"Welcome back to island life, Goombas!"

On July 2nd, we set sail to Genoa Bay for a dinner reservation to celebrate Cheryl's birthday! It felt amazing to get off the dock and onto the water where sunshine and moderately windy seas allowed us to hoist the sails for our short journey. It was a great 8 nautical mile shakedown cruise to get our sea legs back and confirm our systems were in working order. Splash felt great and the stoke was high for the weeks to come!

Genoa Bay is a pretty large anchorage and it wasn't too busy, so we anchored in ~30 feet of water and gave ourselves lots of scope to hold the chain. As we enjoyed dinner, we watched across the bay as the wind picked up and completely shifted direction from earlier in the afternoon. Into the evening, the wind continued to keep on us edge as it held at about 4 to 7 knots (okay) but gusting intermittently up to 20 knots (not as okay). These types of wind conditions are really tricky because the intermittent gusts cause boats to spin and can eventually cause the chain to rotate position as well. Too many of these spins in conjunction with a 180 degree shift in wind direction can lead to the anchor losing it's bite and popping up from the holding on the sea floor. We played games late into the night and as things got spicier, we started popping up from down below to make sure no other boats were spinning too close and to confirm our anchors were still holding. We eventually called it a night... little did we know, it would be a sleepless night.

The howling wind and relentless spinning on anchor was hard to sleep through, and both Brad and I were up regularly to pop our heads out the window and monitor our position. It was shortly after 3am when I did another look-see through our bedroom window and saw a flashlight beam across the bay, bouncing back and forth across another boat that was startlingly close. Moments later, I heard the shrill toot of an air horn and realized the boats were on a slow but sure collision course, and the person with the flashlight was trying to waken the people on board the other boat. I nudged Brad awake and after another moment of watching, we realized one of the boats was Ocean Spirit, and Eric and Cheryl were now wide awake and hustling on deck to get their anchor up in time to avoid bumping into the other boat. We were up instantly -- Brad hopped on the dingy with a headlamp and buzzed over to help, even if only to help act as a fender between Ocean Spirit and the other vessel. I watched nervously from Splash as slowly, Eric and Cheryl got their anchor up and eventually found another spot to drop their anchor, safely away from the other boat. Needless to say, after Eric and Cheryl were settled we didn't exactly fall back into a deep slumber. In fact, Brad took our big blanket up to the cockpit and slept up top so he could keep a close eye on things as the wind continued to gust hard and frequently. Thankfully, although Splash's anchor is outdated it is also oversized, and it did a great job holding us in such challenging conditions. We don't think we dragged at all but to see the size of our full swing radius as a result of such an intense wind shift was pretty crazy and a good reminder of how important it is to remember just how much room we potentially need to swing on the hook.

Eager to put Genoa Bay behind us, we slipped out fairly early in the morning and started our journey down to Tod Inlet. We visited Tod Inlet over spring break and loved it, and we were eager to share it with Eric and Cheryl. Good winds made for a great sail almost the entire way, and we dropped anchor early enough to allow for a nice walk through the provincial park with lots of time for Lhotse to swim before heading back to the boats for dinner.

Speaking of Lhotse... oh boy, I knew it would be tricky sailing with her but seeing her adapt has been tough! She is making huge strides moving around the boat and can now go inside and outside (up and down the companionway stairs) on her own, which is awesome! She is getting more confident when we're underway but if we're sailing in any sort of sea state, or heeled over much at all, she is a nervous wreck. We've tried CBD oil to no avail, and have tried (and failed) to set up a cozy and secure spot for her but she doesn't seem to prefer one area or another, and often tries to move around when the boat is heeling. Of course this is the worst thing she could do, because she loses traction and starts to slide, and then gets even more nervous. Ahhhh. Hopefully it just takes time for her to get more comfortable and she continues to improve with experience. I've ordered her a thundershirt (which is supposed to help reduce anxiety) and we'll give it a shot when it arrives in the mail. In this regard, our sailing adventure has definitely been an emotional roller coaster. Oi vey.

After Tod Inlet, we scoobied back to Maple Bay to reset and re-provision for the arrival of our first guests of the summer, Frank and Jordyn! We filled up our water tanks, gave Splash a good wash down, managed a load of laundry, and got a good night's sleep before our 30nm journey to Nanaimo the next morning.