Drift Wood Cabin

Pirate’s Cove, Gulf Islands, Canada

We left Pirate’s Cove early so I wasn’t even awake yet. When I did wake up though I laid in bed for a while, probably an hour. While it seems boring to lay in bed doing nothing, it wasn’t. Since we were going up wind in a narrow channel, we tacked every 5-10 minutes and I rolled back and forth while watching everything in the salon slide back and forth.

When I got bored of doing that, after 45 minutes or so, I sat up and looked out the window. I had a really good view and I saw everything Mom and Dad were doing, while sitting in a warm sunny spot. The wind felt so good on my face I just loved it. Eventually I couldn’t stand it any longer and I got up.

As I was sitting at the chart table seat brushing my teeth, I looked up and saw one of the hatches wasn’t closed all the way and so everything near it was wet! Luckily the things that got wet we were able to dry and Dad’s phone has a semi waterproof case on it so it was fine too. It could have been a big deal but it wasn’t, so we were lucky.

There was nothing I really wanted to make for breakfast since we were so heeled over, so I had a piece of Naan bread. Even though it is better heated up it was great cold and they are big thick pieces so I was no longer that hungry. When I came outside the cold breeze surprised me so much I ran downstairs and got my sweatshirt on immediately. Now I probably could have worn my t-shirt, it wasn’t that cold, but being warmer is usually better.

Outside it was beautiful and we were cruising along just fine. The engine was off and it was so peaceful and then with one word we turned, bounced around a bit and then heeled over the other way. That’s what tacking feels like with your eyes closed, and while I didn’t have them closed then I remember from a few minutes earlier lying in bed.

Mom went downstairs for a while and I didn’t know what she was doing, when she came out she was holding two big bagels with cream cheese. She handed one to me and one to Dad, they were delicious I love cream cheese on bagels. I also like cinnamon raisin bagels because they are so much less boring than plain (even though I have had some amazing plain bagels the first time I went to NYC when I was in second grade).

The rest of the sail was wonderful we were going fast and the weather was beautiful. Even though upwind is great I did realize why people like reaching so much when we turned. We went from going 7 to 8.5 knots. It may be only one knot but one knot faster is better. If you think about it, in 24 hours we’d go 24 more miles.

Wallace Island was our destination for the day, as we came into the bay I dropped the anchor and then Mom and I went on shore to stern tie. Pretty soon we were all done and back in the boat relaxing. Mom and I wanted to go on a little walk about and Dad wanted to stay to make sure the boat was going to be fine. Apparently a few boats had dragged for the first hour or so and he wanted to keep an eye out.

So Mom and I took the dinghy to the dinghy dock and started on our little adventure. We walked out to the point and looked around. There weren’t a ton of boats out and the ones that were weren’t sailing like we were! I saw there was a geocache around so we found it and then moved on.

It was nice for it to be just be Mom and me, even though it’s also nice to walk as a whole family. We walked in silence for most of the time just commenting on things occasionally. We ended up going to another point where the wind blew my hair all around. There was also a cache there so we happily found it.

On the walk about we came across a building with driftwood all over it. On each piece of wood were names of people who had been there. It sort of reminded me of Chat n Chill with their t-shirts all over the walls and ceiling. Down below there are two pictures, one of Chat n Chill and a couple of the building/cabin on Wallace.

Then we started our walk back home and soon we were back on the boat. It was such a great adventure Dad decided to go on a run while Mom and I did school. The rest of the day was like that. We had a lovely evening while eating a delicious dinner of steak, baked potatoes and salad. It was a fun night definitely and a good day!