Log Entry: Sunday, May 9th, 1999

Gorge Harbour to Octopus Islands: 19 nm

The next morning we sailed for Octopus Islands. Motoring. There is very little boat traffic through these islands: the odd sailboat (and sometimes they are odd!), a few fishing boats, the ubiquitous BC ferry, that's about it. The trip to Octopus was short: we arrived around 2 p.m. The approach was through a very narrow channel, not very deep, so we went dead slow. We anchored in 15 feet of water (as opposed to the 50 feet of the previous two nights) and in mud (no clanking!) We decided to take Ching for a walk on a nearby island. This was her first trip in the dinghy, and she didn't like the idea at all. We eventually had to put her into her box. She really liked the island. We discovered some crab shells, ground very fine and in the shape of goose droppings. Ching took to climbing up trees. From the top of the hill, we were able to look down into a shallow passage full of starfish. After exploring for a while, we noticed that a boat had anchored in the bay next to ours. They also came ashore, and we talked for a while: they were Ted and Barb from Vananda, on Texada Island. He builds boats: wooden ones. The one in the bay was 30 feet, and had a wood-burning fireplace in it!

We went back to Ilari, and decided to try our crab pot. We played around with it for a while but no luck. We also decided to try replacing our speed log. We pulled it out, after making sure all our bilge pumps were operational, but it turned out to be no big deal: the water flowed pretty fast, but it wasn't the ceiling-hitting gusher I had been afraid of. The impeller was gone, so we put a new impeller in, and put the unit back into the through-hull. We were anchored in a spot which was vulnerable to south-easterlies, but they never materialised, and the night was very calm.