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Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Updates

Linda has reminded me that I've been remiss in answering everyone's questions, so this update is an attempt to go back through old comments and get caught up.

Don: We've had those Costco pork loins before. They are HUGE. We usually cut them into three or more chunks and freeze them for later meals. They are great cooked on the grill. We've tried all the short wave frequencies and haven't had much luck. We'll keep trying though, you never know when the propagation will kick in and we'll be able to get a good station. Just last night we tuned in to a broadcast AM station in Sacramento. But for the time being we have to be happy with Neil Sedaka singing "Laughter in the Rain" playing on a Vancouver AM station. (Yes, we have CDs as well as 5300 songs on MP3, but we like to mix it up a little.) I've been in contact with the system administrators about sending email to verizon.net. It seems there is a problem on the Verizon end and they are blocking email from winlink.org. Don if you can, without too much trouble, send an email to your service organization and complain that you cannot receive email from ke6hua@winlink.org. Maybe we can get them to fix their system. We can continue to communicate exclusively using this web log, but it's not private. Anyone surfing the web can read my posts as well as your comments.

We've been talking to Phil almost every night on his route home. He thinks he'll be in the weekend of August 7. We sure wish we could be there for his homecoming; it will be very exciting.

What was the end result of the tour? Did Lance win it again this year?

Here now, the news: We left Waddington Bay this morning for Booker Lagoon (Position 50 Degrees 47 Minutes North Latitude, 126 Degrees 45 Minutes West Longitude). I wish we could have gotten a picture of us going though the pass to this incredible spot. It's no more than 50 feet wide. Our boat takes up 11 1/2 feet of it, leaving only 19 feet on either side. Of course the edges don't go straight down, so 10 feet from both sides of the boat you can clearly see jagged rock just waiting for a slip of the wheel. We made it though ok and were promptly greeted by the welcoming committee: two pacific white sided dolphins that live in the lagoon. We've been told that they were chased into the lagoon by orcas and haven't figured out how to get out. Personally I think they'd have no trouble finding their way out, they just prefer playing around the boats that visit their lagoon. After we said good morning to the dolphins we found a bay all to ourselves (there are four smaller bays inside the 1 x 2 mile lagoon). Of course we were only alone for a short while. About two hours after our arrival four boats chose our bay as well and anchored around us en mass. One is only 60 feet from us (I'll never understand why people anchor so close in such large anchorages).

I spent the afternoon baking bread and making black eyed peas with ham hocks. I'd like to say it all turned out wonderfully, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. The flour I used for the bread was pretty old and I'm afraid it was packed too densely to measure accurately. The result were loaves that didn't rise well. Oh well, we have new flour, maybe I'll use it tomorrow. The black eyed peas turned out good though.

I understand everyone's trouble with trying to figure out where we are, that's why I'm going to start including the positions for our anchorages. Also, if we find a web site for a marina near by we'll post it. Maybe they'll have a map that will help. To that end, take a look at www.echobayresort.com. We had a nice happy hour at their picnic dock with boaters who were staying in the marina (we dinghied over from Shoal Harbour). Also our current anchorage, Booker Lagoon, is near Sullivan Bay which has a web site at www.sullivanbay.com.