July 18^th
ChatterBox Falls to Hardy Island

It was very hard to depart the majestic beauty that is the Jevis inlet, But we had to continue on our voyage.

Thanks to some good thinking from the crew of WindDancer, we planned our departure from a quiet moorage closer to the rapids. As with our timed entry a few days prior, we now had to plan our departure for HIGH tide.

The winds were right on the bows for the 6.5 hours to Hardy Island. It was very crowded and we were not impressed. Sometime during the day, we lost an oar from “Boo”. Despite all of us searching, we could not find the oar. Ah well, we will manage.

July 19^th

We stern tied to a ring at the waterline. Palarran was close but in another bay. WindDancer stern tied to the same ring as Ghost. We were not as protected as I would have liked, but it was nice. It was time to slow down and stop the long day runs.

We decided to build a fire on shore and enjoy the night.

Nothing but relaxing.

We went swimming in the fresh water lake that spills into the bay. It was so warm and clear. It was like taking a bath.

The kids were in the water all day. We had planned on sleeping on deck. It was cold, but we got it done.

Nice sunset that night, too!

We pulled up the anchor and on the chain was a 8” long squid! I plopped it into a bucket and the kids had fun watching it squirt it’s dye.

We found a perfect little corner and tied the stern to a tree. Time for some dingy exploring!

After exploring with “Boo” the day before, we had a plan. We would load up the dingy and head to our sunny spot for a day of swimming and exploring. Mom and Ellie took the kayak and Zak and I took ”Boo” to the spot we found the day before in Pyramid Cove. Very cool.

As usual we explored the bay and found the tidal lagoon. We could not pass yet, but at high tide we would try again.

We had a busy day planned. First we wanted to hike to Von Don Up Inlet.

After we got back to the boat, we decided to eat lunch and then head to the Squirrel Cove store.

We had a fire on the little island in the bay and relaxed as the rain started.

About 3 hours after departing Squirrel Cove, we slowly passed the rock the can block the inlet to Von Don Up inlet.

Cynthia strongly recommended that we visit this wonderful inlet. I am glad we did. It was nice and quiet and the kids could do some exploring on there own.

Palarran showed up and we all decided to explore the saltwater lagoon. We zipped through the rapids and entered a huge tidal lagoon. It is bigger than the one at Squirrel Cove, but the wildlife wasn’t as good. It was fun running the rapids in “Boo”.

Garden Bay to Princess Louisa Inlet

When we started planning for this trip I knew we had to plan for the Malibu rapids crossing time. From the very start, I found that the slack tide was about 8 PM. This is a fact that will become a little more interesting later on.

We split up the raft up at around 10 am. Ghost slipped out of Pender Harbor with Palarran close a stern.

 As we turned up Agamemnon channel there was just enough wind to keep a headsail full, so…up it went. About an hour later we found our first set of native rock paintings.

We were having some fun with a call on the radio that WindDancer started early on in the trip. It went something like this  “…attention all vessels listening channel 16….the sailing vessel WindDancer is now showing ZERO fuel burn!” So everytime we turned off the motor, we would make this call. We had been sailing with “fuel burn ZERO” for a few hours. It was going to be a looong day. We had planned on about 8 hours of motoring to get the rapids. We turned the last corner and had only a few miles to go. We had sailed almost the entire trip. Only about 2.5 hours of motoring. Not too bad! At least I didn’t have to worry too much about my heat exchanger. It held up well for the little motoring that we did.

As we all joined up we thought that we had about an hour to wait for slack water at the rapids, Cynthia made a call to us on the radio. She seemed to think that we were an hour off on our….ahem….my slack water figuring. Suddenly, if she was right, we had to really hustle to get to the rapids and still make it through. The reason that this was critical is because it was getting dark and there was no place to go if we missed the slack water time for the rapids. We would know if I was wrong about the time when we got to the rapids. Cynthia was right. Turns out the tide and current tables that I was using was not corrected for daylight savings time. I was an hour off. Close one!            Thanks Cynthia!

