Crawford Anchorage near Erasmus Island is probably our second favorite anchorage. With only a new moon and a very low dew point we stayed up late to enjoy the amazing star watching.

From Erasmus we can easily take our tender to Blind Channel and we went over to see if we could find our friends Helen & Jeff of the “Tortoise.” We shared stories and cocktails before returning to the True Love, still quietly anchored in our private bay. When we have the opportunity to anchor in a quiet place by ourselves, we take advantage of the solitude.

The stars were spectacular so we stayed up late, slept in and then headed track to Blind Channel to resupply.

Although the winds were very strong just a mile a way in Johnstone Strait, the glassy calm waters at our anchorage made for lovely kayaking and we circumnavigated the little island in about 30 minutes. Earlier I had given the Captain a needed hair cut and we even found some of his hair on the other side of the Island.

Inspired by the stars the night before I began campaigning for another late night photo shoot. I can’t take long exposure shots on the True Love because of all the movement. Getting star photos requires solid ground.

It’s not the Captain’s favorite job, but we scoped out a location to take a photo of part of the Milky Way. He rightfully worries that one of us may end up in the cold 51 degree water, in the dark. But, we took the tender to two locations and found a good landing for a late night photo shoot that he felt, at least somewhat comfortable with trying around midnight.

While exploring the Captain spotted a little eel in the tide pool.

So after a day of kayaking and a late dinner we watched the sun set, the stars appear and the Milky Way bloom in the sky. Then we loaded the equipment in the tender, and with head lamps and of course life vests we headed to the flat rock at the previously explored landing on the north side of the bay. The tide was a little higher than we expected so we docked in a slightly different place, but I was able to capture a pretty good star shot. Even with my macro star lens that I used to photograph the Aurora Borealis in Norway, I could not capture the entire Milky Way. It’s just too big. But we got some good shots, the adventure was thrilling and satisfying and safe.

Of course we slept in, enjoyed some more kayaking, but you guessed it! I was inspired by the first night to try again at another location. The True Love has some cool underwater lights we installed a few years ago and I thought they would add to another star photo. I also spotted a cool flat rock easily accessible and very near to our anchorage. So I convinced the Captain (I’m very persuasive) to investigate it during the day, and it looked doable so he agreed to give it a shot that night.

Then it was off to Campbell River for a 2 hour stop for some refueling, groceries, some spare parts at a marine store and a visit to Canadian Tire. Canadian Tire has almost everything (not just tires) anyone needs in life, except groceries. It’s well stocked, well staffed and we love it!

We docked at April Point, on the other side of Discovery Passage from Campbell River. The old resort there is in complete disrepair and closed, but the marina still exists and is a quiet little spot with beautiful views. The docks aren’t in great shape, but with power and water are good enough. We had multiple zoom meetings the next day and needed to make sure our trusty starlink works best when the boat is either underway or stationery at a dock (and not spinning around an anchor).

Because the resort is now closed the road to it makes for perfect bicycling through the forest. So we rode our e-bikes to get some fish & chips near the ferry, about 2 miles away. Then we scoped out the nearby bakery for the next morning. “Aroma” is a perfect local bakery filled with locals and visitors all enjoying the yummy baked goods.

Then it was off to Gorge Harbour about 20 miles away for a stop over to meet our friends Carmie and Dena before heading further south to the Beach Gardens Marina (near Powell River) for a couple of days on our way back to our summer moorage in Pender Harbour. Gorge Harbour used to have a restaurant but they had to take it down because it wasn’t structurally sound. We decided to anchor in the protected harbour. The wind kicked up and the“ anchor held fine but we spun around quite a bit and the sound of the wind driven waves on the boat was intense overnight.

Gorge Harbour has free yoga daily every morning at a large patio next to the marina and we enjoyed a wonderful class, before raising the anchor and heading south. Jim has been doing yoga regularly with me for about a year and now he’s absolutely fine in a class. The teacher said a couple of things that we especially liked. First she said, “yoga is all about breathing, and we are just going to do some movements around that breathing.” She also said to think of yourself as having two ways to focus your attention: outward (projecting) and inward (observing). Yoga is about calming your mind so that you can focus on your breathing and inner self while meditating in the moment (not thinking about the past or the future). It spoke to us. The hour class went by quickly.

