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Dear Friends and Family, Hello again! It has been a while since we sent an update and we have a lot to tell you. We also are including pictures in this update. Hopefully, they will show up Ok over the internet. Please let us know if you have any problems viewing them. Here is the rundown of where we've been since we last sent an update. I forgot to bring the latitude and longitude information with me to North Dakota, so you won't see it below until we get back to the boat. Once we get back, I will add the gps information for each place we went. By the way, Della has given me instructions to add humor where needed...so here it goes...A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar and the priest says to the rabbi, "hey...did you hear the one about us?" May 25,2003 -Butchart Cove, Vancouver Island B.C May 26, 2003 - Butchart Cove, Vancouver Island B.C. May 27, 2003 - Fulford Harbor, Saltspring Island, B.C. May 28, 2003 - Otter Bay, North Pender Island, B.C. May 29-30 2003 - Ganges Bay, Saltspring Island, B.C. May 31- June 3, 2003 - Montague Harbor, Galiano Island, B.C. June 3-7, 2003 - Nanaimo, Vancouver Ilsand, B.C. June 8, 2003 - Buccaneer Bay, Thormanby Island, B.C. June 9-10, 2003 - Pender Harbor, B.C. June 11-12, 2003 - Princess Louisa Inlet, B.C. June 13, 2003 - Thunder Bay, B.C. June 14, 2003 - Galley Bay, Desolation Sound Marine Park, B.C. June 15-16 2003 - Tenedos Bay, Desolation Sound Marine Park, B.C June 17-18, 2003 - Squirrel Cove, Cortes Island, B.C. June 19-21, 2003 - The Gorge Harbor, Cortes Island, B.C. June 22-27, 2003 - Rebecca Spit State Park, Quadra Island, B.C. June 28-29, 2003 - The Gorge Harbor, Cortes Island, B.C June 30 - July 2, 2003 - Enroute to Jamestown, North Dakota via Greyhound Bus! July 2-8, 2003 - Jamestown, North Dakota Summary Update (If you're short on time, read this because this update letter is really long!) Since we last wrote we have spent a very fun week sailing with our friends Eric and Lesley in the Gulf Islands. We then made our way up to Nanaimo to do some chores and see some sights. We crossed the Strait of Georgia and went over to the Sunshine Coast to see the famous Princess Louisa Inlet. Then we made our way north to Desolation Sound and have really taken some time to enjoy the area and the nice warm weather. We then took several ferry rides and bus rides to Vancouver, B.C. and caught a Greyhound Bus to North Dakota. We will be in North Dakota through July 8th visiting Rob's family and attending their family reunion. In between all our hikes, bike rides and sightseeing, we have each been practicing singlehanding so we will be ready to do long voyages and keep 4 hour watches for several days in a row. We are both getting much better at handling the boat on our own and using our harnesses. We still have more practice to do, but are getting more confident about the prospect of sailing down the coast. We have seen all kinds of wildlife - eagles, herons, hawks, ravens, porpoises, seals, mink river otters, bears, squirrels, mosquitos, deer flies, and ticks but no Whales. We hope to see some soon, so we can take some pictures and post them for you to see. Detailed Update: Lesley and Eric arrived in Sidney, B.C. on May 25th via the ferry from Anacortes. We set sail and made our way over to Buchart Cove. It is a beautiful little cove with four mooring buoys for boaters planning to see the gardens. It is a very quiet calm little place and it wasn't very crowded when we were there. There is a little dock at the gardens where we tied up our dinghy and walked right into the Buchart Gardens. We met our friends Melissa and Jason in the gardens. They were also vacationing in the Victoria area. It worked out nice that we could all get together. The gardens are very beautiful. If you haven't ever been there, I highly recommend a visit. We really enjoyed the time we spent there. Here are a few pictures, which of course don't do it justice. After our stay at the Butchart Gardens we had a nice sail to Fulford Harbor on Saltspring Island. Eric and Lesley reminded us that Josh and Simona spent their honeymoon on Saltspring. We can completely understand why they chose to stay on Saltspring. What a beautiful place! While we were in Fulford, we went to the little gift shop near the ferry dock and took a walk over to the Provincial Park. Eric and Lesley also took us to dinner at a very nice restaurant at the head of Fulford Harbor. Our next stop with Eric and Lesley was at Otter Bay on North Pender Island. While we were there, we went swimming in the heated pool at the marina, took a walk to a cove on the other side of the island, caught and ate some crab and ate some scallops that Eric bought from a local fisherman. The weather was just awesome, so we got to swim twice before we left Otter Bay. We then went over to Ganges Harbor on Saltspring Island. Rob and I both agree that Ganges was our favorite place that we visited in the Gulf Islands. It is a great anchorage and there is quite a bit to do in the town of Ganges. Eric and Lesley spent some time looking at all of the local art galleries and shops in