Today marks the first day of our second week aboard Messing About. Some people left yesterday and more arrived last night, but we feel fortunate to have 2 more weeks on the boat in this beautiful part of the planet. Slack tide today is at 10:45am so we are planning to depart at 10:30am, with our destination being Squirrel Cove. It is nice to have a quiet morning where everything is prepared for the week and we can enjoy our french press coffee and review our course for the week. Today we sail back across the Strait of Georgia and around Cortez Island, but the difference being, today is bright sunshine and calm seas. We are hoping for some wind to develop because we will be sailing on a west to east course, that would be ideal for a beam reach for a couple of hours. We will be sailing near where we saw the whales yesterday so are hopeful to see more again today.

Dinner last night was at the local pub and the food was amazingly good. We met some of the new members of our group and talked about our plans for the week. The moon was close to being full so we stayed up a bit to savor the evening, knowing that we did not have to get up too early today. The night was perfectly still with clear skies so the moon provided beautiful light for the boats in the harbor. At one point it looked like it was sitting on top of the mast of a sailboat on a neighboring dock. With it being this late in the season most boats our here are not occupied so it is very quiet and peaceful. Just boats of all shapes and sizes bobbing around in their slips. It is fun to see the mega yachts next to fishing boats, some of which don’t appear to be seaworthy.

This week we will be out 6 nights at anchor with no docking, pubs, or stores, so we have provisioned well for the week. Some goodies include: fresh basil for pasta we are planning to serve, a wheel of brie cheese, some fancy garlic stuffed olives (thinking of my mother with this one), cherry tomatoes with mozzarella cheese balls, fresh romaine, fresh raspberries, brownie mix with walnuts for some baking opportunites, a loaf of cinnamon bread, rosemary flat bread, red bell pepper, avocado, eggs, thick bacon, lamb chops, filet steak, rice for Barbara’s pilaf recipe, and of course some canned chicken for Dianna’s world famous chicken salad (she stole from Karen Bayton) mixed with celery, slivered almonds, and ranch dressing. We still have plenty of candy bars, string cheese, cheddar cheese, triscuits, etc from our original provisioning outing. Oh, and I should mention that the bar is also nicely stocked with all the fixins including key limes from Florida for Dianna’s vodka tonic. So we are ready to go!!

The internet varies quite a bit in this entire area. Some remote areas have excellent coverage and some do not. It is likely there will be times this week when I am unable to update this blog. Sometimes I can get the blog to update but not the pictures. So we will see how it goes.

I am off to top off the oil in both engine compartments so we will have a nice quiet sail today. Loving this sunshine!

Cheers