Three boats arranged to meet up for the long weekend - Baby Knot, Wind Song and ourselves. Baby Knot is a regular cruising companion and Rob and Heather has become dear friends of ours. Wind Song is a 29' ragtop (yeah, I know) and belongs to Tim Tomlins, who ventured out with us on his first solo long cruise for the weekend. Baby Knot cruised up to Secret Cove on Friday already and Wind Song went as far as Gibsons on Friday.
We left Horseshoe Bay around 10:30am on Saturday, headed for Jedediah Island, just off the South Eastern tip of Texada Island. Tim was already on his way and Baby Knot had already found a spot for us on Jedediah and had dropped the hook with a stern tie. On our way up we ran straight into a thunder and rain storm. It was the first time we had done this and it was kinda weird not beeing much in front of you and blindly trusting your instrumentation for navigation. The waters picked up to about 4-5ft but was not bad at all (for us at least). We passed through the storm just before the passage between Texada and Jedediah Islands and it cleared to a beautiful day. I radioed Tim who said he was just off the Thormanby Islands, so we figured he would be there in an hour or so. When he didn't arrive after three hours we got worried and contacted the Coast Guard, but Tim showed up 10 minutes later having lost his plotter (dead batteries) and had to 'feel' his way around Jedediah (from the opposite side) to where we were.
The next day we went fishing on Baby Knot while the girls stayed and watched a movie on Kuredu. Except for some cod (returned) we didn't have much luck and the water picked up enough to make it miserable, so we returned for a walk on Jedediah. The island is not very large but rich in history and now entirely a marine provincial park. There is an old abandoned farm house and barn on the southern tip, and quite a large heard of sheep still wondering around.
Monday we left for Secret Cove. The kids really wanted to attend first day of school (where did we go wrong here?) and wanted to return home with a tour bus and the ferry from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay. We arranged this as well as letting Mom know to pick them up, and settled in for a good dock party. The owner of Secret Cove joined us with his family and huge pot of coffee for the evening.
Tuesday morning Tim left early to make it down and Baby knot cruised off around noon. Anneline and I left shortly after but decided to explore around and cruise slowly back home.
Another magic weekend on the boat!.
