Thursday August 10th – We had a great wind forecast to get us back across the Strait of Georgia today. Leaving Pender Harbor we motored under a smoky sky weaving around all the little islands that makeup the harbor. Once out in open water we set the throttle for a timed arrival at Dodd Narrows that would give us very little current through the narrows. The strait was nice and calm and Dodd gave us a 2-knot push through.

We decided to anchor in Pirates Cove just south of the narrows. It’s a tricky entrance but once inside the cove is open with enough room for a lot of boats. We anchored and stern tied creating a little space we could call our own.

We need to to get the kids off the boat to get some energy out and I think Julie and I needed it more then them. There’s a great loop hike (Ava loves loop hikes) so we set out for a beautiful walk in the woods. Actually the kids ran together most of the time way ahead of Julie and I.

After a sweaty hike the kids went swimming together for a long time even though the water is much colder here than Desolation Sound. I even convinced Skylar to swim around the whole boat and clean the hull at the water line. It looked fantastic after he was done!

The kids happened to still be loving each other and playing together (not usually the case for a long period of time) so after swimming together, Skylar took Ava on a long paddleboard ride through the bay. Taking advantage of the kids getting along so well Julie and I left them alone on the boat and went on a romantic dinghy ride as the sun set!

Wednesday August 9^th – We’ve had an incredible time in the Desolation Sound area! However, at some point you have to start heading south and we still had a lot of destinations in the Gulf Islands we wanted to check off the list. The wind forecast was favorable over the next couple days for the Georgia Strait but beyond that rain was coming in.

We decided to head south. It was a nice day leaving Campbell River so we decided to run down the Georgia Strait on the outside of the Copelands and Savary Island. But first we stopped for some more fishing off Cape Mudge. This time we had the downriggers ready on the big boat for some salmon fishing. Down they went, fishing amongst quite a few charter boats. Nothing for a while then we caught a few very small pinks. Needing to start heading south we were about to hang it up when we hooked up on something bigger. Skylar net the fish as I brought it to the boat. A nice Coho perfect for the dinner table!

We wanted to stay for another fish but we needed to get to Pender Harbor today and its still another 50nm away. On the way we went by a small wind swept island off the Georgia Strait that had a whole bunch of huge Sea lions basking in the sun. We stopped and watched them for a while then continued on to Painted Boat marina in Pender Harbor.

We had an ok, overpriced dinner at the restaurant (years past has been great) then the whole family made a fun evening out of washing the boat stem to stern.

 

Monday August 7^th – Time to leave Taku and head around Cape Mudge to April Point. Todd and his dad Bruce have a planned flight back to Seattle to go back to work for a few days while Tami and the kids stay with the boat at April Point.

We left Taku before the rest of our group with hopes of catching a fish off Cape Mudge just south of our location. There were a bunch of boats in the area so we thought maybe we had the right idea. We were not rigged for downrigger fishing so Skylar and I grabbed some spinning poles with buzz bombs and started whipping them out there. Nothing, after about 30 minutes Skylar got board and grabbed a bottom fishing pole just to see what might be down there. Not more than 5 minutes and wham! “Dad I think I have a big one on” he said. We waited in anticipation as a monster Lingcod came up from the depths. We got the fish in the net and realized Skylar was right, it was defiantly one large fish!

Little Ava gets the most excited. Her hunter instinct comes out as she cheers on the fishermen then jumps with joy when we land the fish. It’s so fun to watch her excitement, she’s the biggest encourager and cheerleader, but when a fish gets lost she gets really upset!

Not wanting to go in we fished for another couple hours while our friends cruised past us on their boats with a seaplane schedule to keep to. No more fish but we were very happy with the one we caught. We wanted to see Todd off on the seaplane so we left in what we thought was enough time to get to the dock. However the tide had changed giving us a 5-knot current against us, and some serious whirlpools. We didn’t make it, but Todd text us from the plane as he flew over our boat.  Bruce and Gloria left on a later flight so we saw them off then went to dinner with Tami and all the kids.

Tuesday August 8^th – We left April Point and went just across the channel to Campbell River. We have been trying for days to get moorage reservations at “the good marina” with no luck. While getting some fuel in the boat Julie tried one last time to see if there were any cancelations. Sure enough someone just canceled so we snagged their spot. We had a great lunch at Moxie’s then went out exploring the town. Tami, Zach and Briana dinghied over from April Point to hang with us one last time before we parted ways. We got some shopping done and of course hit the liquor store where they had nice cold single beers on ice. Seems like that’s just encouraging drinking and driving!