This morning arrived with the boat a little damp from the nights fog, which is typical for this time of year. In short order though the morning turned bright, clear, and beautiful. Whole sitting in the cockpit with my morning cup of coffee, as I am want to do, I spotted an odd dark shape on the shore of Larkins Island. To my surprise I realized it was a very large black bear slowly wandering the shore line grazing on, I can only assume, oysters at low tide. after a bit he moved up to an grassy area and laying there grazed on the abundant grass. This went on for a long while until he finally wandered off into the forest. I think what is most interesting about this encounter is the fact that Larkins Island is over a half mile for mainland Vancouver Island meaning this bear had to, at some point swim out to the Island.

Morning turned into early afternoon and as I mentioned in a previous post I ran into a few sailors from the Puget Sound Cruising Club in Ucluelet who invited me to join them at there raft-up In Joe's Bay. there was a light breeze, I had a few hours before heading to Joe's Bay so decided to sail a bit, figuring I would tack back and forth for a few hours. Leaving the anchorage the wind was light 4 to 8 kts so I put up the main and jib and proceeded to tack around a couple of islands. As I got farther to the southwest the wind built to about 12 kts, perfect, I thought for my current sail arrangement. Then as I tacked back and forth across Barkley Sound the wind increased to 13 to 17 kts, time to put is a reef in the main which went smoothly. The wind was not done with me though, it increased again to 18 to 22 kts so in went a second reef in the main, at this point, my jib was almost bigger than the main and I was scooting along at 7 to 8 Kts speed over ground (SOG). As I sailed to the Vancouver Island side of the Island I was able to fall off and start a down wind run towards Joe's Bay although I did have to gybe around about 4 islands and rocks. It was a glorious day of sailing where I was able to sail over 17NM around Barkley Sound and hit a maximum speed of 8.9 kts while sailing downwind with a double reefed main and jib.

I pulled in to Joe's Bay about 1530 and with the help of the flotilla folks rafted up and got about being social.

There were six boats from the PSCC, among so I was the seventh. We had a wonderful dinner aboard Boog a Hunter 42 and one of my neighbors on D dock with lots of laughs and great conversation. My sincere thanks to the flotilla from the PSCC for inviting me and letting me be an honorary member for the day.