SV Appa

Pendrell Sound

We left Teakerne Arm about 0400 in the morning.  Maybe in was 0500.  Early as hell either way.  The roar of the falls makes me sleep like I had a head injury.  Or maybe it is the wine.  Anyway, we were macraméd in the cubby hole of an anchorage and it took some doing to get out.  I had to have Max get up (he was sleeping in the cockpit) first to move out of my way and then to help me retrieve the stern line that he placed on the cliff.  Never, never, ever use 3 braid anchor line as a stern tie and loop it through a ring and then back to the boat.  We thought we were smart for doing that.  Oh no.  Took about 20 minutes of cranking with a winch to get that line to feed through the loop.  So much friction.  Gads, I was wasted tired after doing that.  I finally cut the remaining 15 feet of line when it became apparent that it was going to be stuck.  The low tide made it almost impossible to scale the wall and retrieve the line that way.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.  I am getting one of these!  Very slick.  And pricey.  Not sure if I'll need it in Mexico.  I haven't read about much stern tying out there.  Still a nice bit of kit.

Hmm.  Something is wrong with this picture.

So we started our motoring to the Pendrell Sound.  Pretty boring but no rain and nice scenery.  Lightning is ahead us as we enter Pendrell and they slow and start taking pictures of us.  I thought this was strange.  Scott's camera was reportedly broken.  I call the family up on deck and ask Jen to get the camera.  Maybe they take a family photo of us in this beautiful area and we take one of them.  Uh, no...

If you zoom in on Kate, you will see the water balloon in her hands!

All smiles now.  After the attack.

 The next thing I know, water balloons are arching across the sky in a display of firepower not seen since WWII when the Bismark sunk the HMS Hood!  We were unable to take any photos of this blatant act of aggression since we were undercover from the assault.  The barrage lasted for 15 minutes as Lightning unleashed long pent up aggression to poor defenseless Appa.  Who's only crime was soundly whipping Lightning's butt every-time they met on the start line.  As I tried to maneuver Appa out of harm's way, I called for our water balloon cannon to be loaded.  As Appa withered under the attack, I yelled to my crew to take heart, we will soon be returning fire.  We couldn't find the water balloons.  "What?!?" I yelled.  We have over 2000 water balloons.  Surely our attack on Lightning 3 days ago did not use all those balloons.  Jen then recalled that Kate, innocent sweet Kate, was onboard the previous night and asked if she could make some balloons for Samey.  We were sabotaged!!!!  Poor Ben was almost in tears as he saw water balloon after water balloon go screaming toward Appa and then exploding on deck.  "They owe us new balloons!" he yelled.

We cleaned up the mess on deck, vowing revenge and motored the couple miles into the heart of  Pendrell Sound.  Water temp 67 degrees.

After Scott dropped the hook and we rafted up, Jamie and Jenna from Sophie motored over in their dinghy and invited us over to their 50 foot catamaran for drinks.  They were with 5 other boats, most of which had kids.  We happily accepted.  But first, floaty toy time.  Oh, swinging off the rope swing was on the menu also.

High tide.  Not much of a drop.  That will change.

Resting his injury foot

We went over to Sophie and met some great people.  All members of SYC.  There were about 20 kids on Sophie including our crew.  They all went into the huge main cabin of Sophie watched movies.  

Jamie invited us to stay for dinner and we accepted.  Jen helped out with serving and cleaning.  I helped lighten the load on Sophie by drinking some good beer and a little wine.

The next morning we had to leave for Refuge Cove and drop Max off so he could wing it back to Seattle and get to school.  But not before I tried the rope swing at low tide.  Pretty spooky when you are standing there.

We left Pendrell with the promise of returning there soon.  Lightning spent the night there and in the morning headed up to Walsh Cove and met us there.  We left at noon or so and started to motor as there was no breeze.

Not much to do while motoring.  Might as well read.

Got to Refuge Cove around 3pm and restocked on fuel, food and ice cream.  Neat little town.  Co-op of some sort. 

I bought new sunglasses for $3 bucks.  Love them.  The baby and I also got new shoes.  I got flip flops and she got these cool pink Canadian version of Crocs that look like Converse shoes.  I'll have to find a picture.

Max caught his plane home.  We sure missed him.  None more than I.  He was and is a great crew member and I can't wait to sail with him to Mexico.

Bye Maxey!  <sniff>

Pink shoes are the Beebee's new ones.  So cute!

Once Max left the boat sure did seem empty.  The kids were off and so were the parents.  Obviously this would be hard to deal with.  Max helped sooo much.  

With Max gone, we took his cabin and made it into the Beebee's playroom.  She loved it.  Except for the bouncing while in waves.  We motored over to Cortes Bay outstation to refill our water and do some laundry.  

Love Canada!

She sure missed him!

We took 45 gallons of fuel on at Refuge Cove.  We motored for a total of 56 hours.  Not including a couple trips to Elliot Bay prior to our trip.  I filled up in Lake Union and took 53 gallons and the hour meter was at 2103.

Spent the night at Cortes and started early the next morning for Walsh Cove.