Squirrel to Smugglers Cove

Day 98 – August 16, 2008

It’s going to be another beautiful and hot day. The thermometer in our Pilot House read 68 degrees at 6:30 am. We left all the doors open (screens closed) last night to try to cool things off inside a bit. It worked; the boat is quite comfortable this morning. I spent the very early hours sitting out on the back deck doing some typing this morning. The quiet of the early morning is really nice.

Glen finally got up about 9am and started futzing around in the basement. He pumped water from Magic over to Miner’s Debt so that they would not run out. Tom didn’t know how much water they had left and his gauge stops reading at ½ tank.

The guys went out and pulled the shrimp pots – Miner 3, Dodge 12 shrimp plus 3 of those little lobster looking critters. We definitely are not shrimpers. On the way back a guy anchored near us flagged the guys down and asked if they knew anything about generators, as he had a problem. They talked it over and then Glen got his mask and snorkel and went for a dip to have a look at the underside of the guy’s boat. It turned out that he had some seaweed over an intake, thus blocking the water flow. Glen cleaned it up and the guy was back in business. He was probably out of hot water in his wife’s eyes because she could now have hot water. We now have another bottle of wine for Glen’s efforts.

We split off from the Miner’s today. They are staying in Desolation Sound a bit longer and we are headed further south. We are picking up Keith and Suzi (Glen’s parents), and a long time family friend on Tuesday the 19^th in Roche Harbor. We are moving that direction with the thought of having an extra day in case the crossing looks bad. We’ve had pretty good luck with our crossings throughout the trip and want to keep it that way.

We paused just outside the harbor at Lund for a bit trying to get onto the internet and make some phone calls. The internet was a bust, but the phone worked so we made a few calls. Then headed toward Pender Harbor

We cruised along past Powell River and West View. Boy that area has changed a lot since we were here last. There are lots more houses, and what appear to be newish schools etc… It is a beautiful hot day so the beaches are lined with people playing at the waters edge.

We took a quick tour through Garden Bay – the place was packed with boats. The shoreline is full of houses and lots of new houses are being built, several of them in the mega house category.

As we past Lund there were several bathtub boats out racing around the harbor. Evidently the annual bathtub race has not yet happened so the guys are all out practicing and testing out their engines. For those who don’t know there is an annual race of bathtub boats from ??? (I can't remember) to Nanaimo. It’s quite a hoop to watch. All of the boats must have a bathtub incorporated in the design. Years ago they were simple claw foot style bathtubs with motors and now many are quite sophisticated and high tech looking race boats, but the pilot still sits in a bathtub.

We anchored in Smugglers Cove just before dinner time. It was packed with boats, all lined up along the shoreline with stern lines to shore. On the way in a guy on about a 30 foot sailboat that was anchored sort of in the center called over and asked if we’d like to side tie. We all laughed and kept going. We cruised down through the center and into the back bay where we found our spot. Glen pulled our nose between two sailboats, and dropped our anchor. He then backed across the bay and between two smaller powerboats. I held us in position while he lowered the dinghy and tied us to shore. Glen apologized to one guy for blocking out the sun. We really hadn’t but we did feel a bit big compared to the other boats in the inner harbor. We checked the tide charts and determined that we should be out of the inner bay by 9:00am to make sure we could get around the innermost corner. We had a relaxing evening, with a beautiful sunset and called it a night.