Our wild adventures are starting to wind down. We had a great couple of weeks with our daughters and are now on our own again.
Paul and Ellie hiked all the way up to the infamous Trapper’s cabin in Princess Louisa Inlet. It is a very steep, rough climb where several people have fallen and ended up with serious injuries. Paul and Ellie were both sore and very hot when they got back but were glad they made it to the top for a cool dip in the waterfall there.
After Princess Louisa we had to take Ellie to Powell River for her air flight home. As we pondered what to do next we saw that there were predictions of high winds all week. That didn’t sound like much fun for our crossing of Strait of Georgia! Since things were predicting to get even worse in the next week, we decided to work our way as far as we could towards Nanaimo until it got too rough. We got a late start of about 11:30 am due to waiting for Ellie’s air departure. It was pretty crazy because we had calm seas all the way across except for the last hour or so. It also turned out that we hit the tides perfectly for Dodd Narrows so we kept on going. We finally anchored in Ladysmith harbor around 7:30 that night.
We heard the next morning that things were very rough around Nanaimo so we were glad we had pushed through. Ladysmith was a good place to wait for the next weather window although we were trying to get down to Friday Harbor area to meet up with our good friends, Michael and Krissi from Logum. Once again the weather mostly cooperated and we were able get back into the USA and to anchor with Logum side-tied to us. What a great couple of days eating, drinking and having a great time with great friends.
Unfortunately, we have to shift gears now and think about the timing of getting everything off the boat before and after the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show and then Ellie K will be put on the hard (stored on land on support blocks) in Anacortes for the winter. We will really miss being able to cruise during the winter months in the Columbia River area but it will be less of an ordeal to head out next summer for more adventures, whatever they may be. Also the slip we have kept our boat in for the last several years is being sold so we don’t have a place to keep her in Portland this winter.
