Happy Hour

Today was a shorter day, about half the distance we traveled yesterday. That and a moderately early start put us in tonight's anchorage around 12:30, leaving plenty of time for afternoon fun. Kay, Sam, Matt and I, paddled our dinghies to shore and romped through the trees and on boulders along the shoreline. We'd been on the boat since last Monday, so it felt really good to spend a little time on terra-firma. The Cruising life can be idyllic at times, scary now and then, uncomfortable occasionally, but it rarely offers much of a physical workout. Today we didn't find a trail to give us any distance, but at least we were able to get off the boat and use our muscles.

We're working our way into Desolation Sound tomorrow. The water is warmer than it is most other places on the BC coast. Water runoff is warmed by the sun and it's ample enough and warm enough to impact the water temperature of the sea water. It's so warm, in fact, that Matt has been floating in it for the better part of half an hour. You go dude. I'll sit here in the sun and bake. It's almost June and yet has been feeling more like winter than spring this month. I have some catching up with the sunshine to do.

We're stern tied in this anchorage. Stern tires are used in popular anchorages where feasible, because it keeps the boats from swinging in circles around their anchors. That allows more boats to fit in a cove.

The process goes like this, at least on Quijote: I have a duffel bag stuffed with 500' of 3/4" polypropylene line and a 300' spool of 3/16" tag line, also polypropylene. The polypropylene part is important because the line floats, so it doesn't sink under water and foul the prop. We drop the anchor about 300' from the shore and back the boat up until the stern is close to shore, or as close as depth will allow. The one person dinghies to shore with the ends of the stern line and tag line. The stern line goes around a tree and is tied to the tag line. Then the person in the boat hauls in the tag line to bring in the end of the stern line. When the end of the stern line is back on the boat, we have the bow anchored in the middle of the cove and the stern line going from one corner of the stern, around the tree on shore and back to the other corner of the stern. To free the boat in the morning we release one end of the stern line and pull on the other. Then we pull up the anchor and motor off. High five!

We enjoyed happy hour on Quijote with the Opus crew this evening, played a couple games of four person cribbage, and slurped down coconut rum drinks. They were more yum than rum, but we'll do no driving home tonight.