on, but they're mostly in spots I would never have dared to try.

I don't know why it is that I keep being surprised that we go to great places and find lots of people there. It's not that I mind the people so much, after all, I'm one of them. It's hard to complain that everyone else is ruining your trip, when you are just as culpable of ruining theirs. Actually, ruin is the wrong word. I'm just used to a little less crowding, a result, perhaps, of spending our last couple of seasons further off the beaten path, or when we were on the beaten path, taking it during times of year that no one else wanted to.

Anyway, it's another beautiful day here and I like our spot. I'm a little too pooped to row ashore right now, although it wasn't as long a day as I feel like it was... only took a few hours to sail here from Ganges, even with spotty winds. Speaking of crowded, the crowd making for the exits in Ganges this morning was a sight to behold. The weekend is clearly over! Anyway, I'm afraid I would likely be underwhelmed by whatever we might find ashore here at the moment, or perhaps just overly tempted to spend money on treats we don't really need, so I foresee an early evening.

We haven't even been gone a week yet but it seems longer. Tomorrow we'll head to Nanaimo for (hopefully) our first real port stop. We're low on water and need some ice and grocery products we couldn't otherwise bring in from the States. We're hoping that, it being a Monday, we'll be able to find moorage for a couple days at the Nanaimo Yacht Club. It's a bit further from town center, but it would have the virtue of being relatively inexpensive, and also of avoiding the zoo that the Harbour Authority inner floats become when the wind is blowing hard, as it invariably has done during our past visits.

If we can't get in there, we may have to anchor out in Mark's Bay and figure out a quicker provisioning stop somehow. We keep hearing that recreational boat traffic is on the wane, but it's hard to imagine more people out here than there already are, even considering it's the high season.