This summer, we discovered a little island on the sunshine coast known as Thormanby Island. The island is actually technically two islands connected by a sand spit. The southern island also contains a fairly large provincial park, which was what drew us to it in the first place. Ironically enough though, we didn't get a chance to visit the park as it was harder to access than we had hoped. We had planned to potentially anchor outside of the park and dinghy in, but wind directions weren't allowing for that and there was no access from the side of the island that we anchored on. So, I guess we have to make a trip back later ;)
Anyway, let me tell you about what we DID have a chance to do!
So we sailed over from Nanoose, which is pretty much a straight shot east. This was particularly great because the winds through the Georgia Strait usually blow SSE or NNW and that day they were blowing SSE, allowing us to be on a beam reach for almost the entire journey into the bay. Once we reached Buchaneer Bay, the main bay on the island, we quickly realized that anchoring in the main bay was going to be less than ideal. Luckily there was a smaller bay off the the east side of Buchaneer which was dead calm, and when we arrived, didn't have any other boats in it. We anchored up there for two nights.
While in Buchaneer Bay, we dinghied over to the park in between the two islands to explore, dinghied over to Smuggler's Cove to check it out when the winds were quieter and found an island covered in seals at low tide! All in all this was a fantastic place to spend a couple of days. It was beautiful, not particularly busy, and provided a nice, calm anchorage.
Check out the video below if you are interested in seeing more of this adventure!
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