Wednesday August 9^th – We’ve had an incredible time in the Desolation Sound area! However, at some point you have to start heading south and we still had a lot of destinations in the Gulf Islands we wanted to check off the list. The wind forecast was favorable over the next couple days for the Georgia Strait but beyond that rain was coming in.

We decided to head south. It was a nice day leaving Campbell River so we decided to run down the Georgia Strait on the outside of the Copelands and Savary Island. But first we stopped for some more fishing off Cape Mudge. This time we had the downriggers ready on the big boat for some salmon fishing. Down they went, fishing amongst quite a few charter boats. Nothing for a while then we caught a few very small pinks. Needing to start heading south we were about to hang it up when we hooked up on something bigger. Skylar net the fish as I brought it to the boat. A nice Coho perfect for the dinner table!

We wanted to stay for another fish but we needed to get to Pender Harbor today and its still another 50nm away. On the way we went by a small wind swept island off the Georgia Strait that had a whole bunch of huge Sea lions basking in the sun. We stopped and watched them for a while then continued on to Painted Boat marina in Pender Harbor.

We had an ok, overpriced dinner at the restaurant (years past has been great) then the whole family made a fun evening out of washing the boat stem to stern.

 

Monday August 7^th – Time to leave Taku and head around Cape Mudge to April Point. Todd and his dad Bruce have a planned flight back to Seattle to go back to work for a few days while Tami and the kids stay with the boat at April Point.

We left Taku before the rest of our group with hopes of catching a fish off Cape Mudge just south of our location. There were a bunch of boats in the area so we thought maybe we had the right idea. We were not rigged for downrigger fishing so Skylar and I grabbed some spinning poles with buzz bombs and started whipping them out there. Nothing, after about 30 minutes Skylar got board and grabbed a bottom fishing pole just to see what might be down there. Not more than 5 minutes and wham! “Dad I think I have a big one on” he said. We waited in anticipation as a monster Lingcod came up from the depths. We got the fish in the net and realized Skylar was right, it was defiantly one large fish!

Little Ava gets the most excited. Her hunter instinct comes out as she cheers on the fishermen then jumps with joy when we land the fish. It’s so fun to watch her excitement, she’s the biggest encourager and cheerleader, but when a fish gets lost she gets really upset!

Not wanting to go in we fished for another couple hours while our friends cruised past us on their boats with a seaplane schedule to keep to. No more fish but we were very happy with the one we caught. We wanted to see Todd off on the seaplane so we left in what we thought was enough time to get to the dock. However the tide had changed giving us a 5-knot current against us, and some serious whirlpools. We didn’t make it, but Todd text us from the plane as he flew over our boat.  Bruce and Gloria left on a later flight so we saw them off then went to dinner with Tami and all the kids.

Tuesday August 8^th – We left April Point and went just across the channel to Campbell River. We have been trying for days to get moorage reservations at “the good marina” with no luck. While getting some fuel in the boat Julie tried one last time to see if there were any cancelations. Sure enough someone just canceled so we snagged their spot. We had a great lunch at Moxie’s then went out exploring the town. Tami, Zach and Briana dinghied over from April Point to hang with us one last time before we parted ways. We got some shopping done and of course hit the liquor store where they had nice cold single beers on ice. Seems like that’s just encouraging drinking and driving!

Sunday August 6^th – We all departed Tenedos and headed southwest for a marina called Taku in Heriot Bay on Quadra Island. While entering the bay I put had the boat in forward idle while looking for contact information for the marina. I looked up and just barely saw a swimmer not more than 30 feet directly in our path. Scared the living you know what out of me! This guy had a black wetsuit on, casually swimming across the bay. I don’t think he ever even saw us. I think he was training for something because ahead of him, across the bay was another swimmer but they had a bright orange buoy on their back so boaters could see them. This guy was taking some serious chances with only a black wetsuit on.

After settling in we took the dinghy over to Rebecca Spit. It’s a huge sliver of land that forms the bay with nice sandy beaches and more driftwood than you could imagine. This place gets some serious weather! We all had fun scouring the beaches, playing in the water and relaxing in the sun.

That evening we all went to dinner at the Heriot Bay Inn. They had some really incredible food. It’s amazing that in some of these really remote places they still manage to pull off quality restaurants that would rival any big city.