An off day – no motoring as we decided to stay put anchored in Squirrel Cove. We had a lazy morning, sleeping in, enjoying a croissant, some coffee, light conversation, some reading, and generally doing nothing. We were on holiday. The weather was quite nice, even some sun for the morning and early afternoon.
I took the dogs to “Dog Poo Is.” where I think Rocky got tangled with some hornets. He's a pup and very curious. He came scurrying back with his tail between his legs and would periodically stop and roll around on the ground only to get up and quickly scurry on. I noticed a bunch of black things on him, but I wasn't going to get near him since I didn't want to get stung. He flew into the Zipper without waiting for me to call him into the boat. If Hank, the older dog could talk, I think he would have been laughing and saying, "See I told you not to sniff that." Although Rocky was having a crisis Hank continued to take his time enjoying terra firma. Rocky meanwhile was looking quite anxious with that look, "C'mon, hurry up, do your business Hank. I want to get the heck out of here and back to my mom." I thoroughly checked Rocky out and judged he was okay, but you could tell he wanted to get the heck off of "Dog Poo Island."
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| Zipper tied up for the walk to Von Donop. |
At 1430 we decided to go for a walk/hike on the trail to Von Donop Inlet – that was fun. For so many of the years that we've enjoyed Squirrel Cove I have never taken the time to do this walk. The tides were very conducive to letting us tie up the Zipper to the beach for a long walk. First of all, the afternoon tide was very high and the ebb was only about 3' less than the high. This meant that I could tie up the Zipper to shore without having to worry about the boat being high and dry. The first part of the trail is very steep up a ridge and then down where it joins another trail to Squirrel Cove. The trail is well marked with flagging so it would be hard to get lost. However it's not an easy trail in that its filled with rocks, roots, and uneven ground - so you've got to be sure-footed. Once the trail meets up with the Squirrel Cove - Von Donop trail it was more well worn and smooth making for easy walking. The trail winds through deep second growth cedar and fir forests occasionally mixed with patches of alders and maples. It sprinkled a bit while we were walking although it was quite warm and comfortable. I was surprised that the bugs - horseflies and mosquitoes - weren't that bad considering the warm, moist weather. We made it to the beach at Von Donop Inlet and had a snack. The anchorage at Von Donop looked similar to Squirrel Cove - not too crowded and very quiet. After a short while we started our hike back to Squirrel Cove - "the north gravel beach." Don't get confused if you decided to hike this trail with Squirrel Cove the village. The dogs loved the walk and probably walked twice the distance we did by running up the trail, then back to us, and then back up the trail. The whole time the looks on their faces was, "Would you guys hurry up?" All in all our hike took about two hours and we never met anyone else on the trail. It seemed that we had the whole place to ourselves.
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| Hank & Rocky on the trail to Von Donop Inlet. |
Shortly after we got back the weather really changed to some rain and lots of wind from the SE. Just as the weather radio had forecast. I listened to the weather stations and "ooof, was there SE wind." Grief Point recorded SE winds of 18 knots with gusts. I was really glad we decided to make the trip up yesterday and not today. It would have been a very uncomfortable slog of a trip. Fortunately I anchored in Squirrel Cove where I was in the lee of Dog Poo Island and so it wasn't too bad. The wind was about 10-15 knots and the waters in the cove were only rippled. We were tired from our hike and so while it was stormy outside we relaxed inside. I took time to plan what we were going to do and where were we going to go for the next few days. The weather radio said the weather was improving after this front moved through tonight. I had decided that this trip was going to be a greater exploration of Desolation Sound. For too many years we simply motored right through this archipelago on our way farther north. Time to discover new places in Desolation Sound.
Because of the weather outside, we decided we wanted something warm and comforting. We had some left over grilled curry chicken from yesterday's supper, so I decided to make a Filipino curry. A Filipino curry is a creamy curry that has some fish sauce mixed in with your coconut curry sauce along with carrots, celery and potatoes. The boat was filled with wonderful aromas as dinner cooked, tonight's supper was delicious, the dogs were dead tired from their walk, and so it made for a very peaceful and enjoyable evening. My daily whiskey ration was particularly enjoying this evening. I was in paradise.
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