Day 27 ~ Honeydew Cove to Gambier Bay

About 6:00 in morning, I wanted to start the generator because the power was out, so I went out to assess the kelp situation in my pajamas. The dinghy was tied snug to the back of the boat and we had a mammoth bundle of kelp that was tangled around the bottom of the boat, the dinghy and stern line. I knew that I couldn’t start the generator until I got kelp freed so I loosened the dinghy so it could float back as much as possible and went to work with a pole and a knife trying to clear the kelp away from the generator intake valve, the props and the rudder. They call the kelp in this area newspaper kelp and it can get up to 60 feet in length. It actually looks like big fern leaves. I figured that things were looking pretty good so I went on with my plan and fired up the generator.

Dad jumped out of bed and ran to the cockpit to question my action. It had taken a good hour of his efforts to clear the pumps of the kelp the day before and he was less than excited that I had fired things back up, so I shut the generator down and went back to bed. The white noise fan was back on but I was sure that it was only going to be minutes before it would go back off. As I tried to go to sleep I started questioning if I had tied the dinghy securely and began to fret. I decided to get back out of my bunk and validate my tying job. The dinghy was fine but the snoring had already begun so I just lay down on the sofa and went to sleep.   

About an hour later I woke up and again I was questioning my tying job so I got up to check, this time the dinghy was gone. I raced around to find my glasses and a pair of binoculars and I looked in every direction and I couldn’t see it anywhere. My only option was to call Dad, so I did and our conversation went like this, ‘Dad we have a problem….the dinghy is gone’, ‘What do you mean?’, ‘I mean the dinghy is gone’, ‘Gone – gone?’, ‘Yep, gone’!  He jumped up and ran to my rescue and started searching in the binoculars himself. He started firing off questions. When did you see it last?  Which way are the currents running?  How long ago did the tide change?  Then he looked over the side of the big boat and there it was. I had let out so much line that it wrapped right around the stern of the boat. Case of the lost dinghy was solved and Dad went back to bed.

When we finally got up for the third time we had a first class job getting all the kelp off the bottom of the boat and the anchor. Once underway we headed across the bay towards Kake in search of a liquor store.

As we approached Kake harbor I was getting a bit frantic because every time I called the liquor store the phone went to a generic voice mail box. I was worried that I was going to have to go and tell Dad and Wendy that I didn’t know if it was going to be open. Then, finally I heard voice on the other end and the man explained that they would be closing in 30 minutes for 3 hours and they were near the public dock, which we had just passed.

I ran up to the bridge and told Dad to stop the boat because I needed to get off immediately. I jumped into the dinghy and started racing back to the dock with thoughts on what I was going to do if they were out of vodka and how I was going to sway them if they told me they only sold to the locals. They didn’t have any ½ gallons so wanting to make sure I purchased enough, I was trying to convert 750ml bottles into ½ gallons, I was not going back to the boat short of liquor again. I could see that the store clerk was getting quite a chuckle out of my thought process, and then I decided that I should just take what I could carry. Back to the boat I went with a case of the little bottles and two extras and 2 small bottles of Crown Royal. Wendy took one look in the boat and saw the 2 loose bottles and the Crown Royal and said I better turn around and try again. Then I showed her the other box, she was much happier.

Before we left, Wendy and I decided to get a few things at the grocery store. Dad just dropped the anchor and went to work and we took the dinghy and went shopping. First, back to the fuel dock to find out where the grocery store was and then further to the ferry dock where we had to climb up a 7’ rebar ladder and walk ½ mile to the store, which turned out to be nice. Fuel - $5.29 per gallon. Vodka $20.20 per 750 ml. Whipping cream $5.99 a can. A magical evening on the beach with Dad. Priceless!  I’m sure that the locals got a good laugh out of the crazy white women coming to shore to shop.

The temperature dropped and the clouds began to move in overhead as we headed north towards Snug Cove in Gambier Bay. We did some more reading on Snug Cove and made a course change to Gambier Bay. The bay appeared to be a bit more inviting, less bugs and less kelp. We spent the evening sitting with 4 other boats in a beautiful calm harbor, the most company we’ve had since we left Seattle. While dinner was cooking, Wendy and I tried our luck at fishing off the stern of the boat. Wendy caught one ugly looking fish and they got 4 of our herrings. I spent the evening reading about our next adventures.