So now it’s goodbye Desolation Sound as we head south.

After docking at the Beach Gardens Marina, we had a little water pump problem, but it was easily fixed. The tube next to the water pressure gauge fell off again so I decided to cut off the end of the old, dried-out tubing there and reattach it. So far this little fix seems to be doing the job. The whole project from discovery of the problem to a lasting solution only took 30 minutes so we aren’t even counting it as a stoic challenge. I actually thought we should have done it before, but we were too tired at the end of the repair last time.

After a quick shower at the Beach Gardens Marina we walked up to the newly reopened restaurant. Over the years, especially after COVID, it wasn’t always open. It’s lovely again now and the food and drinks were yummy.

Our e-bikes came in handy once again to explore. Last time we were here we had a bear encounter on the coastline walking path. But, not this time. Instead we lucked into the last day of the Logger Sports event. We’ve seen this before with our friend Erika. It’s totally awesome.

Powell River is quite the foody place so eating out is a must. We began with dessert first, yummy ice cream at the Logger event, and then a lovely “linner” with great food and a view. At the restaurant we chatted with a man from Seattle. He heard us discussing the crazy political situation and we all found a lot of agreement about the mess we are in. He’s the head researcher at Children’s Hospital. We told him we are part of Dick’s and he thought that was amazing. He had met someone on the ferry coming over from Vancouver Island who told him that when he is in Seattle he always goes to Dick’s. Then he met up with us. We love hearing stories like that. Back at the True Love we did some necessary cleaning and enjoyed another wonderful sunset glowing off the Salish Sea.

First of all, everything is working now and we are starting our day anchored in beautiful Isabel Bay (on Lancelot Inlet, halfway down Okeover Inlet, in south Desolation Sound).

Although we so appreciate our summer moorage in Pender Harbour, we really love the peaceful experience of anchoring in a more secluded & beautiful spot. Last night we arrived and set the anchor. This spot is 70 feet deep, deeper than we prefer to anchor, but we have plenty of anchor chain and with almost no wind our anchor is holding beautifully.

The warm sun of summer has finally appeared, and it’s almost too warm in the late afternoon. The Captain kayaked and I paddle boarded to get some exercise and enjoy this special little anchorage before dusk and dinner. Although the sun set on our boat, Lancelot Inlet still had some late sun, so we went out for a ride in our tender and I played the Uke! It’s magical moments like these that make life so special.

OK, now I have to tell you about our recent water pump stoic challenge. We knew the water pump was having issues because it was represurizing itself every 5 minutes or so. Of course we searched for leaks, everywhere, but found none. I assumed it was reaching the end of its useful life (3-5 years). After calling the manufacturer in Florida and talking with a tech, we all decided it was a good idea to have a spare sent out along with another part that would be an even easier possible fix. But that would take at least a few days and possibly weeks, and after the call the problem got worse.

Our planned stay at John Henry’s Marina was for a few more days and we hoped we might get the water pump pretty quickly. Actually, because the part had to clear Canadian customs, the delivery time expanded from two days to two weeks! What happened to free trade within North America? We resigned ourselves to babying the water pump along and hoping for the best.

So we enjoyed our time there with our friends and dock mates Carmie and Dena, including a great dinner at the Painted Boat to celebrate our 43rd anniversary.

We kayaked around and found the place to dock to explore a beach front park on another day. Carmie deployed the sail on his super cute “Portland Pudgy” dinghy and it worked beautifully as he sailed it around Pender Harbour. The electric bikes also came in super handy as we used them to begin exploring the country roads nearby with all their rolling hills along the coastline, and we will do definitely do more of that in the future.

But, when we returned from our first long e-bike ride and gathered for evening happy hour, the water would not turn on at all. The Captain said, “OK, no worries, it’s just another stoic challenge!” And I thought it would be a snap to fix the water pump, as I’ve fixed it several times before, However, it was not easy and, although we did eventually fix it, the Captain was right: the project was another serous stoic challenge.