town. Rob and I hiked Mt. Maxwell which is about 2,000 feet. We had a beautiful view of the South and West side of Saltspring Island from the top. The hike to MT Maxwell was about 5 or 6 miles out of Ganges. Fortunately for us, on our way back down to town, a nice couple stopped and gave us a ride. They were from Winipeg, Manitoba and were visiting the Gulf Islands for their vacation. They were very nice people. We got a kick out of talking to them because every other word was "eh". We thought that was just a joke that Americans made up, but it's really true! We saw them again the next day when we all went to the Farmers Market. If you ever get a chance, go to the Farmers Market in Ganges on Saturdays. There is an incredible amount of amazing artwork and good homeade jams and other foods. Also, it's a good way to see and meet the locals and enjoy the island way of life. My favorite art project display was this fellow who owned a very large lathe. Is that how you spell lathe? Anyway, it's a big rotating thing that holds woods and allows you to carve away at it as it rotates very fast. He makes a living by cutting stumps, attaching them to the lathe, and carving them down into delicate, yet large, wooden bowls and vases. Some of the vases were made from burl and the grain structure is breathtaking. Our next task was to find a place to anchor where Eric and Lesley could pick up a ferry back to Sidney. We had a choice of going back to Fulford or going to Village Bay on Mayne. Unfortunately, we decided to go to Village Bay and were disappointed to find that the small bay was so full of private mooring buoys that we couldn't find a good place to anchor. So we decided to go to Montague Harbor on Galiano Island. While we were in Montague Harbor, Eric got the bright idea that now would be a great time to try out our white gas lantern. I had to buy new mantles in Ganges and hadn't tried it out yet. Well, it lit, and the flames got bigger and bigger, and then began leaking out the bottom of the lantern. At this point, Eric shouts, 'dump it!' So with a splash and a sizzle, there went our coleman gas lantern. By the way, they don't float. Lantern mishaps weren't the only downside of Montague Harbor, it also didn't work out so well for Eric and Lesley because there isn't a ferry terminal in Montague Harbor. They had to walk about 4 miles to the ferry dock on the other side of the island at 6am the next day. Ughh! Eric and Lesley are such troopers. They are the first people to come stay with us while we're cruising,and they really were the guinea pigs. They helped us to figure out a lot of things that we'll do better next time someone visits. We are lucky they are such good sports! We hope they'll come visit us again when we're in warmer climates! We stayed on Galiano Island a couple of days and did some walking around the Provincial Park in Montague Harbor. We also took a bike ride around the island. We rode to the north tip of the Island to find the trail to Dionisis Provincial Park. Foosh! What a hilly ride. That island kicked our butts! In our guide book it says you can only get to Dionisis park via the water, but the couple from Winipeg told us that they had hiked into it. So we biked to the north end and then asked an elderly couple who were working in their yard if they knew how to get to the park. They gave us some directions to the "trail". Their directions led us very well to a road, which then split off into 4 different directions. We followed each one and ended up every time in thickly wooded areas that didn't seem to have any type of trail. We tried for a couple hours and then gave up! We biked back to the south end of the island and rode up on the Bluffs for a great view of Active Pass which runs between Galiano and Mayne Islands. We had a great sail from Galiano all the way up most of Valdes Island to the north, and then our genoa ripped!! Nevertheless we continued heading North and ended up going all the way to Nanaimo. We really liked Nanaimo. It's a great anchorage and its a wonderful place to get supplies and do chores. We went grocery shopping, got more propane and fuel, and did laundry. We also played quite a bit while we were there. We hiked around Newcastle Island, which is all a Provincial Park. It is a gorgeous island with a nice, sandy beach on the Strait of Georgia side. While were were on the beach we met a strange man who could have been a character on Sienfeld. He spoke in sound effects and talked to us for a least an hour about the Buick he had bought several years ago and the old couch he had bought and then taken through the car wash in the back of his pickup to get clean...swoosh! I'm serious here...fiitit..payyang! He really spoke in sound effects...phhittt! Every sentence ended in one...hooosh! Now I know someone out there right now is thinking, why on earth did you talk to this maniac for so long? All I can say is the man was the black hole of conversation...we couldn't leave. We acted bored, looked around, stood up to stretch and leave, started walking slowly away while nodding and checking the time...and he started following us. We basically had to yell out, 'Look! It's