Knock Down!

The lightning storm brought with it some unsettled weather the following day.  We left Bedwell at 11am for a short 7.18 nautical mile trip to Portland Island.  Once out of the harbor the wind was blowing 20 knots creating a lumpy ride but our boat sure did handle it well. 

Portland Island was first settled by Hawaiian immigrants in the 1880’s.  So it was fitting to make this one of our stops.  Our boat name “Kama Hele” is a Hawaiian word for “The Traveler”.

We anchored in Princess bay on the south end of the island.  We surfed through the tight entrance and anchored in choppy water.  Every time we stop anywhere Skylar instantly begs to start fishing.  At every location he always seems to pull some kind of fish out of the water.  Today it was a nice flounder!  Julie was food deprived (this is not a good thing) so she started a great salmon lunch that we BBQ’d on the back of the boat.

Portland Island is one of our favorite stop in the Gulf Islands.  There is not much there as the whole thing is a provincial park.  There is a small dinghy dock and lots of trails on the island. When we were here a few years ago it was sea glass heaven.  We found tons of it here and today was no exception!

We boarded the dinghy for the trip to shore to do some hiking.  We had a nice hike along a trail above the shore then took the path down to a beach.  We had the bright idea to keep following the beach back to the dinghy to maximize our sea glass hunting.   We figured there would be a way back up to the trail somewhere along the way.  It always looked like just around the next corner would be our answer.  Eventually we could go no further.  Our only option was to scale this super steep trail or more accurately a cliff.  Skylar made it up, then Julie.  It was my job to get myself and Ava up.  No way Ava was going to make it on her own so I had to carry her as far as I could then it got too steep.  I was able to push her over this log so she could sit there while Julie grabbed her and pulled her up the rest of the way.  It was not fun actually really scary trying to get her up there.  So glad that was over when we made it to the top safely.

After that near death experience we thought our trials were over.  Climbing back in the dinghy we still had to get back to the boat in the rough water.  The dinghy carried us safely to the boat but getting off the dinghy and on to the big boat is another story.  As we approached the boat Julie tried to grab on but we were getting thrown all over.  I told her to bail out and as she did she sat back down on what she thought was the seat but was actually a metal bar next to the seat.  She broke her butt!  Not really, but she severely injured her tail bone.  A huge black bruise formed and she is in a lot of pain.  Sorry no photo.

Trip Log 154.57 nautical miles