I went below and found a lot of water in the storage area. That was good. It meant I should be able to find the leak. The storage area is Tetris collection of equipment, supplies, spare parts and pantry. After removing the wet stuff and reorganizing, I spotted a water hose downstream of the pump that had detached. No problem, I thought, I’ll just re-attach it and our problem would be solved.

Unfortunately, it was not so easy. When the stabilizer was installed a few years ago the installers should have repositioned the hose but did not. Instead, the now ridiculously placed water pressure meter, is now in the far back corner, behind the stabilizer hydraulics and very difficult to reach . The Florida tech had asked us if we had a water presssure garage and we said no, because I had never seen it as it was completely hidden behind the stabilizer. I finally was able to re-attach the water hose on one side of the pressure gauge but the clamp that held it in place didn’t seem tight enough.

After a few unsuccessful tries to prime and restart the water pump, we realized it wasn’t working because the water tank was, of course, completely empty. When the pipe disconnected, the water pump noticed the drop in system pressure and must have run continuously until it emptied the 100 gallon water tank (which was half full before we went out for our e-bike exploration). All of that water drained into the bilge and the automatic bilge pumps cleared it, all during our two hour bicycle adventure!

Stoic challenges are often like this: a series of explorations, discoveries, attempted solutions, failures, learning and eventually accomplishment as the true underlying problem is finally discovered and repaired.

After refilling water the tank and going through the priming procedure again the pump worked. Yes!!!!! But….. the hose was still leaking just a little bit. Curses ensued. Then deep breathing.

You can see me here trying to tighten it with a short handled screwdriver, holding the flashlight with my toes. I asked the Captain to try but although it was tighter with his help, it still leaked a bit. Then we had the idea to use the socket wrench set and see if we could tighten it more. It took a some tries to find the right size and find a way to fit the tool into the tight space, but we finally did it, and …. it worked! No leaks!

All good, no problem, no worries, just hang loose after a two hour stoic challenge. Using the now wonderfully working water pump we showered and collapsed into bed.

It’s always good to make new discoveries about the True Love. When we get a chance we are going to replace the hose and move the water pressure meter to a more accessible location.

We persevered and are rewarded as our adventure continues. It looks like summer is here to stay with lots of warm, sunny days in the forecast. The next few days we will enjoy a bit of luxury at Dent Island followed by more exploring in the area north of Desolation Sound near the Blind Channel Resort.

Dent offers such caring service, exceptional food, fantastic docks and a nice way to meet new boating friends. We spent three days here and even got a little hiking in, lots of hot tubbing, exercising in the gym to work off all the food and some kayaking near the crazy rapids. But, we also enjoy our time in our “gunk holes” on the anchor, by ourselves. Currently, we are anchored near Blind Channel, next to the inside of Erasmus Island, all by ourselves.

On our way from Dent to Erasmus we connected with Jim’s childhood friend from Bellevue Julie (Jacobson) Saul and her new husband, John Boekholt. It turns out they met our friends Dena and Carmie earlier in the summer and somehow discovered that they both knew us. They were anchored in a special spot in Hemming Bay and we cruised over, where they met us on the True Love for some snacks and chats. You never know who you are going to run into while boating up here!

We thought we might head up to the Broughtons to escape the hot weather, but Johnstone Strait is predicted to have very strong winds. So, we’ve decided to enjoy this area for the next few days and then head South to Octopus Islands.

This anchorage offers calm waters, and fabulous star watching with expansive sky views and no light pollution! Last night we saw several shooting starts and the International Space Station!

We thought we had the True Love totally ready to go. All systems go. Our original plan was to leave in early June, but we were delayed by weather and helping my sister Rachel move to Wenatchee for a new job in her field of Addiction Counseling. Rachel has been earning a college degree in the subject over the past several years and now is working in her new career even before she graduates! We are so proud of her! It also gave us the opportunity for lots of Grandchild sports time.

On June 10th we left the dock. The weather forecast and tides looked good for a long cruise all the way to Canada. Normally, we cruise north slowly on literally our “bread run”, stopping for fresh bread at the bakery in Port Townsend, then clearing customs in Montague Harbour, followed by a stop at the Farmers Market at Salt Spring Island, where we get produce, goat cheese and of course more amazing fresh bread for the days ahead.