Elvis!' and then bolt off into the trees to get away from the nut. While we were in Nanaimo we had absolutely stupendous weather. It was 90 degrees every day. The great thing about that is, that we found two great places to swim. Nanaimo has a very nice waterfront walkway and park. In the park, there is a salt water lagoon where you can swim. We swam there almost every day. There is also a river park, which is a short walk from the waterfront. We found a great swimming hole near a small waterfall. The best part is that it was pretty warm water and we could easily sit on the rocks under the water fall and get a nice back massage! We tried to leave Nanaimo on June 5th, but unfortunately, we didn't make it. It was blowing about 25 knots when we left Nanaimo Harbor. We only got a little ways into the Strait of Georgia when our genoa ripped again. The original cause of the ripped genoa was the sharp ends of our spreaders. I had hauled Rob up the mast and he taped socks on the end of the spreaders, so that they wouldn't cause any more rips. Unfortunately, the repair work we did on the sail didn't hold up to the test of wind, so we decided to go back into Nanaimo Harbor to re-fix the sail. We were going to do it again ourselves, but we didn't have enough sail tape and the local marine store didn't have the sail tape we needed, so we called a sailmaker to see if we could buy some tape frome them. We decided in the end to have the sailmaker repair the sail. We're glad we did that. She did a very nice job. She cut a square out where the rip was and stitched in a new panel of dacron. Rob and I had just repaired the rip with sail tape. Carol Hasse from Port Townsend Sails wouldn't have been very proud of us. Now we know what to do next time that happens and we have some spare dacron from the sailmaker in Nanaimo. Once the genoa was fixed, we had a great sail across the Strait of Georgia. We started out with a double reefed main and a reefed genoa. It was blowing about 30 knots. As we continued across, the wind eased and we were able to let out both the reefs in the main and the reef in the Genoa. We sailed on one tack across the Strait and made it to the Sunshine coast in about 5 hours. Our first stop on the Sunshine Coast was Buccaneer Bay in between North and South Thormanby Islands. It was a beautiful anchorage and the spit connecting the two islands had a very nice, sandy beach. South Thormanby Island was supposed to have a big provincial park, but the only way to access it was from the water on the other side of the island in a place where we definitely couldn't anchor. We asked some locals on shore if there was a trail to the park from where we were at and they said there wasn't. So we hung out on the beach a little and then moved on to Pender Harbor the next day. Many, many boaters had recommended Pender Harbor to us, so we had to check it out for ourselves. We are very glad we did. It is a very large Harbor with several coves surrounded by towering hills full of evergreen trees. It's a tranquil setting and quite a change from the busy Nanaimo Harbor. While we were there we took a walk up the road one night and came upon three black bears! We were walking past a B&B when I saw a bear in the yard. The first thing I did was gasp, then I said to Rob "Oh, that scared me, I thought it was a real bear!". Then it moved and we both gasped. It moved off into the woods and we both kept walking up the road. Unknown to us, the bear was walking up the hill through the woods toward the road. When it came out of the woods, it saw us and bolted back down into the trees. Then two bear cubs scrambled up a large tree in front of us. Rob and I decided that getting between a momma bear and two cubs was going to be bad for our health, so we retreated quickly counting ourselves lucky that the bear had been as scared of us as we were of it! Of course, it helped a lot that Della happened to be wearing her Darth Vader costume at that particular moment. I mean, who wouldn't be afraid of Darth Vader? Even bears know he's one bad evil dude. On our second day at Pender Harbor, we walked to Katherine Lake, which is a park near Garden Bay. It had a nice sandy beach and two swimming platforms. We watched a 75 year old man swim across the lake, so we decided we had to do that ourselves. After our swim, we laid on the swimming platforms listening to the birds and drying off. We were the only people there for quite some time. We were amazed there weren't more people there, but it was nice to have it to ourselves! We left Pender Harbor and made the long trip up Jervis Inlet to Princess Louisa Inlet. Jervis Inlet is about 30 miles long and is a huge fjord. It is surrounded on both sides by 5,000 to 8,000 foot, snow capped mountains. The trip up the fjord is long (at 6 knots), but well worth it. The water is very deep throughout the inlet. The deepest spot is about 1800 feet! So there really isn't a good place to anchor along the way to Princess Louisa. Princess Louisa, is a smaller Inlet, which is connected to Jervis Inlet by a narrow rapids named "Malibu Rapids". We got to the rapids and followed the procession of boats through. Just