Wednesday July 25th – Its Skylar’s birthday! 17 today, hard to believe. We pulled our anchor in Pendrell sound and headed for Squirrel Cove just a few miles away.

We rafted to our friends then had to take a swim because the heat was turning us loco. After cooling off we all ran the dinghies to the Squirrel Cove store just outside the bay to get some groceries. Well, groceries may be the wrong word, this store is more like a limited stock convivence store with random items, you never know what you are going to get. However, when you are up here you take what you can get. More importantly we were able to get much needed fuel for the dinghies.

Squirrel Cove has a huge saltwater lagoon that sits behind the bay. There’s one narrow channel that fills the lagoon at high tide and empties it at low tide. During the fill and empty phase, the channel runs like a river in reversing directions. It’s fun to swim it, kayak it or in our case take the dinghies through during the fill phase.

With the motors up Todd and I floated our dinghies through in some skinny water. Once inside its pretty deep (40’ in some spots) and makes a perfect spot to go fast pulling the kids around on the tube. They had a blast all taking turns as they got flung around the lagoon at 25mph. Zach and Ava needed some weight, so they went together, their blond hair flowing in the wind they looked exactly like brother and sister.

Now getting out of the lagoon was not so easy. The tide had not filled enough to match the level of the sea outside, so it was a flowing uphill battle. First, we tried to motor out, but the water was flowing too fast and it was too shallow. With Julie in the dinghy I pulled the boat walking in the water up to my waist through the current. Not an easy task, and now that I think about it why was Julie just sitting in the boat getting pulled by my donkey like strength!! Anyway, it turned out good because when we got to deeper water, she lowered the motor and gave it some gas to help us out of the flowing water. I jumped on and we both plowed through to an eddy and picked up the kids on shore.

Todd’s boat being quite a bit heavier than ours took a little more muscle. With two lines coming off the bow one person pulled from shore while the other person pulled from the opposite shore. It worked, but got pretty “squirrely” at one point when Zach, who was in the boat tried to power out in the deeper spot and started heading straight for a rock. He saved it, but it was close!

Skylar had a great 17th birthday dinner of tacos (his choice) with all 3 boats rafted together, and everyone having a great time. Happy birthday Skylar!!

The next day was spent in Squirrel Cove again, swimming and relaxing. We made a 6-mile dinghy run to Teakerne Arm where there’s an amazing waterfall with Cassel lake right above. A short hike leads to the lake where we swam in the warm fresh water.

Monday July 23^rd– Time to stay put for a few days anchored in Pendrell Sound.  The weather is HOT!, and we are in the perfect place to enjoy the heat.  Water temperatures at 76 degrees makes it easy to jump off the boat and cool off.

Lots to do here and an absolutely beautiful place to do it in.  Swimming in the warm water it’s hard to believe as you look up a 5,000-foot mountain that has snow on it.

In Vancouver, an impulse purchase had us carrying home a wake surfboard.  We wanted to try and pull it behind the dinghy. We knew the dinghy wouldn’t be able to produce a wake to use it as a true wake surfer, but we were just looking for something fun to mess around on.  Skylar went first and got right up.  He got the feel of it then started carving back and forth.  Lots of fun but then it was my turn.  I jumped in the 1,000-foot-deep water and Skylar gunned it to pull me up. The first try was a no go! I thought I was going to drown as the little 30 horsepower dinghy tried to pull me out of the water.  On the 2^ndtry I found that if I hung on long enough, water trying to make its way in, in every way possible, I would eventually pop out of the water and surf on the top.  It was fun!, and exhausting!  On my last run I got a little too confident and caught an edge while carving.  This resulted in a huge faceplant that caused a major headache.  It was worth it, but there’s going to be some sore muscles.

Over the next couple days, we all had a blast.  One minute you are swimming and the next you are pulling up a shrimp pot with dinner. Fishing, shrimping, picking huckleberries, swimming, wakeboarding, rope swing into the water, hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding, all in one location makes for a really fun place to be!

Saturday July 21st – Today we are leaving windy Howe Sound to trek up the Georgia Strait to Pender Harbor. We called two different marinas in Pender Harbor, both didn’t answer after repeated attempts. Finally, one of them answered and took our reservation for moorage that night. It’s about a 40nm run and the weather was not great. Forecast is for calming wind in the afternoon, so we hung out at our anchorage in Howe Sound for more favorable conditions. They never came.

So, we left our anchorage in 15 knots of wind and headed for the entrance to Howe Sound that would take us to the Georgia Strait. Not too bad to start but as we entered the Georgia Strait we had wind against current combined with the tidal flow from Howe Sound created some large steep waves. The boat got rocked around really good but this time we were prepared with everything put away and lunch already taken down. I told Julie and Ava to sit their butts in the pilot house and look up the whole time. They did, and that helped keep the sea sickness to a minimum. The boat took it on the nose like a champ, but it was unsettling as the boat plowed through the waves then what felt like a freefall off the other side. We spent about 2 hours in the real snotty stuff then conditions improved a little for the remainder of the trip.

With an extremely salty boat, we pulled into Painted Boat Marina hoping to make it to the grocery store before they closed. When I made the reservation they never gave us a slip assignment, so I called them on the phone. The guy on the other end took my name and boat name, then there was silence on the other end as he was obviously trying to locate my reservation. “I’m sorry sir but we don’t have a reservation for you” he said. “I just talked to a guy this morning and made the reservation” I said. Again, there was silence on the other end then he said, “did you give a credit card or get a confirmation email”? “No, they never asked for that information” I said getting a little more frustrated. “Well, I’m sorry sir but we don’t have your reservation and we do not have any room for you”. In a slightly more stern voice, I told him I was really frustrated because I just made the reservation this morning. Again, he said, “I’m sorry sir but we don’t have room, I hope you can find a place”. I hung up the phone and instantly realized I was the idiot trying to dock at the wrong marina! During my multiple calls to two different marinas in Pender Harbor I thought I was talking to Painted Boat but actually I made reservations at Garden Bay. Silly me.

Garden Bay took us right in, but the grocery store is across the bay, so we quickly got the dinghy down to get to the store before they closed. Loaded up with pizza for dinner and a full basket of groceries we dinghied back for a late dinner on the boat after a long day.

But it wasn’t over. At 1am the band that was playing at the Garden Bay Pub decided to extend the party on a small boat right in front of ours. It all started with Mama Mia blasting as loud as the stereo would go and then just kept going for another couple hours. 6am departure is going to be tough.

Sunday July 22nd. 6am the alarm goes off. After not much sleep due to the Mama Mia party boat, Julie and I got up and stumbled through the coffee brewing process. 6:30am we fired up the engine for the long run to Pendrell Sound in Desolation Sound.

Finally, some smooth water! The run was beautiful all the way into Desolation. Some friends of ours were already up in the area and we are going to meet them in Pendrell. We arrived first, anchored and stern tied in an area perfect for swimming.

Pendrell Sound has some of the warmest waters in the area. We measured 72-74 degrees and clear all the way down to about 30’. If I didn’t know any better, you would think we were in Hawaii. In this long inlet the water is 1,300 feet deep and the mountains shoot straight up. It’s absolutely amazing!

We settled in and brought out all the water toys. New this year is a 5’X15’ inflatable dock that we planned on tying off to the swim step to extend our swimming pleasure. Its big and took some work to get blown up, but once in the water it provided a super fun platform to swim off of.

Our friends arrived and rafted up to us. We all swam in the heat and enjoyed the warm waters of Pendrell.