But this year we wanted to get to all the way to Comox (five hours north of Nanaimo) as soon as possible to pick up a replacement for our damaged tender. Our original 20 year old, 12-foot-long tender with a 40hp outboard engine was having issues last year, but we decided then to wait until 2025 to replace it. But that was before we punctured one of its four inflatable compartments on our first overnight “shakedown” cruise of 2024. We were using the hydraulic lift on the aft swim platform to bring the tender back onto its cradle and the first mate was trying a new procedure that would help shift the weight to port to make that task easier. Unfortunately, the innovation didn’t work, and instead the result was a 4″ gash in one of the inflatable compartments. So we patched it as best as we could with duct tape and layers of “Flex Seal” paint. The patch slowed the leak, but the crucial aft floatation chamber still completely deflated in only 10 minutes, putting the tender at risk of capsizing.

This was only the latest failure of one of our inflatable products in 2024. Earlier this year, we lost two paddle boards to overinflation explosions caused by the hot sun at our condo in Hawaii (another long story). And 2 other older paddle boards on the True Love failed after being stored outside over the winter. The good news is that the new Costco paddle board we bought just before leaving Seattle came with an electric pump that used an electric cigarette lighter plug.

Although the old tender didn’t have a working cigarette lighter plug, we had a jump-start battery that did, so we were able to use that to power the electric pump to put air into our leaking inflatable section faster than it was leaking out! Using that technique, we were able to safely drive the old tender to the boat launch for small boats in Comox, where a small boat trailer was waiting to pull it out of the water and take it to Parker Marine, the local boat dealer. Parker took our old boat and almost new 40hp outboard in trade on a new lighter tender with a smaller and lighter 25hp engine that solved the original problem we had with our underpowered tender lift! Stoic challenge #1 solved!

But back to our journey north. On our first day cruising we made it all the way to Montague in a relatively calm 10 hour cruise. The four hour crossing of the Strait of Juan de Fuca was calm at first but then crazy 2-3 foot confused seas developed. The stabilizer worked for the rolling, but we were dealing with some intense up and down, with some slamming, which caused a problem you will read about soon. It lasted about an hour and then the seas calmed again

Anchored at Montague, we tried to turn on the generator to make dinner but unfortunately, it didn’t work. Oh no!!!! Generator problems again! Stoic challenge #2 had arisen and we hadn’t yet fixed Stoic challenge #1. For those of you who followed us last year, you know this was a big issue for us. First we took a deep breath and used the grill to cook some duck thighs we had bought at Trader Joes (which were delicious!) The grilled duck over salad worked perfectly, but exhausted from our long first day, we went to sleep so that we could face this new stoic challenge tomorrow.

Our second day was an easy four hour cruise north to Nanaimo where we planned to stay two nights, go grocery shopping and eat at our favorite Greek restaurant. We were connected to shore power, but we knew we had to fix the generator or we would be stuck at docks all summer.

The Captain and I went down to the engine room to sleuth-out the generator problem and found that one of the electric leads to the generator’s fuel pump had fallen off and we couldn’t fix it without removing the pump. The good news is that I had videos from our repair with our favorite mechanic Mike “MacGyver” Martin, so I knew how to remove the fuel pump. We removed the necessary bolts, gently pulled it out and put the lead back on. It worked! Unfortunately, it wouldn’t stay on. But, we had Duct Tape! So we taped it on with narrow strips of Duct Tape. That worked beautifully! We’ve since had Mike look at it just in case, he thought we should do something else and Mike blessed our Duct Tape repair and said it should easily last all summer! So stoic challenge #2 was fixed even before stoic challenge #1!

After reading this some of you might be concerned that we don’t have enough duct tape, but no worries, we have two big rolls.

We now have folding electric bikes on board to make getting around easier when we are at a dock. Going up the steep hill above the Nanaimo Marina to eat at our favorite Greek Restaurant is now a breeze. We love them. Our second night in Nanaimo we used our e-bikes to go to an excellent Italian Restaurant near the Greek Restaurant. I’m using a “Lumen” device to gauge my daily metabolism and help me lose some weight by burning carbs more efficiently. It’s working really well for me. I feel better and stronger and have learned that on big exercise days I need to eat more carbs. It helps me exercise harder without aches and pains. Our second day in Nanaimo was a high carb day for me. So I was ready for some pasta and bread. We ordered their garlic cheese bread, which was more like a garlicky, cheesy, pizza with crust that was as thin and light as a croissant. In short, it was heavenly. The rest of the meal was yummy too. This restaurant is now another “must visit” when in Nanaimo.

