5/28/11
Handfield Bay, Sonora Island, B.C.
Miles Motored: 34
Miles Sailed: 0
Today was sure eventful…some good, some bad.
Lars fell out of the aft enclosure today and onto the sole. It was the scariest thing we’ve experienced as parents so far. He fell about 4 feet and bonked his head pretty badly and also bit his tongue. There were a lot of tears and a near heart attack for me, but he’s okay. Not long after the fall he was back to his usual happy smiley self. Every parent has a story of when their kid fell off the bed, but it makes it no better when it is your kid. He’s got a bump on his head and a bruise forming. Poor kiddo. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to look at the bump/ bruise on his head.
Today was tidal rapid day and you have to make sure you hit the timing right on the rapids or you could be going through rapids like a class 5 river. We’ve done this before, and I knew first hand that if you timed it right, for slack water, it was easy, but I still got super tense. Of course it didn’t help that I was on high alert after Lars’ fall. You need to challenge Yucultas rapids a little before slack so you can make sure to get to Dent right at slack, so there is some turbulence and there are a few places where your speed slows to a crawl of 1.1 knots, but it is doable. I was on deck because the boys were napping, so I got to see it all. It was totally fine, but I was still nervous. The boys woke up between Yucultas and Dent so I didn’t get to see Dent since I was changing diapers, but we made it through easy cheesy.
Looking back at Desolation Sound
Tor navigating Yucultas rapids
The next question was where to go for the night. There are two more sets of rapids, but we couldn’t make it on the same tidal cycle so we needed a place for the night. Last time we did this trip we went to Blind Channel and stayed at their dock and had a FABULOUS dinner. But, we paid to stay at a dock last night and Blind Channel is not cheap, not to mention that we have a very different budget now with me not working (for pay), so we looked at the book and charts and found a Marine park to anchor in, 12 miles from Dent rapids.
I finally had enough time down below and took over running the boat about 45 minutes before we got to our anchorage, but it was a good break. I saw some porpoises, Dall’s I think, and when they saw our boat they made a beeline for it so I was hoping to get to watch them play with our bow wave, but no such luck. We are into the area of no population and it is wild and beautiful. There are logging and aquaculture operations to let you know that people have touched this place, but it still feels untouched. Beautiful steep fjords with trees down to the waterline. Stunning.
Break time for Mama!
North of Desolation Sound
We had Handfield bay to ourselves and it is a beautiful little spot. I was pretty wrung out from the day with Lars’ fall and the worry about the rapids that I ended up making boxed mac and cheese (organic and whole wheat, but boxed none the less) for dinner, it was pretty yucky, but with carrots and broccoli on the side at least it was food.
We got the boys to bed and I had a good long cry about Lars’ fall, and how we are just going going going and not having much fun, and worrying about other child proofing needs in the boat. The crying was the release I needed, but it also made sure Tor and I had a good talk about our goals for the trip and how we think it is going. We had a talk about it in Bellingham and we made some good changes, but it is SO wearing to be on the go every day. We are seriously goal oriented people and even though we tried not to set ourselves the goal of Glacier Bay, we did set it, and it’s hard to let go of a goal. On our last trip here (when we went around Vancouver Island) we were at the north tip of the island by 2 weeks in. It’s not to say we weren’t feeling rushed on that trip, but we were trying to make sure we had more time on the outside so the rush was worth it. We are almost 2 weeks into this trip and even though we’ve been moving almost every day, we are still several days behind where we were at this point on our last trip. At our current pace we can’t make it to Glacier Bay in the time we have. Things are different with kids, no doubt about it. We decided that we are still going to work our way north and we’ll see where we get, hopefully Ketchikan. We also decided that we need to take break days every few days, and that, surprisingly, the long days seem to be better than the shorter days.
Tomorrow we stay put.
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