It’s been a busy week or so, with lots of boat work and a couple of sailing missions.

While waiting for our new boat to be pulled out of the water so that we can fix the holes in the hull, we decided to spend some time on the water. Seeing as it was incredibly windy (gusting up to 40 km/h), we decided that open water may not be the smartest option and instead used it as an excuse to explore up the Indian Arm for a night (the top marker on the map below).

Map of our mission

It was such a beautiful day, so Lenny and I curled up at the bow to take in the scenery while Alex manned the tiller.

Lenny and I enjoying the view from the bow

Once we found a nice spot up the Indian Arm (see the map), we anchored the boat and decided to go for a swim. Alex went in first, but for some reason Lenny just didn’t want to jump in.

After the initial hesitation, it became next to impossible to keep him in the boat if one of us was in the water. Most of the time this wasn’t an issue and we would have family swimming excursions (which really just consist of Lenny swimming back and forth to keep checking that we are both still okay). Sometimes it would have been easier without him though, like when I was trying to wash my hair and he jumped on me, with no life jacket (i.e. no handle to pull him out). One big scratch down my back and one sorry looking Leonard getting pulled out by the scruff of his neck later and we were all happily back on board and enjoying the scenery.

Sunset from the sailboat

One thing that we haven’t mastered yet is boat-training Lenny. This means that mornings for Alex usually start by rowing the dog in for a bathroom break.

Luckily he used to row competitively

We slowly started to get ready to head back towards home, but when we got to the point when we should have headed west (see map again – home is the point on the west side), we decided to spend the night in Port Moody rather than going home (the east point on the map).

After a nice swim and a trip to shore for some necessities such as food and water, we settled in with a sleepy puppy to watch the sunset over the mountains.

Sleepy Leonard

Sunset time

When we woke up the next morning, we could see the sky over Vancouver was dark. Not wanting to get caught in the rain, we packed up and quickly headed home. We eventually realized that it wasn’t a rain cloud, but rather heavy smoke that was covering the city due to all of the nearby forest fires. It made for a rather eerie sight, especially with the sun trying to shine through in the afternoon.

Afternoon sun shining through the heavy smoke

For the next couple of days, we tried to get some work done on the Monk (the new boat). After they pulled it out of the water, we were able to power wash the outside. After that came cutting the planks out where the holes were, so that we could get ready to replace them.

We had to make the holes bigger before we could fix them

While Alex was working on that, I was busy starting to clean the inside. Not wanting to soak our new home in chemicals, I relied on good old vinegar and baking soda to scrub the walls. It is a big job (and we will still need to sand and paint after), but just having it clean makes it seem so much brighter.

Before and after scrubbing

After making some very real progress, we took the last couple of days off  to host some family visiting from back home, as I’ll share in part two!