Although it had been very windy, the weather improved during our 5 hour cruise from Nanaimo to Comox where we swapped our damaged “Caribe” tender for our new lighter “Highfield” tender. Everything happened smoothly thanks to Dan from Parker Marine. Jim and I walked around Comox and enjoyed a yummy pub meal. Our favorite bakery there was sold out of bread when we visited the day we arrived, but the morning we left to head to our summer moorage in Pender Harbour, I got up early to go for a run and procured some lovely, fresh baked multi grain bread which we are still enjoying.

Unfortunately, Stoic Challenge #3 arose while we were on our easy 5 hour cruise from Comox to Pender Harbour (our primary summer moorage) when the generator stopped working again! We just couldn’t believe it! This time the generator turned on (the duct tape repair was still working), but the water pump wasn’t pumping sea water to cool the engine, which meant that the generator would overheat in just a few minutes and turn itself off. This happens sometimes when the seawater thru-hull valve or strainer gets plugged with debris, but that usually happens when we are at anchor, not when we are cruising miles from shore where there is little surface debris. Regardless of the cause, however, we couldn’t do anything about it until we arrived at our moorage at John Henry’s Marina

And so Big Stoic Challenge #3 began. This was our opportunity to spend our time learning everything about our generator and its cooling system. Mike couldn’t come help us for a few days but he was available by text for questions and moral support.

We began by checking to see if the seawater intake or filter was clogged. Nope. That wasn’t it. Plenty of seawater was available to the generator, it just wasn’t circulating.

Next we removed and disassembled the water pump to see if the impeller was damaged – ding, ding, ding!

The impeller was broken into several pieces. After removing the sea pump, procuring and installing a new impeller (thank you Youtube) we with great fanfare turned it on and incredibly, it still didn’t work! No seawater was being expelled with the generator’s exhaust. We took a video to show Mike and he suggested we remove the pump and bring it over to Rick at the Madeira Park Marina. Rick is in high demand, doesn’t really talk to many people, but agreed to help us and check out our pump because we said Mike suggested it. He even came out and talked to Jim, which is highly unusual.

That night we sent a video to Dani’s husband Scotty, who is a real car guy, to ask if he had any suggestions. Of course, he first asked if we installed the impeller the correct way. We did, but we checked it the next day. It isn’t unusual to install it backwards. We asked if we could use fresh water from the dock faucet to test where the blockage was inside the generator. He said yes. And we really appreciated Scotty’s moral support and expert knowledge.

Exhausted, we went to sleep so we would be ready to tackle this new task the next day.

I have all the important manuals for the True Love well organized, but there wasn’t one for the generator. However, thanks to the internet, I was able to download it.

Mike suggested we get a shop vac before pushing fresh water into the generator to see if we could suck out any blockage, rather than trying to push it all the way through the generator and out through the exhaust vent. We borrowed a car from the marina manager, drove about 10 miles to a hardware store and got a cute little shop vac, some better tools and new water hose.

Then we began our investigation of the generator’s cooling system, removing the flexible pipes one by one and looking for the blockage. When we got to the “cooler” (heat exchanger) we used the shop vac but nothing came out. We then ran fresh water through the cooler and the water flowed unimpeded, so the problem, whatever it was, had to be “downstream” from there.

At the end of our second day of generator repairs we were very tired and still stumped. The next pipes we would check included a weird, “upside down V” joint which we later learned was a back-flow preventer to keep seawater from running back into the generator from the exhaust port in heavy seas. I didn’t feel comfortable dealing with that ourselves and Mike said he could come by and help us with it the next morning so, exhausted again, we went to sleep.

Mike arrived about 10am the next morning. He reviewed what we had done so far and gave us a thumbs up. He showed us how to remove the “end cap” from the cooler and clean out the coils inside, but that wasn’t the problem. I then showed him the back flow preventer. He showed us how to take it apart, cleaned it out and we found this . . . a tiny piece of zinc used in the cooler to stop salt water corrosion that had broken off and completely blocked the cooling seawater exhaust at that point . Unbelievable! I’ve saved it and it is on display. Sometimes it’s literally the smallest things that keep something from working properly.