to the left of the rapids there is an amazing youth camp on an island. It looks like the summer camp that every kid dreams of. There was a swimming pool, volleball, a dock with canoes and kayaks and sailboats. Just about anything you'd want to do they had right there. We jealously reminisced about the dusty, sagebrush filled camps we had been to when we were kids in Nevada and New Mexico! The scenery in Princess Louisa Inlet is astounding. The inlet is about 1/2 mile wide and surrounded by 5,000- 8,000 foot mountains on all sides. There are cliffs that tower 500 feet above the water and plunge straight down into the water another 500 to 1,000 feet. There are waterfalls cascading down all sides of the inlet from way up high on the tops of the mountains. On the way in, I counted 43 individual gushing waterfalls coming off the mountain ridges. At the head of the inlet there is a big waterfall named Chatterbox Falls. We took many pictures of it, but of course, the pictures don't do it justice. You need to see it for yourself. We tied up to the dock at the head of the inlet, which is in 125 feet of water! While we were there we took the hike up to the Trappers Cabin. It was a gruelling, straight uphill hike through the ferns, prickly bushes and an awful plant called Devils Club that has thorns just waiting to get you. But besides the painful folliage, and the gruelling ascent, Rob made the hike especially painful by singing every James Bond theme song he could think of....Goldfinger...he's the man...the man with the Midas touch...a spider's touch... The theory being that any nearby bears would be terrified at the sound of his singing and flee. Apparently it worked because we didn't run in to any bear that day. We thought we made it to the trappers cabin, but we found out later that what we found was some other makeshift structure in the woods. We enjoyed the excersize and the pretty forest, but we can't say we would do it again! After that, we took some time to putt around the inlet in our dinghy. We motored straight up to one of the cliffs and touched it. We looked down into the water and the cliff kept going as far as we could see. It was a wierd sight and gave us both a bit of vertigo. We then went over to some of the smaller waterfalls that were running into the inlet. I was able to put my hands straight into a couple of them. ONe lady we met said she took a shower in one of them. I think that would be a very chilly shower!! ONe of the coolest things we saw while we were there was at night. There is so much luminescence that the fish swimming in the water glow. There were so many glowing fish they looked like fireflies! We made our way back out of the inlet and started heading toward Desolation Sound. After the long day out of Jervis Inlet we stopped at Thunder Bay. There wasn't any public shore access, so we just stayed on the boat. The next day we had a great sail north to Desolation Sound. It was blowing about 30 - 35 knots and we had a great downwind sail all the way. We had decided to start singlehanding. Della's first singlehanding was from Thormanby Island to Pender Harbor. Rob's first singlehand was from Thunder Bay to Galley Bay in 35 knots of wind!! Rob did a great job and got us all the way there in 6 hours. That's pretty good for us since it was about 40 miles! We spent that night in Galley Bay, which is in Desolation Sound Marine Park. We didn't find much to do there, as there weren't any trails onshore. So the next day we went to Tenedos Bay. Tenedos Bay is on the mainland and is also in Desolation Sound Marine Park. Tenedos is a great place! The anchorage is pretty deep, so we had to anchor close to shore with a stern tie. While we were there we went to shore and hiked to Melanie Cove. While we were there eating our lunch, we met a nice couple from Seattle, Don and Carla. We had a great time visiting with them. We hadn't had any human contact since we were in Princess Louisa Inlet several days before, so I think we (more specifically Della) talked their ears off. They are also sailors and were there for 3 weeks of vacation and then were going to head of to Minnesota for their 50 year class reunion. They had also just been in Princess Louisa Inlet and they had hiked all the way to the Trappers Cabin. That's how we know when didn't make it all the way up. There are two lakes along the hike to Melanie Cove. The lake closest to Tenedos Bay, Lake Unwin has a great rope swing on a cliff. Rob and I stopped there and swung off the rope into the water for several hours until we wore ourselves out. Tenedos is definitely one of our favorite places in Desolation Sound! Our next stop was Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island. There were quite a few boats in there and we had fun people watching and listening to one of the boaters play the accordion (apparently in a effort to ward off any bears that might try to swim out to her boat). We took our inflatable dinghy into the lagoon in squirrel cove. The lagoon is connected to the cove by a small rapids. We rowed up the rapids into the lagoon. Then we rowed around the lagoon and found our own private island. We sat on the