Day 8: Perfect Day on Croker Island

Approach to Croker Island

When we left off our last post, we had just purchased a new "North Channel approved" anchor in Gore Bay, and were headed 14 miles northeast to Croker Island for the night. We had great weather and pretty calm seas for the trip, and loved seeing all the islands on the approach to Croker.

Ben scouting out a good place to anchor

Once we navigated around all the rocks and shallow spots, we were finally inside the harbor. But since it was sorta late in the day by then (4pm), most boats already had their spot at anchor and the anchorage was pretty filled up. We anchored Seapickle outside the harbor and Ben took the kayak out to check depths and find a good spot for us to anchor out for the night.

Anchored to shore

We were in luck that there were actually a few good spots left, so we choose one close to shore and tied our back anchor to shore and put two anchors out front, just to be safe.

Ben swimming out to check the front anchor

Given the scary night we had the last time we anchored out, when both front anchors came loose at night, Ben put on the goggles to swim out and see that the anchor was set good himself before he could relax.

Steve the water snake

While he swam out to check on the anchor I kept a look out for Steve the water snake, who was our first visitor soon after anchoring. Ben thought he would be safe since "snakes can't dive & swim underwater," but Steve soon proved that theory wrong. ;-)

Duck family visitors

Croker Island anchorage

Other side of the island

Seapickle anchored at Croker Island

Ben picking some tiny blueberries for pancakes

As soon as Ben decided we were safe and anchored securely, we hopped in the kayak to explore the island. It was beautiful climbing around the rocks, picking (tiny) blueberries, and just enjoying being in spot we had dreamed about for so many months leading up to this trip.

Favorite game of trip! (Dana wins every time)

Once we felt we had sufficiently explored our surroundings, we settled in for dinner (leftover sloppy joes) and a few games of Phase 10! This turned out to be a great game to take on our trip, especially since Dana won every time!

Sunset-watching spot

Once it was almost time for sunset, around 9pm, we kayaked over to a spot where we could watch the sunset over the Benjamin Islands. Overall, we were thrilled that we made it this far and that we didn't give up. The day we had today and this beautiful sunset made everything worth it, and we're even able to look back on the scary night a couple days before and laugh about it. This is what memories are made of after all, right? :-)

Sunset over Benjamin Islands

Sunset in our anchorage