Spencer Spit

After successfully surviving our first night on a sailboat commanded solely by us, we awoke after our modest two hours of sleep a little less than refreshed. A couple of cups of tea later and we were ready to go. First order of business, a trip to land to hike up to the top of the mountain to the swing of doom, as it affectionately became known to us from Captain Robert. Sounds like an easy enough plan, but as Jason descended down into the less-than-stable-wobbly dinghy, we thought twice about it. It seemed so unstable that I couldn't fathom putting the boys into it, and it seemed impossible to get us all in. We considered all of our options as Jason sat in the stern next to the questionable motor with Aaron pointing out, "Daddy, it looks like your going to sink it all by yourself." Inexperience strikes again. What to do? Jason climbed out and we almost gave up, our landlubberly nerves fried from the previous night. In despair, we looked at the shore. One of the reasons we wanted to try sailing alone was so that we were free to go ashore whenever we wanted, without having to bother someone to take us there, and here we were staring at the shore again, not knowing if we would make it. Sigh. A very woeful tale indeed. Below deck, Jason and I regrouped, took a deep-breath, and decided we would try again, this time using oars. With Jason centered in the middle of the boat we successfully climbed in and he gallantly rowed us to shore. Success. On shore, Aaron blazed the trail to the top of the mountain where each boy took turns on the swing of doom. The swing of doom is perfectly situated in a meadow on the crest of the mountain so that you feel like you are swinging over the edge of an abyss. Needless to say, the boys loved it, emitting squeals of joy and maniacal laughter with each push. As we headed back through flower-filled meadows, the chihuahua displayed amazing chihuahua speed, bursting with chihuahua joy, bounding over chihuahua-sized cliffs with her ears flat and her tail curled for maximum chihuahua aerodynamics as she ran circles as fast as her little chihuahua legs would take her. Quite an amusing sight. 

Back on the boat, we ate lunch and set our sights on the next destination, Spencer Spit. After Jason plotted a course, he, with his Herculean strength and bulging eyes, I mean muscles, sorry I had chihuahua on the brain, raised the panic-inducing anchor by hand. Meanwhile I whipped up some chocolate chip cookie dough, in hopes of baking while we were under sail, and secured things below deck. Hoisting sails, we headed to Rosario Strait where the boys emitted a constant stream of speed information 5.6! 6.0! 6.8! crescendo-ing when we hit our top speed of 8.7 knots! As our speed increased, we heeled over hard producing much clattering from below as various things and stuff flew across the cabin, including, but not limited to, the cookie dough. Aaron to the rescue. He quickly headed below deck to secure everything that had been dislodged. I instructed him to put the cookie dough into the sink, forgetting that there were dishes filled with water in there. On subsequent tacks, much to everyone's dismay, the cookie dough bowl took on water. Navigating the channel between Lopez Island and Bird Rocks, we lost our wind in an area of tidal turbulance forcing us to motor through Thatcher Pass, allowing me time to scrape off and throw out the water-logged bits of the cookie dough and put a batch into the oven, thus, successfully completing my first cookie-baking endeavor on a sailboat. With warm cookies in our tummies, we entered Lopez Sound, where we raised sails again and tacked our way to Spencer Spit. Here we executed a much smoother anchorage, leaving us both feeling more confident than the previous night. Safely secured to the bottom of the ocean, we hopped into the dinghy and rowed to shore to explore the drizzle. After a short walk, and an epic sword battle, we headed back to the boat for another delicious dinner. Snuggled into our bunks, we all slept soundly that night. I think we are starting to get the hang of this.

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