island behind a rock and enjoyed the sunshine while we napped. Then we decided to ride the rapids out of the lagoon. It was quite fun and we only got high sided on a couple of rocks! I think the best plan is to ride it at high tide! Following our rapids ride, we hiked from Squirrel Cove to Von Donlop Inlet on the other side of Cortes. The hike was on an old logging rode and we didn't see another soul the entire time. We sailed the next day over to Gorge Harbor on the other side of Cortes Island. Don and Carla told us they have a Farmers Market in the nearby town center on Fridays. Gorge Harbor is surrounded by land on all sides, with only a small, narrow entrance into the harbor. It is a fairly deep anchorage, but has good holding. While we were there, we biked to Manson's Landing for the Farmers Market. We enjoyed the people contact and had a fun time watching some young folks play hacky sack outside. The farmers market had some great food. It was much smaller than the one at Ganges, but there was a lot more food and less artwork. We were surprised to see how many young couples with small children were there. They all live on the island and we were very curious to find out how they could manage to make a living in such a small place. We overheard them talking about a volleyball game at someone's house that evening and almost asked if we could join them. It turns out that we should have asked because the house where they had the volleyball game was right where we had tied up our dinghy in Gorge Harbor. We almost walked over and joined them, but we were too shy! We need to get over that. We did find out later that they have volleyball there every Friday, so were going to join them when we get back. From Gorge Harbor, we went to Rebecca Spit Provincial Park on Quadra Island. Eric and Lesley had read a book named "On Island Time" which was about a woman who moved to Quadra Island. They said it was a really boring book. So if you've read it, don't let it ruin your opinion of Quadra Island. It really is a great place and it's only a 10 minute ferry ride from Campbell River on Vancouver Island. We spent a long time there because there was so much to do. We walked to the town center on the other side of the island in Quathiaski Cove and did some shopping for a timer for the anchor light at the hardware store. We roasted pork sausages and marshmallows on the beach in the state park and watched the sunset and the stars. We took a bike ride to Village Bay Lake and went for a swim. We did laundry at the Heriot Bay Marina and came back and swam off our boat for a while. We went for another bike ride to the trail to Mt. Seymour. We hiked to the top of Mt. Seymour and along the way had a great view of the snow capped mountains to the east of Quadra and all of the Islands in Desolation Sound. At the top of the mountain we had a great view of Seymour Narrows (the most dangerous narrows in Desolation Sound, according to our guide book). Apparently Seymour Narrow used to have a large submerged rock in the middle that had been the source of doom for many boats over the years. In 1956, they blasted this large rock out by tunneling under it from Vancouver Island and setting off what was then the largest non atomic explosion in the world. I bet that was a sight! We also swam in a lake that was near the top of the mountain. We didn't see a soul during the entire hike! We did more sitting on the beach and swimming in Rebecca Spit Park. The water there was around 60-65 degrees, which is much warmer than we're used to. We even did the fun/pain work out in the park (thanks Stefanie!). We left Cortes Island on June 30th on a 7:50am ferry ride to Quadra. Luckily we met a nice guy named Keely who lives on Cortes Island and owns his own bike shop. He found a ride for all of us to the ferry dock on Quadra Island that goes to Campbell River on Vancouver Island. If he hadn't found a ride, we would have had to walk the 4 miles from one ferry dock to the other and we would have missed the ferry we needed to catch. His friends who gave us a ride also live on Cortes Island. They were Eli and Chris. Eli is a carpenter and makes his living doing custom work for the folks who have their summer homes on the island. Chris is still working on her teaching degree. She spends her summers on Cortes and goes to school in Vancouver the rest of the year. We had a very nice conversation with all of them. Hopefully, we will see them again when we return. From Campbell River on Vancouver Island, we took a bus down to Nanaimo. Then we got on the ferry to Vancouver. We took another bus to the Greyhound Terminal in downtown Vancouver. We had a long-awaited pizza dinner and met a man with a Harley Davidson tatoo that said "Holy Divination, Jesus Christ" instead of Harley Davidson. He was a Greyhound Bus driver from Ontario who had quite a bit of character! He told us how he used to shoot himself up with heroine and commit armed robbery...that is until he found Jesus. Then he quit the drugs and the robbing and starting working for Greyhound instead. Which is worse?...working for Greyhound...armed robbery...who knows? We took the Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Seattle. It was about 2am and we had to wait there to change buses. Just in case you have a wild hair and want to visit the Greyhound Terminal in Seattle, forget about it. It's a pit! I would say the entire place smelled like ass but usually ass smells a little bit better than that bus depot. It's the most disgusting, nasty place you've ever been. Greyhound should be ashamed. Anyway, we got a good tip from the security guard who told us about a 24 hour restaurant named "The Hurricane". Good food for all you Seattlites or Tacomans who find yourself near the Greyhound Terminal at 2am. You can get yourself a 12 egg omlete. I think they throw in a complimentary cholesterol check with it. We finally arrived in Jamestown North Dakota after 28 hours of bus riding. The good points of taking the Greyhound bus across the country are: It's cheap ($270 round trip for both of us), there are good windows for viewing the scenery, the seats are pretty comfortable. The bad parts are: The toilet reeks, even if you are in the very front seat of the bus!, the windows don't open so you can get fresh air to relieve you from the smell of the toilet, 3 out of four of our bus drivers were cranky, and the stops are too short to really get a good stretch in before you have to get back on the bus. Also, I think we were the only ones riding the bus, besides the little kids, who didn't smoke. Everytime the bus stopped, the smokers rushed off to have their stogie before we took off again. Foosh! Not to harp on the toilet issue any more than needed, but I just have to complain some more. I don't know who the idiot was that thought it'd be a great idea to design a passenger bus with absolutely no ventilation in the bathroom and combine that concept with a pit toilet. I mean come on people, you lift the toilet seat, and there isn't a flush valve thing like you see on an airplane...it's literally an outhouse they welded into the back of this bus. You go to the bathroom and the entire time you're praying that the driver doesn't take a sharp corner or hit the brakes because 29 gallons of blue sewage liquid is going to come sloshing out on you. People would be sleeping during the night and like clockwork, they'd all wake up cussing and yelling and covering their faces with shirts because someone just opened the bathroom door. If you watched closely, you could see the torment hit the passengers, row by row as the wave of toilet smell crept forward. We have been having a great time visiting in North Dakota. Rob's parents, Alice and Willard, have a house on Spiritwood Lake near Jamestown. It is right on the waterfront with great views of the entire lake. The surrounding scenery is lush green hillsides with trees and farmland in the background. Rob's folks also have a dock and a pontoon boat. We have spent quite a bit of time riding the inner tube behind the pontoon boat these past couple of days. Rob's aunts and uncles came by to visit the first couple of days we were here. It was nice to see them all again. We haven't seen most of them since our wedding. As usual, the highlight of our days has been running around playing with the kids. We really missed them the past couple of months. Rob's sister Michele and her husband Eric were also here. We roped them into hanging out with us and playing cards! It turns out that Michele has a flair for catching fish. We need to take her along with us on the boat so we can learn her secrets! Rob's Aunt Linda and Uncle Chuck have a farm nearby. We went to visit with the kids and Chuck showed us his Combine and other various farm equipment. He also let us ride his four wheeler and tractor. Both Rob and Scott got to drive the tractor! The kids also got to ride in Chuck's beautiful, red, chevy convertible. We spent the past two days at Alice's family reunion. I met several of Rob's cousins, aunts, uncles, and great aunts and uncles. They are definitely nice people because they still spoke to us after we made fools of ourselves in the talent show. We got up and taught them the song that my Dad taught to me when I was a kid "MR. MR. Johnny Trebeck". Christer liked it so much that he had me write the words down for him. Maybe he'll sing it to me next time we see him. Today Rob's cousin Dan and his wife Jessie took us out waterskiing. Amazingly enough Rob and I were both able to get up on the skis and we stayed up for a good long time. What a blast! I'm sure we'll be sore tomorrow. Skiing really works your arms and lower back. We will be leaving Jamestown on July 8th and heading back to Cortes Island. We will be spending a little more time in Desolation Sound. Then we will start our first overnight voyage with 4 hour watches. Wish us luck. We hope this will prepare us for our trip down the coast in August. We will let you know how it goes. We've been playing around and sightseeing, now it's time to get serious :-) Please let us know if you want to be removed from this distribution list (we won't cry too much when you tell us). Please also let us know if there is anyone else who wants to be added. Love, Robert and Della
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