And then we were there

Princess Louisa Inlet is by far the most breathtaking place that I have ever been. I am humbled by the sight. I am so excited to show this magical place with my kids. Ellie is named after the inlet. Ellie’s middle name is Louisa. We have been to Zak’s name sake, Ried Harbor in the San Juans, many times, but Ellie was very excited to go to “her place”.

Our plan was to drop a dingy in the water and run ahead and search out place for all of us to stay the first night. Cutis jumped into his tender and zoomed the 4 miles ahead to the falls to check out the possibilities.  He reported that there were “zero point zero boats anchored below the falls”. Jackpot!

As we slowly motored around the last bend in the inlet, the kids were very interested in seeing a real water fall.

There wasn’t much sunlight left as we set the hook at the base of the falls in 20 feet of water. The current from the falls would keep us positioned off the falls for three days.

It was a long day, but we made it and now we could relax and look around at what we had sailed into.

End of our first day of paradise

 July 31, 2008

Everyone was tired from the day before. There was not a cloud in the sky. There was a soft roar from ChatterBox Falls.  Zak and mommy went for an early morning sea kayak.

After breakfast we all went ashore and did some exploring. There were lots of photo ops.

We even started out on the trail to the old trapper’s cabin. We made it about 15 min into the 2 hour hike. It was not to be….today at least.

Later that night we planned a midnight dingy float. We loaded up with stocking caps and some warm drinks……at least they felt warm and smooth as they went down.

We let the current from the falls push us slowly out of the inlet. We floated about a mile down the inlet in total darkness. We watched the moonlight brighten the surrounding mountains. It was very cool. At one point we saw a strangely bright rock near the shore that seemed to be glowing?! There was a lot of phosphorescence in the water, or maybe it was a water fall? What else would 4 people in a couple of dingy’s do in a situation like this? Well, we must go and investigate! Slowly we made our way towards the strangely bright rock or what ever it was. As we got closer, Curtis tried to shine his light on it. We still could not make out what it was. We needed to get closer. We could tell, however, that it was sticking out of the water, or floating on the water. It was not on the shore. Interesting. Finally, as we got close enough that our little flashlight could start to see some detail, we saw that it was…..a BOAT! “back away………back away slowly!......shshshhshshh…….it’s creepy guys from the Ozarks!.......back away!

Well, back out in the middle of the inlet, looking up at the stars, we all listened for sounds that the Ozark guys might be coming out to get us. Funny what some rum, scotch, darkness, 600 feet deep water and a lot of imagination can come up with.

Scott was so excited.  I think he was secretly jealous of Ellie finding a message in a bottle last year, so this made up for it.  It was pretty water logged, but after setting it out to dry, we were able to read it.  We actually called the person and left a message with our email address.  This is the response we received:

The kids enjoyed some beachcombing and I enjoyed relaxing.  They met a couple kids that they ended up playing with for quite awhile.  We returned to the boat just as Scott was finishing up and after dinner went into the town of Ganges for some ice cream.

After Ganges, we decided to head to Montague Harbor.  Scott and I had stopped here 9 years ago, but I didn’t remember it much.  We spent the day on the beach, took a hike, and saw a wonderful sunset:

The next morning we were up and out of the anchorage pretty early.  The plan was to go into Pirates Cove on DeCourcy Island.  As soon as we headed out of the nice protected inlet from Montague we saw some almost black water ahead.  For those of you who are not boaters, that meant there was  a lot of wind in our near future, but unfortunately it was all right on our nose.  We were battling the wind and trying to find protection and dove into Telegraph Cove on Thetis Island.  We couldn’t find any good spots to anchor so we ended up staying at the dock at Thetis Island Marina.  A couple hours later the wind died, but it was still nice having a night at a dock.

We headed out early again the next morning on our way to Nanaimo. 