Mike quickly helped us put everything back together properly. He found a few other little things to fix like a bolt that had fallen out of the bottom of the generator’s oil pan that was allowing a small amount of oil to leak. This is when Mike also checked our fuel pump duct tape fix and said it would likely last the summer or longer. So only an hour after Mike arrived all critical boat systems were finally working and we were ready to cruise to our favorite destination in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia: Princess Louisa Inlet.

Despite all of stoic challenges, we arrived at PLI only one day later than we originally planned!

Our hope was to get into PLI before the July-August “busy” season and we succeeded. The waterfalls are abundantly flowing. Snow fields and glaciers cover the high mountains and during the occasional sunny days, we’ve enjoyed the spectacular scenery, kayaked, floated, gone paddle boarding, done yoga and read.

Our Starlink works here pretty well, so we can stay in touch with family and friends, keep up on some work projects, relax and finally publish the True Love Adventures blog. Ahhhhhhhh. It’s only warm here in the summer but during the summer PLI is our favorite place to be.

Thanks for reading!

The Captain and The First Mate of the True Love

Since we last wrote in the blog, several good vibes and rewards presented themselves and we snatched them up. Of course there a couple of small stoic challenges too.

When we last blogged, we were planning to take a couple of days and cruise up to April Point where we planned to leave the True Love for a Seaplane flight to Seattle for the opening of Dick’s Drive-Ins’ 9th restaurant (in Federal Way) and marching alongside the DDIR Food Truck in the annual Seafair Parade in downtown Seattle.

But, first we stopped in Pender Harbour to check out a property that might give us an opportunity to secure a permanent dock space near our favorite places in the Sunshine Coast of BC. We were talking to people and just “putting it out into the universe” that we wanted dock space somewhere in the general vicinity of Pender Harbour or Egmont (which are both on the north side of the Sechelt Peninsula, which is northwest of Vancouver). As you know Princess Louisa Inlet is our favorite area and we were looking for a summer home that would give us easy access to PLI and also give us a place that we can dock for a break, make repairs, and even take a seaplane back to Seattle for a few weeks. But finding dock space in the summer for a 60’ boat is extremely challenging.

The property we looked at was interesting, and certainly a good long term investment opportunity, but a very, very, big project. And we are not looking for any more big projects.

After looking at the property I suggested we take the tender across the harbour to the newly rebuilt John Henry’s Marina (which looked like it had just reopened) and see if there was long term space open there. And there was! We really couldn’t believe it. Alan, the marina manager, was our hero. As soon as he made sure the True Love wasn’t some derelict old nightmare, Alan said we could have the last 60’ slip there. Within 24 hours we finished the paper work and its now a done deal.

With that wish granted, we called the Painted Boat Resort & Spa to see if could luck into a couple of massages for the next day, including before/after time at the wonderful spa pool. Next wish granted!

But not so fast . . . The next morning we slept in and planned to head over to the spa early, but our generator stalled out again. Oh NO! Are You Kidding Me! Deep Breath.

We were in a fairly shallow spot so I hoped it was just that the sea strainer (that brings seawater into the boat to cool the generator) had clogged up. I took off my spa hat and put my ship’s engineer hat back on. I also texted all the support team in case this “easy” fix didn’t work. And we texted Alan at John Henry’s to see if we could get our slip earlier than we planned so that we could leave the True Love there instead of at April Point (50 miles north).

The sea strainer was icky with green algae. But when I cleaned the strainer and then opened the ‘through hull” valve to let sea water flow into the generator, no water flowed in at all. Okay. Deep breath. It must be clogged underneath the boat. Rather than swim under the boat and try to clean the intake by hand, the Captain and I decided to quickly lift the anchor and head out into the main channel to hopefully dislodge the clog by cruising (briefly) at the True Love’s top speed (about 14 knots).

