Squirrel Cove Desolation Sound

Aaaaarrrrggghhh… sounds as though the pirates are planning a boarding party! (See the comments on my last post). Ryan; you, Girlfriend, Michelle and JP are welcome to join us if you can find us but you must bring two cases of Corona Light and whatever you like to drink!

July 20 2007

We pushed off this morning around 1000 hours, with Westview planned as our first stop for a hoping to find my cousin Kathy, her husband Bob and a battery tester. Kathy was making her nieces’, Alison, wedding cake and Bob was at work. They both took time out to come meet us at the dock for a quick visit and we made arrangements for them to join us in August for a weekend of boating. Bob brought a battery tester and confirmed Kent’s diagnosis of battery failure.

The wind was blowing but we chose to head toward Desolation Sound rather than stay tied to the dock overnight, with the highway traffic noise nearby. We arrived at Squirrel Cove at 1740, anchored, then Trevor, Hayden and I rowed a line ashore (I learned from Mike it is called a ‘medmore’) where Hayden tied it around a very large boulder, with a bowline (knot) to stern tie. This keeps the boat from swinging on the anchor. After a few quick instructions on the outboard operation, Trevor and Hayden went off to order cinnnamon buns for the morning while Wendy and I prepared dinner. We had an early night, listening to the heavy rain drumming on the boat.

Rain, rain, rain… will it never stop raining? Luckily Trevor and Hayden don’t mind getting a little wet – or even a lot wet. They motored around the cove, exploring and fishing. Finally we had a slight break in the rain and donned our wetsuits to surf the rapids. It was a runout tide so we walked the beach in to the lagoon then body surfed and boogie boarded the rapids for an hour.

Mike pushed the dinghy up the channel (singlehanded) while we carried our supplies and we motored up the lagoon to a nice little isolated island. Kent stayed aboard the Jervis Mist, reading his book and having some quiet time. We towed the boys on the boogie boards, with them holding onto a long rope – it was rather tame, but a great way to get us all to the other end of the lagoon.

Mike, Wendy and I sat on the island, enjoying a beer and the peacefulness and isolation while the boys snorkeled and swam. They found a huge starfish and I showed them a starfish hat. Yuck… if Wendy has a photo, I’ll try to post it to show what a dork I am!

It was much easier getting the dinghy out of the lagoon although we bumped the rocks a couple of times and did a 360 in the rapids. Whew – it was a wild ride but Mike kept us under control and made sure the prop cleared the rocks.

The boys swung on the rope swing until their hands were blistered and they’d perfected their technique of dropping into the water from the highest point possible. They provided us with hours of fun watching, cheering and photographing.

Back onboard we started playing dominoes while the boys watched a movie. We’d had a late lunch so were in no hurry to eat dinner. It ended up being 2230 before we ate! Dominoes is a very addictive game and M, W and I HAD to finish our game – I crawled into bed at 0330, after tragically losing by more points than anyone ever scored in the history of the game!

PPP