We had to time our crossing of Dodd Narrows and so arrived into to Nanaimo a little before lunch time. 

We anchored in Mark Bay and went to explore Newcastle Island.  What a cool place.  The kids had so much fun exploring.  When we returned to the boat we received a call from Curtis & Cynthia asking where we were and realized great minds think alike.  They were at a dock at the marina in Nanaimo.  A little later we headed over to the city and explored a bit.  Found a great park for the kids to play in and stopped at the grocery store for a couple items and then met Curtis & Cynthia at Winddancer for a couple drinks and snacks. It was great to meet up with them and decided we would all take off to cross the Strait of Georgia together the next morning.

Nanaimo is a great city and we all can’t wait to explore a little more on our way back around the 1^st of August.  We will be meeting Scott’s parents there.  Can’t wait.

Pictures from first part of trip

Pictures from 2nd part  of Gulf Islands

Luckily the couple from the boat has been really nice about the whole thing.  On Sunday we decided to get away from the boat and take the hike to the Turn Point Lighthouse.  It’s such a fun hike and the kids are able to make it the whole way with minimal complaining.  This year the lighthouse has opened a museum for the public and the people stationed here were extremely nice and fun to talk to:

When returned to the boat Scott started working on the boarding ladder to see if we could use it for the rest of our vacation. 

He really did a great job repairing it, so we could use it.  Zak took the kayak out to do a little exploring and did great.  This was the first time he had gone so far away from the boat and explored on his own.  It was a turning point for him and his independence. 

We had a peaceful evening and decided to check into Canada the next morning.

Pictures from this part of the trip

We checked the crab pots on the way home and had a pretty good catch.   Scott went into Roche to see if he could find our friend Dave who is a great trop rock singer and was playing up at the hotel.  His shift ended at six and he and his wife Marcia came to Ghost along with Curtis and Cynthia for a fish and crab feast.  We ended the evening by making some homemade ice cream in our handy dandy ice cream ball.  It was a very nice evening.

The 4^th was spent watching the commotion in the harbor.  We didn’t really do much and didn’t even get to town.  The wind had picked up a little and with all the close anchoring we decided to stay on Ghost and watch the mayhem.  We had dinner aboard Winddancer and watched the fireworks, as well.  It was a nice show.  Both kids were able to stay up and watch them this year.  They had fun.

The next morning we went into Roche for a little playtime.  The kids love playing in the grass around the gardens.  We headed back to Ghost and pulled the anchor.  Next stop:  Reid Harbor.

Pictures from first part of trip

O.K.  So the crossing of Juan de Fuca channel has always been one of those things with me.  The first time on the Pondo May, I spent the whole ride over the side.  It was horrible.  Since then most of our crossings haven’t been all that bad, but this time it was.  We woke up to fog and decided Curtis and Cynthia would take the lead.  It was pretty flat and calm as we left.

Pretty soon the tide rips picked up and it started getting crazy.  All of us were on deck, including the kids and I finally had to tell them to go below.  The seas were so confused and the waves so high, I didn’t feel it was safe  for them.  I went down below with them, because they were scared.  I was worried about Scott up on deck by himself, so I kept getting up and checking on him.  Of course, that didn’t make me feel so hot, so I’m not going to go into to detail , but all three of us (the kids and myself) ended up getting sea sick.  Kind of a bummer.  Things started smoothing out and the fog started clearing right about the same time San Juan Island came into sight.  We went through Mosquito Pass to Roche Harbor and planned on staying for a couple days.  We were all happy about that.

Pictures from our 1st couple weeks of the trip:

 What a beautiful sight.  Tall ships are amazing.  I get all giddy whenever I see them.  Today would be a very exciting day for me, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  We arrived in Port Townsend around 10 a.m. and anchored right in front of the downtown area.  Curtis and Cynthia decided to get a slip at Point Hudson Marina.  We anchored right next to the schooner Zodiac:

They left a little bit later.  It’s beautiful uner sail:

And then we saw the La Nina.   She is a replica of one of Columbus ships.  She would be heading south to Tacoma as well for the Tall Ships festival in Tacoma. 

