Anchor Down!

 Entering Squirrel Cove at 1530 (3:30 p.m.) we find only 18 boats at anchor.  Plenty of room for us!  Trying to pick the best spot, we circle around and back, choosing a location out of the gap between Protection Island, so we are sure to be out of the wind in case it comes up.  Check out the clouds!  Weather?  (turns out we avoid the gap for southeast winds....but land in the gap for northwest winds...darn!)

Here we are in Squirrel Cove anchorage

Soon after we are anchored the "moorage collectors" arrive!  This family of 7 geese go boat to boat each evening.  We fall for it.

That'll be all the bread crumbs you have aboard!

 It's a lovely evening and we sleep hard after the pounding trip up Malisprina Strait.  But....remember those waves?  Turns out the forward hatch might not have been "dogged down" tightly...and guess where the invading green water landed?  INSIDE the music bag.  If you know me, you know I did have to lift the flooring and peek down into the bilge to make SURE there was no water under there....flooding upward into the bag sitting on the floor.  Nope.  A taste test, you know, tongue on music paper, confirms s-a-l-t water.  So it had to be the hatch.  It takes two days of hanging and spreading out music / books to save it all.  For sure, our music books look "used" now...like any true ueklele player's materials.

Uke music drying out

Time for pancakes in the morning means we are actually, now, officially, in vacation mode...not "getting to the vacation" mode.

Canadian real maple syrup too!

Dog Island calls...

There are two islands in the middle of this anchorage, and as long as we've been coming here with dogs...it's where all dogs "go" twice a day...or um, stretch their legs, play ball, chase each other around in circles...and other things.  After seven hours in transit, our boys are ready to visit Dog Island!

This is not as easy as running in and out...and out and in...the dog door at home.  Oh no, it's not.  First it's lower the dinghy.  Set up the dinghy fenders and ladder.  Get the leashes.  Put the dogs in their life jackets, remember the ball, remember the treats, load everybody into the dinghy and off we go.  Not like the "door."  At all.

Are we there yet?

Oysters in the tide line....watch out!

Carefully avoiding the oysters and sharp oyster edges, we nudge the inflatable dinghy into shore.

Little anchor ready to toss!

Steve catches the perfect rock for holding

You can imagine, you would never want to return to where you left your dinghy to not find your dinghy and have no ride "home"....would you?

Ready to be released from safety gear

Sparky explores...water...salt water...

Hiking the dog trails

Life in Squirrel Cove means long easy days.  The biggest decision: should we run the dinghy around or go kayaking?  Exploring the anchorage a few memories dot the shores.  Back around 1988 there was a man living in a cabin, who made the best BEST best cinnamon buns ever.  Each night you would dinghy over, sign up for how many buns you wanted and he would tell you what time to return in the morning.  In the morning dinghies raced back and forth from almost every boat!  Here's all that's left of his floathouse today.

Cinna-bun floathouse of days gone by

Then in the early '90s a woman ran a wonderful bakery out of her retired fish boat.  She anchored off the far shore and had fresh bread and pies ready by 0800 every morning.

The bakery boat still anchored has seen better days

Then she started to operate the bakery out of the floathouses tied to the shore.  The last time we were here in 2009, she had her teenage grand daughter helping her with the business.  She only opened for the month of July and the only way to arrive at the bakery door was to tie up your dinghy and scramble onto the rickety float and over to the window.  The buns and bread were well worth the effort!

 No sign of anyone baking anything anymore.  Just the memories brought back by the things people leave behind as a sign they were once here....doing things...living a life in a remote place.

Abandoned floathouse bakery house

Photographer Steve...maybe one for a fair entry?

After three nights, it's on to Refuge Cove tomorrow....laundry?  Fresh greens?  INTERNET?  Sounds good to me.