Squirrely in Squirrel

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.