We decided to go do a little beachcombing, but were exhausted from the early morning.  We headed back to the boat for a little R&R.  As we were relaxing I looked out toward the entrance of the harbor and saw what looked like sails from a very large sailing vessel.  And then  behind that I saw more.  Another fleet of Tall ships were on their way into Port Townsend before heading to Tacoma for the festival.  It was a beautiful sight.  First one in was the Lynx

And then the Hawaiian Chieftan

And then the beautiful Lady Washington:

It was a perfect day for me.  The kids thought it was pretty cool to see so many pirate ships and then they started firing off their cannons.  What a show. We weren’t even expecting it.  It was a great first day out. 

Pictures from this adventure will be posted here:  July 2008

June 2008

June was a busy month for Ghost and her crew.  The two swabbies were getting ready for the end of school and couldn’t contain themselves.  Zak finished the first grade and Ellie graduated from preschool:

She is so excited for kindergarten in the fall.  They both are excited for our fun summer in Canada.  Ghost has been the busiest of all of us.  She was hauled out of the water for a scrubbing and fresh coat of  paint:

She looks absolutely beautiful.  Life on the hard was definitely an interesting experience.  Ellie stayed with our friends, Bob, Shari, Sydney, & Annie in Olympia and Zak stayed with us.  Zak had so much fun fishing off the dock in the yard (Scott did, too!):

The only bad thing about the whole thing was the weather was absolutely beautiful, some of the hottest days that we have experienced so far this summer and we were stuck away from the marina.  We sure missed that breeze that we sometimes complain about on the docks.  Oh well.  Well, July 1^st we take off for six weeks up to Canada.  Everyone is extremely excited.  We will try to keep you updated as much as possible. 

May was a pretty non-eventful month.  We spent quite a bit of time at home.  Luckily we had some nice weather and the kids enjoyed it to the fullest:

Scott finished up the pilothouse project. Post will be coming soon.  And Ellie caught her first fish:

In April we celebrated Scott's birthday.  We met a group of our friends at the 74th Street Alehouse and had a nice non-kid evening out.  Scott and I don't do that too often, so it was very nice.  Later in the month Ellie and I headed to California to have a girls weekend away.  We met my mom at the airport and went to see my Great Grandma.  It was her 90th birthday and my mom's mom was there also.  That's Five Generations:

Pretty amazing, I think.

Later in the month we took a sail to Liberty Bay/Poulsbo.  We love it over there.  The kids especially:

We met up with our friends KC and Elaine from Hawkwind for an Alaska Airlines Cruising Club dock party.  It was a great time and we met a ton of great people.  We even became members.  We had a great sail coming back the next morning and got some great pictures of Hawkwind and them of us:

Hawkwind:

I have to say Ghost looks a little funny without the windows in the pilothouse.  Scott has been busy all month tearing the pilothouse sides out and replacing the wood and windows:

The project is going very well and Scott should be posting pictures and blog on what he's been doing as soon as he has a chance. 

I guess it's about time I made our March update since it's now almost the end of April.  March was a great month.  Zak turned 7 this month and when we asked him where he wanted to go for his party he said Chuckie Cheese.  He invited his girlfriend and our neighbors Curtis and Cynthia showed up, as well.  It was a great time, but unfortunately we forgot the camera. 

For Easter we decided to sail over to Blake Island.  The marina was completely full, but our neighbors Curtis and Cynthia arrived earlier and found out there was a big power boat that was leaving at about the same time as we were arriving.  With a little communication and pre-planning we were able to slip into their slip as soon as they left.  We were very lucky!  Easter at Blake Island is amazing!  Blake Island is home to Tillicum Village, an Indian Village that hosts a dinner and show on Blake Island.  The ferry leaves from downtown Seattle and for Easter they have a huge Easter Egg Hunt.  They invited any kids that came by boat, as well, and Zak, Ellie, and all the other boat kids had a blast.

