Desolation Sound

Leaving Princess Louisa behind, we had an epic sail down Jervis Inlet. With winds on the nose at 10-15 knots we handed the boat over to Isaac and Emma. After a quick lesson on tacking the boat, Emma was off and running. She was a total natural on helm and Isaac (who somehow acquired the name Chimpy as the day progressed) smoothly operated lines. Jason and I sat back and watched as the two of them tacked us back and forth (past a couple of bears on shore), back and forth, all the way down the channel to Egmont. It was a beautiful and occasionally hilarious thing to watch.

The following morning, the kids sailed for a short while before we hit the Malaspina Strait. The winds piped up and the waves got bigger. Jason took over helm and I crawled to the front to put a reef in the mainsail. We sailed at a close reach, then a beams reach and finally turned to a broad reach, surfing down the waves. In the past these conditions would have scared the pants off of me so I was ecstatic that Emma loved all of the crazed motion. That afternoon we made it to Westview at Powell River for a re-provisioning trip. We ended up on the dock just inside the breakwater which offered no protection at all from the wind and waves pounding in from the strait so Marinero heaved up and down with the heaving docks and Pika and I (we were both a bit queasy) longed to be somewhere else. Pika was so sad about the conditions that she went on a hunger strike for two days. Poor chihuahua.

The following day we hightailed it out of Powell River as soon as we finished our grocery run and headed for Desolation Sound. Our first stop was Tenedos where we hiked to a lovely lake and had a swim. Next stop was Roscoe Bay. We had tried to get into Roscoe Bay on our last trip to Desolation but had wimped out, because it's a shallow, narrow entrance and we have a deep draft. Once inside the bay you are stuck until the next high tide since the entrance actually dries out at low tide. This time we entered on a rising tide with 1.5 feet under the keel on the port side of the boat and 1 foot on the starboard side. Yikes! We spent a couple of nights in Roscoe which allowed us to hike to the top of a 2200 foot mountain and go for lovely swim in the bath-water-warm Black Lake.

Our next stop was Manson's Landing on Cortez Island. Manson's has a huge lagoon full of more sand dollars than I thought could be possible in one place. The kids spent hours exploring the tide pools and collecting sand dollars for friends. Aaron took an abandoned clam shell and made the cutest little crab-i-tat I have ever seen. He found a tiny little crab to place in it and it was so cute I just had to squeak.

Click here for photos.