Today we are in Heriot Bay, where I’ve been wandering with my computer in hand and a wireless mouse in my pocket, looking for a decent signal!  We're here to do laundry, take showers, get ice, fuel, water and beer. We have been in Von Donop inlet (Cortez Island ) with Rich and MaryJane in Morning Star (34’ Perry design cutter) and Jerry and Jan in Jeannie (40‘ Willard); Charlie and Sara in Allie Rose (Erikson 38’) will be joining us tomorrow.   Once we leave Desolation Sound, it will be all new territory for Kurt and me.  We start with a series of four rapids, one of which, Yuculta, runs at 10 knots (our top speed is 7 knots).  Naturally, we will be carefully planning to hit all of these at slack water.

We’ve already spent four days here in Desolation Sound.  It is delightfully empty.  We’ve stayed in Melanie Cove with one other boat, hundreds of violet-tinted moon jellies (I think), a Common Merganser and his three wives, a small flock of Sea Scoters and one other sailboat.  In Roscoe bay, Jeannie and Millie were the only two boats.  These are anchorages that, in the high season, might have upwards of 60 boats!  The nearby mountains have lots of snow and are stunning when the sun comes out.

We’ve not yet started our fishing, but Jerry has, and we had a wonderful dinner of fresh kelp greenling (a white fish like cod) and prawns a couple of nights ago.  Kurt is getting ready to test out our gear--we stocked up on the cheap cat food we were told made good shrimp bait…we’ll see!   I'll try to post some Desolation Sound pictures soon; this connection is a little too slow for uploading.