The Easter Bunny even found some candy:

The best part was seeing all the racoons trying to sneak the candy.  They definitely wanted some candy, but once the kids came running I didn't see them around anymore.  Hmmm, I wonder why!

The kids enjoyed themselves so much.  They made some new friends and saw some friends they haven't seen in awhile.  Blake Island is always so much fun:

Making a rock into a slide:

Another fun part about the day was a Flare Shoot-off.  Someone organized this with the Coast Guard so we could get rid of expired flares and get an idea what it's like to shoot them off.  It was a great experience.  I would rather learn how to shoot them off now instead of in an emergency.

We really lucked out with the weather, but Easter Morning brought the rain along with some nasty winds.  The Easter Bunny left some goodies for Zak & Ellie aboard Ghost and Wind Dancer (Curtis & Cynthia's boat)  It was a wet search, but they found tons of goodies.  The plan was to have Easter dinner aboard Wind Dancer and then head home, but the forcast was looking horrible, so we had two options.  Leave early and have a late dinner or stay and head home in the morning before school and work.  We decided that the weather wasn't looking too good, so we stayed and glad we did.  Many of the boats that decided to head home had issues when trying to get back into their slips at the marina.  The wind really picked up.  We enjoyed a great evening with Curtis and Cynthia and had a nice sail back home the next morning.  Everyone got to school/work on time and life was good!

We might have to make Blake Island our yearly Easter getaway.  It was so much fun!

Visitor aboard Ghost:

This is Alita.  She's a beautiful German Shephard/Coyote mix who came over to visit us.  She's helping us with our pet withdrawals:

We also took a trip to visit our buddy Tabor and his family:

It was great seeing Bob, Shari, Sydney, Annie, & Tabor in Olympia.  We don't see enough of them and miss them so much.

Pictures

It was hard to get back to reality after our Mexico trip, so the first couple weeks of February were pretty non-eventful.  We headed over to Scott's brothers for the superbowl and gave Mason & Maddie some items from Grandma & Grandpa in Mexico:

The kids always have so much fun together.

Scott and the kids went to the Pacific Science Center for the first time and had a great time.  They really enjoyed the butterflies:

Scott worked hard all month on Ghost's helm station.  We tested it out towards the end of the month with a trip to Blake Island.  We spent 4 days over there and Curtis & Cynthia on Winddancer and CB & Tawn on Palarran met us over there.  It was a great weekend of beachcombing, great food and absolutely wonderful friends.  Here's a couple pictures from that weekend:

Moonrise over downtown Seattle:

The kids playing on the west side of the island:

Zak practicing his rowing:

It was so nice getting the boat out.  Beachcombing is so relaxing and the kids have so much fun on the island.  It is definitely one of our favorite destinations in this area. 

Day #5

After all the sun and excitement of the previous day we decided to just take it easy and hang out at the RV Park.  The kids did their daily job as score keepers for the water volleyball games and played in the pool.  We just relaxed and enjoyed the day.  That night, being Tuesday, was Taco Tuesday at the park:

There is a taco stand set up at a little gathering place in the RV Park and there were free margaritas and a wonderful juice the kids had.  I can't remember what it was called.  But it was really good.  It was a nice relaxing evening.

Day #6

The next day we were up early again, had breakfast at the RV Park with Rueben and then headed to Sayulita, a surfing beach a little closer to Puerto Vallarta.  It's definitely a town with a lot of character and we loved it.  We found some chairs at a little restaurant on the beach.  We orders some drinks and appetizers and watched Zak and Ellie play in the surf:

It was a fun beach to just hang out at.  Scott and I took a walk down the beach and actually found some beach glass.  The whole time in Mexico we hadn't seen any, so we found some to keep and Ellie found a cool greyish one that was very unique.  We will definitely remember that was the one we found in Mexico.  Finally the kids were getting worn out and we decided to go.  It was hard leaving the beach knowing we had to go home the next day, but we all know we will be back next year. 

