Sunday August 5th – Skylar has two friends flying in tomorrow to Pendrell Sound, so we need to get to Pendrell today to be ready for their arrival. Pendrell is perfect in the heat. It has the warmest water in the area you can swim all day.

We set the shrimp pots on the way in then tied up to our friends who had already claimed a spot in the busy bay. Busy because Sea Ray was having a rendezvous. One raft had 23 Sea Ray’s all tied up together! With it being Sunday, we figured things would clear out tomorrow, but we were wrong. Monday was a Canadian holiday, so things stayed busy. No problem we had our spot in paradise.

The heat has returned in full force. Thankfully the water temperature hit 79 degrees! so cooling off was not a problem. Ava and Brianna discovered night swimming and we couldn’t get them out of the water. The boat never really cooled off. Even at 1:30am the air temperature was still 75 degrees.

Monday August 6th – Today Skylar’s friends Johnny and Carson are flying in by floatplane to stay with us for the next 5 days. They arrived right on time via Northwest Seaplanes and we picked them up with the dinghy in the outer bay. Almost immediate swimming commenced to cool off then the boys took the dinghy out with the wake board for some watersports.

The rest of the day was spent swimming, shrimping and relaxing in the heat and the new kids had fun exploring the area.

August 3rd and 4th – After pulling anchor and leaving Tenedos we went just around the corner to a little place we call The Cut (not an official name). It’s right off Otter Island and we call it The Cut because if you are brave enough to take your boat through the very narrow (but deep enough) passage you can shave off a little time by not going around Otter Island. But for us, The Cut makes a really fun small anchorage where you can watch all the boats go by as they slow down for the narrow passage.

It’s also a great spot to stay out of the more popular and very busy Prideaux Haven. Prideaux Haven is especially packed this weekend while everyone funnels in for the concert. Every year on the first weekend in August, an 80’ boat hosts a concert off their stern. It’s amazing how many dinghies all raft up together for the concert. We were excited to go but wanted to stay out of the chaos of Prideaux Haven. The Cut was perfect because it’s still within a short dinghy ride of the concert.

First task after getting anchored was to get some shrimp pots soaking! Then we all jumped in the dinghy and ran the distance to Refuge Cove for some lunch, ice cream, groceries, dinghy fuel, and to give “Garbage Dave” our trash, which he gladly accepts for $1 per pound.

Stern tied to Otter Island, Skylar and Zach said they kept hearing some type of animals in the woods just off the stern of the boat. As night fell the noises increased. At one point we all thought for sure a bear was calling us. Todd had the perfect call back, but the bear was not interested. We never did confirm if it was a real bear or not but it sure was entertaining.

A Mink! Skylar spotted it with a high-powered flashlight. He would run down the bank from some sort of home burrow thing in the woods then slide in the water emerging a minute later with a fish in it’s mouth. It was super fun watching him in the pitch black with just the light shining on him. He didn’t seem to mind much. A very fun evening in the wilderness.

Saturday August 4th – A lazy day at The Cut just relaxing on the boat, sitting in the sun and pulling up the shrimp pots with mediocre results. That evening we all dinghied to Prideaux Haven for the concert. Amazing how many people were packed in there and how many dinghies were rafted together. Fun to see everyone having a great time. Todd’s parents braved the crazy and anchored in the bay a couple days before. We all had dinner on their boat before the concert then joined the raft of boats.

Tuesday July 31st – The hot weather just keeps rolling. Day after day now of high 80’s to low 90’s has us in the water swimming a lot. So, we decided to stay in the warm Desolation Sound and headed to Tenedos for a few nights.

We made the short run then anchored tucked into a little cove. Some cliff jumping was calling us, so we all hiked to Unwin lake to cool off. The water was super warm. All of us jumped the cliffs, Skylar and Zach were the bravest, going the highest. A fun way to cool off.

Then next day we all took a 30-minute dinghy ride to Refuge Cove for lunch then Zach and Skylar wanted to blaze their own trail up to a peak just above our boats. They had a plan and gathered their trail blazing tools. They disappeared into the woods. After about 20 minutes we heard some rustling, yelling and a quick escape down to the water. They got into a bee’s nest and poor Zach got the worst of it! He must have got stung at least 8 times, but Skylar somehow escaped the swarm. Zach was a tough trooper! He held it together and kayaked back to the boat and received some medical attention. Needless to say, the trail blazers were done, and the peak was never conquered.

However, there is a different peak close by that someone at some point in the past braved the bee’s and made a trail. Trail is not actually quite the right word, it’s more of a scramble with ropes to help you up. It took some convincing to get Ava to go. A couple years ago she got stung quite a few times doing the scramble, actually we all did, except Skylar (I see a trend here). She finally agreed. You can’t tell by looking at her, but Ava actually loves doing hard hikes and climbing. After getting over the bee fear she loved it! And no one got stung.

Thursday Aug 2nd – Finally some cool weather! We woke up today to clouds and much cooler weather. A very nice break from the 90-degree days we’ve been having. Everyone just relaxed on the boats, doing small projects and soaking up the cool weather.