This is a question that we get asked quite a lot by people who aren’t familiar with the cruising lifestyle, so I thought I would tell you about our day today.  Of course every day is different, but this is a day in the life:

We are in Desolation Sound and anchored in Squirrel Cove, which is a large anchorage.  The weather here has been perfect for the last week, sunny and warm. The water temperature here is in the 70’s.  

 I wake up first, like most days, Ralph is up first, like most days.  Charlie and I lounge for a little while and I read a couple chapters of my latest book (title is “north of normal” – kind of a fascinating read). Ralph puts on the water for coffee.  I convince Charlie to get up so I can make the bed and then we head out in the kayak so he can have a shore trip.  There is nowhere here for me to get off the kayak but Charlie is used to that so I just go to a good place and he jumps off so he can run around for a while.  As we head back to the boat I see that Ralph has decided to row out and join us in our new dinghy, which is a Walker Bay 8.  We want to get a closer look at the entrance to the lagoon that is at the end of this cove, which has a short section of rapids.  We have a good tour but don’t try to enter the lagoon as one could get stuck in there depending on the tide.

Back on the boat, I prepare breakfast while listening to satellite radio.  By the time we drink our espresso, eat breakfast, putter around and clean up it is almost 11 am.  Ralph does some work on the windlass prototype he has designed and installed on the boat while I prepare for a shore excursion.  I rearrange and check our food supply, collect all the trash and recycling and gather the laundry in a very large dry bag.  About 12:30 we load up the dinghy and motor a couple of miles away to the town of Squirrel Cove. 

At the dock we meet an older man who is bringing in books to donate to the tiny book exchange.  He feels grateful for the books because once he was very ill here and spent 6 weeks at the dock recovering and reading every book and magazine. Such a neat guy. 

In town we go to the laundromat, get awesome burgers and fries from the Flying Squirrel takeout window,

Friends caught and prepared these mussels and clams. Delicious!

walk Charlie and grocery shop.  The market is small and unfortunately their supplies are low.  We are able to get some frozen meat and a few other things to replenish our stores.  

With everything done we head back to the boat at about 4 pm.  Only a few moments after we get back we see a boat approaching and it is some friends we made a couple of years ago up here – Bill, Paddy and Libby (their pup) – we invite them over for happy hour.  We catch up over snacks and gin & tonics with no ice – ice is something we haven’t seen aboard Toga for a while.  Turns out we are both heading to the same place next so we make loose plans to get together again in a day or two.

We are both hot so we decide to take a swim and then rinse off with fresh water on our swim platform – we have a shower there for that purpose.  We spend some time putting away our groceries and clean laundry and then Ralph takes Charlie to shore for his evening shore leave.  We’ve had a lot to eat today so we just have a poached egg on toast for dinner at 9 pm.  

So – that’s about it! We are having a great time.  Sometimes we look at each other and talk about how wonderful this is! I’m trying to add some photos but the available bandwidth is an issue. Hope you are all enjoying summer.  XXOO