As we were heading back to the hotel George said he had a suprise.  He took us up this very steep hill in the town of La Penita and the view was amazing:

Another great ending to a perfect day!

Day #7

Our last day in Mexico.  But we had one more thing to experience before we left.  We woke up that morning and met George and Kathleen at a small restaurant in La Penita.  We had breakfast and set out to the weekly Market that was in town.  There were vendors everywhere and so many people it was hard to walk.  They told us that we had to barter, it was expected, but I wasn't so sure.  I always feel bad.  But I got into it pretty quickly and started having fun, a little too much fun.  It was great!

Afterwards we headed to the airport.  It was such a great trip and we will definitely be going back next year only for more than a week.  Zak and Ellie seemed to enjoy the experience so much.  I can't wait for them to experience more of the same adventures in the future.

Day #3

We woke up early and had George & Kathleen pick us up around 8:30 a.m.  They had some more business to do in Lo de Marcos, so we decided to go to the RV park and have breakfast at the pool.  Rueben & Cece run the little poolside cafe and make a fabulous breakfast. 

While waiting for our breakfast the kids looked for iguanas in the trees.  We spotted a couple making themselves comfortable in the sun.  Afterwards Scott took each kid for a ride on George's scooter looking for the infamous crocodile that lives in the swamp just below the RV park.  The didn't spot the croc, but got this picture:

When George & Kathleen returned, the girls decided to go shopping in the town of Rincon.  We were going to look for a dress for Ellie and other items.  Luckily we found the dress, but that was pretty much it.  It was worth it, though:

We went to dinner that night at a place called Tukan.  It was wonderful food and a nice evening out:

We went and watched the sunset from a hilltop restuarant in Rincon and settled in for another early night.  The kids definitely didn't have any problems getting to sleep after all the excitement of their day.

Day #4

Once again we woke up early.  George & Kathleen met us in town and we had breakfast at one of their favorite restaurants in town.  It was a wonderful breakfast and afterwards we headed to the RV park to get ready for a day at Cave beach.  While we were getting ready, the kids went to the pool to watch and help out with the daily volleyball game.  They loved it.  Afterwards we, along with 3 other cars headed out.  The road to this beach is a little rough, but way worth it.  The beach was amazing. 

We even saw some big whales jumping in the distance:

One of the highlights of the day was watching a school of fish.  You could see a blackness in the water:

And then all of a sudden they would start jumping:

Come to find out there were some tuna that were feasting on the smaller fish and at one point we saw some baracuda, as well.  It was quite fascinating.  Some of the fish that were jumping would land on the sand and the birds would swoop down and eat them.  The school was definitely smaller by the end of the day. 

Zak and Ellie played so good together and couldn't get enough of the water:

Scott and I enjoyed it all as well:

We decided to have dinner at another beach a little north of Cave beach.  We all hopped in the car and drove to Chacala.  By far this was our favorite beach.  Mostly because of the sailboats on the hook in the harbor, but also the experience we had.  We went to a restaurant right on the beach and started with drinks and appetizers. 

They brought out a huge filet of fish (I can't remember the name of it, but they said it was better than Durado), and asked if we would like it for everyone in our party.  The fish would take an hour to cook, so we just relaxed and waited for the sunset.  Zak was playing and met a little boy.  They couldn't communicate, but made the best of it.  They ended up getting their boogie boards and became fast friends:

When the fish came it was amazing.  Well worth the wait, and then came the best part of the day:

We took quite a few pictures of the sunset, so if you have a chance take a look at them.  What a wonderful day!  Chacala is definitely a place I would like to visit when sailing in Mexico.  Another memorable day in Mexico.  We are starting to think that 1 week isn't long enough by far.

Once again, more to come.