MAY 13
BOATING WITH OLD DEAF PEOPLE
Motored from Walsh Cove to Campbell River via Pryce Channel – Deer Passage – Sutil Channel. It’s Tanis’s last night onboard, a good time was held by all. In the morning Sideways is preparing the boat to get off the dock. Hanging off the stern she’s undoing the electrical cord, carefully pulling OMOO close to the dock by the stern line and streeeetcccching to secure the cord on the rail. It’s impossible, so she calls to the crew below who are drinking coffee lazily and laughing at each other’s jokes. “Help me, help me” she calls. The reply, “Yes, we’re happy, how nice of you to ask.” Hopefully they come to her rescue before dropping the lines and taking off.
May 14-16
Through Seymour Narrows at slack tide (3:30pm) and up Discovery Passage to HUMMINGBIRD BAY, actually Thurston Bay. We renamed the bay when at anchor a hummingbird zipped past our noses in the cockpit, stopping for a close up of each of us and off it went. Next stop Port Harvey (see HIGHWAY TO THE WORLD MAY 16).
ALERT BAY WITH HOOTIE!! Our sailing buddy Judy Durnford,(and a nurse at Alert Bay) -us some room on the dock among the working boats and made us lunch on PALOMA – DELISH!! After chili for all we took the walk around town, a tour of the hospital, totems, estuary and the cultural center. WE LUV ALERT BAY, it’s rich culture and characters of the town are exciting in a very laid back way. It’s the kind of place you can’t really explain to others, it requires a visit to understand. IT’S AN EXPERIENCE LIKE SO MANY COMMUNITIES OF THE WEST COAST, THEY ARE ALIVE WITH HISTORY, STORIES OF LIVES LIVED, DREAMS REALIZED, SOME LOST AND MANY IN THE MAKING.
MAY 17 PORT MCNEIL for a stop-over of two weeks, Sideways off to work in Vancouver. Hershey and crew head off to the Broughtons.
