My primary chore intended for last night was to post the blog entries I'd composed aboard the boat during the day. I'd thought I would head up to Rocky Mountain Pizza to munch an Italian pie and use their internet as I'd done for lattes and rolls on two consecutive mornings, but my 5:30 start was too late for the 5 pm closing, so I had to go foraging for another place. Walking down the main thoroughfare wearing my laptop-encumbered back pack, I came across Snickers, a Greek place that I remembered to have been well-recommended by my cruising guide, so in I went.
It was without much hope that I sheepishly explained my quest for internet access to the hostess as she seated me. That sort of thing is hardly to be expected in any serious restaurant, much less a Greek one. (Did I just insult Greek restaurants? I meant no offense at all.) With a slightly conspiratorial aire, she led me to a table on one side of their vine canopied patio that was known to be a nexus for mysterious cosmic signals from some unknown neighborhood source. I sat down in happy anticipation, but then, with dawning woe, realized that there was no power outlet nearby. My old laptop is battery deficient, so requires a ready source of power and I seemed to have been foiled in my quest.
As I sat there bemoaning the sad fate of my errand, yet determined to chill and enjoy a fine, relaxing meal with nothing better to do than enjoy the ambiance, I looked up and there, among the ceiling of grape leaves, I saw the expectant female end of their mood enhancing string of white Christmas lights. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually drummed up enough courage to ask that kind hostess if she could turn the lights on sooner than their usual dusk-time appearance so I could plug in and turn on. She somewhat bemusedly said she'd have to ask the boss, but I saw they were on soon after I got to my table. It was under the curious stares of more than one fellow patron that I stood up and plugged what suddenly seemed to me to be a glaringly white power cord into the outlet, leaving it dangling shamelessly from the leafy overhead to the beaten up PowerBook G4 sitting garishly on my table.
In addition to a fine, FINE olive, mushroom, and ortega chile pizza complemented by two mugs of Snickers' finest gingerale, the evening was a complete success as attested to by the barrage of blog posts my happy readers should have noted on September 12th. I hope you all appreciate what lengths I'll go to to get out the latest word on my maritime adventures.
So, this morning it was wrapping up a few more errands, paying off the good man in charge of charging mooring fees, and I once more set off for the high seas. It was a very nice motor/sail up the Sunshine Coast past Powell River and Savary Island and through Thulin Passage between the Copeland Islands and mainland British Columbia.
Listening to the weather report along the way, I was loathe to hear that the first big storm of the season was expected to make its presence felt by mid-week. It sounded ominous, so I put that info high on my mental voyage planning list.
As I rounded Sarah Point the slight breeze and the dramatically cloud-clad mountain backdrop encouraged me to set sail, so I introduced myself to Desolation Sound with a gentle reach across the mouth of Malaspina Inlet and around Zephine Head into Galley Bay where I found a tidy little cove in the southwest corner of the bay and settled in for the night.
