Forty-Five Ranger Tugs Gather at Ganges, British Columbia

Ganges Harbor, on Saltspring Island, is a short 10-mile run from Montague Harbor and the gathering point for the boaters participating in the Ranger Tugs 2013 Desolation Sound Cruise. We left early for Ganges, with yet another blue-skied day with just a light breeze and fairly calm waters.

We looked forward to meeting up with about 45 Ranger Tugs and their owners for five days of socializing, pot lucks, and finally taking three days to cruise together up to Desolation Sound, and this was just the Ranger Tug boats, we would meet up with a group of Cutwater’s (about another ten or fifteen) in Nanaimo for the cruise to Comox.

We met folks from Illinois, Georgia, Texas, California, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon with most being from Washington and Canada’s British Columbia, even Ganges.

We wanted to arrive early so we could get our boat washed up and looking pretty, but much to my surprise and dismay I found out the town had a shortage of water and there was a ban on washing boats in the marina. The good news was that by skipping the boat cleaning process we could move right on to meeting other Ranger Tug owners as they trickled into the marina. On the first evening, a happy hour was held on the dock with everyone contributing snacks. We had two full days in Ganges, plenty of time to walk around town to do some last-minute provisioning (vegetables, wine, and fish), we even found two small wood chairs for the cockpit of Kismet at the local hardware store.

The first thing we did when we arrived in the harbor was to fuel up. We wanted to be full-up and ready to go when we vacated the docks on Sunday.

We were surprised that the majority of the Ranger Tugs in attendance sport the classic dark blue hull with the second most popular color being the new dark grey with one or two dark green, two yellow, and three variations of red.

Low tide at Ganges is quite a drop down from shore (below).

We met Vickie and Bruce, on Moondance, at the 2011 Ranger Tug Rendezvous in Bremerton, WA., they recently went from a Ranger Tug R25 to an R29. Bruce and Vickie are very instrumental in a lot of the Ranger Tug cruises and rendezvous.

On our second day in Ganges we took Andrew Ranger Tugs Customer Service Manager extraordinaire and his wife Carlene (above) to lunch at Calvin’s, overlooking the harbor. Andrew and Kenny (also in Customer Service) and Jeff, Ranger Tugs Sales Manager are kept so busy during these gatherings (more later) we felt it might be nice to get Andrew and Carlene away from the docks for a brief spell. The benefit for us was that we really got to them as a couple, hear about their recent wedding and talk about their interests outside of work.

There were lots of these float planes buzzing overhead as they landed in the harbor (above).

The town of Ganges has a very popular Farmer’s Market on the weekend. It really had more arts and crafts with a lot of fresh baked goods, but we found a little produce section and managed to score some nice swiss chard to go with the fish we had bought in town for dinner that night. We really enjoyed the participation by the youngsters at the market, it was interesting to see what they were selling, some very creative, future marketers.

The piano (above) is available for impromptu performances (apparently it gets moved all over town), bring your music or play from heart, we thought it was a very unique item and added even more character to this bustling Canadian town.

Leon and Karen, on ScottFree (below), stopped by to ask a few questions about doing the Great Loop boat trip in a Ranger Tug. The biggest benefit of having two days to gather together in Ganges was that we could take time to meet some of the other Ranger Tug owners, we enjoyed having time to sit and talk with some as we did during those two days before we skipped up the coast to Desolation Sound.

The second night was another happy hour followed by our first captain’s meeting where we discussed our departure schedule (carefully timed and coordinated to get so many boats out of the marina in an organized fashion), the distance being cruised, and the particulars of transiting Dodd Narrows. With 11-foot tides and a very narrow channel, Dodd Narrows is a rapids with up to 7 MPH currents at full force and therefore is safest and best advised to traverse at slack tide. With that said the timing of 50 boats leaving Ganges had to be orchestrated so everyone arrived by slack tide.

After the main captain’s meeting boaters broke up into three groups to receive more specific instructions for our group, having chosen the time of departure and speed each wanted to travel and determined the group they would join. Predetermined, experienced lead boaters headed each group along with sweeper boats previously assigned. One group went at 6 A.M. at a fast speed to catch the morning slack, while the other two groups, ourselves included, signed up to go late morning, so we’d arrive for the early afternoon slack.

There is a kind of electric buzz around the marina tonight as everyone is ready to go and we all kind of know, the excitement is just about to begin.