Alas my furiends, after a 6 hour cruise on fairly calm waters, we glided into Garden Bay Marina in Pender Harbour for the last 2 days of our vacation. A few of our PMPSS humans were there to greet us as I guided Minstrel into her slip assignment. Pender Harbour includes the small villages of Madeira Park, Garden Bay, Irvine’s Landing, and Kleindale. Garden Bay and few other surrounding areas were named after a Mr. Garden, a government surveyor with either a big ego or little imagination who was assigned to mapping and naming the area. Until very recently, most travel was on the waterways rather than the twisting roads, giving the area its nick name “Venice of the North.”
Garden Bay is also the location of my dad’s family cabin where he spent many childhood summers boating and fishing. He comes from a long line of fishermen and even became a commercial fisherman himself for awhile in his younger years although he’s a heavy duty mechanic now. Even mom has a couple of friends from her school days that moved up here several years back, got themselves a power boat just last year, and are now part of the Pender Harbour Power & Sail Squadron (PHPSS). I met them when I was just a kitten, so it was really nice to see them again when they came down for a visit. They have a black cat named Sailor and they took him on his first boat cruise this summer. They said he seemed comfortable on the boat, but will need to go out a few more times to find out for sure. I was hoping to see him again too but he was off tending their garden and couldn’t make it. Maybe we can cruise together next year.
Dad tried his luck fishing again, but unfortunately no luck this time. However, mom did find me two more geocaches. One was located just behind the marina’s pub conveniently located at the top of the ramp behind our boat, and the other was about a km away at the convenience store named John Henry’s. That’s makes 8 geocaches we found on this cruise, 6 fish and about 600 prawns. I’d meow that was pretty pawsome overall. =^,,^=
Pawcific Purrsea 
A most successful cruise so far – all those “finds” including some delicious ones (!!). I bet you wish the vacation was longer but what a grand time you’ve all had!!
Hugs, Sammy
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Man, Purrsea you are having a great time. Too bad its not longer…guess your pawrents feel the same way. Mom has been to Pender Island a few times and loves the souvenir shopping and the scenery, of course. Have fun my friend.
Sloppy licks,
Shoko
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We haven’t been to Pender Island yet which is in the Gulf Islands, but hopefully we will one day. Pender Harbour is part of the Sunshine Coast mainland north of Sechelt. Have a pawsome day! =^,,^=
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It’s hard to believe it’s been 19 days already since we left and are back again…why isn’t there a “paws” button in life?!
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