CATEGORY: SAILING

One summer Bob and Carol Carson trailored their 25 ft. Catalina sail boat up to Campbell River on Vancouver Island, so they could sail with us for a couple of weeks.  Campbell River is just south of Johnstone Straight, which is the place where Vancouver Island nearly touches the mainland of British Colombia.  It is the razor’s edge of the Inside Passage where the climate turns from summer to winter in the time it takes to fight your way through ten miles of tide rips.  It is where the cold water of the Pacific meets the warm water of the “Sunshine Coast.”  If you are north-bound, the water is warm and warmer until you get to Johnstone, and from there on it is cold and colder.  You will think you are in Alaska all the way to Alaska.

One of the places we stopped was at Manson’s Landing on Cortes Island.  Manson’s Landing is only about a quarter of a mile from a large fresh water lake.  We (Bob and Carol and Bob and Jean) decided to walk there and have a picnic by the lake.  From the lake’s edge, we could look out across the lake and see a peninsula that seemed very close to the far shore.  Although it was a considerable distance from where we were, I thought it was not too far to swim.  I like to swim.  Just as, when I was growing up on the ranch in Grass Valley, I did not like to just ride horses for the pleasure of riding, but preferred to “go somewhere,” I also preferred “swimming somewhere” instead of just paddling around in the water.  I decided to swim out to that peninsula.  If it was too far to swim back, I could walk around the edge.

I foolishly made this decision when I was well out in the water and failed to tell anyone my intentions.  It was further than I thought.  When I staggered up on the rocks of the peninsula, I was more tired than I ever thought I could be from swimming.  I lay on a big flat rock for awhile to get my breath.  I would definitely walk back, not swim.  It was when I started to “walk back” that I discovered the peninsula was not a peninsula; it was an island. Furthermore, it was an island that was not at all close to the opposite shore, as I had surmised.  It was right in the middle of the lake.  It was just as far to swim to shore on its opposite side as it was to swim back the way I had come.

After I was rested and was ready to swim back, I saw that Bob was coming to get me in the dinghy.  He would have had to walk back to the boat and get the dinghy and carry it to the lake.  I thought he would be really, REALLY angry with me.  I was right.