We were once again on the clock. Massages awaited us. And it was really windy outside of Pender Harbour. As we headed out in the choppy waves and spray I noticed a really menacing “dead head” on our port side. A log the size of a telephone pole floated vertically, with just the top few inches showing. Hitting this thing could cause catastrophic problems to hulls or damage rudders or propellers. Thankfully we did not hit it, but we felt we had to contact the coast guard and report it so that someone else could come out and tow it into shore or at least mark it with a flag. The Coast Guard asked us if we had something to mark it. Now let me paint the picture for you: Waves, spray, log bouncing up and down in the 2 feet swells, 5 feet below the boat, about 50 yards from a rocky shore. How are we supposed to mark it? We don’t have a harpoon with a blow up marker. But we had done our duty to warn other boaters of the danger (which the coast guard did with a warning over the VHF radio), so we returned to the task at hand.

Now it was time to test the generator again. Fingers crossed. It worked! Whatever was clogging the seawater intake was gone. So we quickly returned to Pender Harbour, and again dropped our anchor, but this time in deeper water. We then quickly deployed the tender and headed to the dock at the Painted Boat Resort, walked up the hill and made it to our massages with 10 minutes to spare!

In the meantime, our hero, Alan, texted us that he cleared a space for us at the docks for the next 4 nights, plus the three weeks we needed to store the boat while we flew back to Seattle. This meant we did not have to spend two days each way getting to April Point to store the boat and then, 3 weeks later, retrace our route back to the Pender Harbour & Egmont area to meet up with Jasmine, David and the kids in mid August. It also meant we could just relax at the dock, kayak and breathe deeply for the next 4 days.

And that is exactly what we did. We met new friends in Pender Harbour, kayaked, enjoyed watching the giant yacht, used up our supplies with good meals, slept in, did our yoga and didn’t stress.

Last Tuesday, Kenmore Air picked us up at the John Henry Docks and flew us to Seattle on a 5 passenger “Beaver” seaplane. David and Jasmine left us our car at the “air harbor” on the north end of Lake Washington so that we could more easily drive up to the mountains and rest up for the Federal Way restaurant launch activities.

Federal Way Opening, Fair Start Golf Tournament and Seafair Parade!

We knew we would be busy and we were. First the “soft opening” for the contractors who built the Federal Way restaurant on Wednesday afternoon and evening. Then the Grand Opening for the public on Thursday morning. Friday we drove down to Seattle for absolutely needed haircuts before helping Jasmine and the team deliver burgers at the Fare Start Charity Golf Tournament at the Newcastle Golf Course. Then on Saturday we marched with the Dick’s Drive-Ins’ Food Truck, other family members and the support team in the Seafair Torchlight Parade in downtown Seattle.

In my young life, I was in parades on horse back and when I ran for the WA Legislature I was in many small-town summer parades. This is the first time DDIR participated in the annual Seafair Parade. The Food Truck makes a perfect float. The organizing team (Jasmine, Chelsy, Lena, Ron, Ryan and others) did a great job planning everything. It was a kick. One of Lena’s children asked “is this what it’s like to be famous?” We sure felt like celebrities! People along the parade route smiled and cheered for us as we walked by, handing out little gifts. We were even able to hand out burgers at one designated spot. Technically, we had 90 seconds to hand out 200 burgers at the main grandstands. They were all gone in under a minute! The Captain walked almost the entire route and then another mile back to the car.

Of course things break in houses too. The sink in our new, very pretty laundry room came with a broken faucet. We figured we could easily install it. Not so fast, said the universe! It took way, way longer than we thought it would, but partly because of installer errors, but also because the designer of the sink faucet was a sadistic monster. But, we eventually resolved this stoic challenge like all the other before it and the new laundry room looks so pretty.

This week we drive north on Wednesday to the Semi-ah-moo Resort at the US/Canada border for our 4th Annual DDIR Family Assembly Retreat. We are just participants now, so it should be much easier (for us) than in previous years. After that we have a week to just enjoy the mountains, get some appointments done and then fly back to the True Love for the end of our summer boating adventure. We’ll blog again when we are back in Canada. Until then, thank you for reading!

Enjoy the hummingbirds from the mountains. They are all swarming and feeding before they head south. If this year is like the years before, all of the hummingbirds will have left the mountains for warmer climates by August 15th.