Saturday August 19, 2017

Greg and Byron picked up crab traps in the morning - no joy. Slack at Stuart Narrows was around 12:30 or so, so people already at Jennis Bay would likely not be leaving until close to noon. We were pretty much ready to go even though it was too early, and we wanted to go look for this elusive cell signal and catch up on email. So we left around 10:00 and at first just drove around the Muirheads to the west and the north side looking, no joy. Then we cruised down Drury where others had said they had had a good signal - no joy. We cruised past Jennis Bay and ended up seeing a pod of Orca instead! We stopped and took photos a couple of times and just floated. You know, just in case the cell signal would come floating by - no joy.

Just before noon, EG arrived and we went in right behind them. Byron called for the harbor master a few times, but no one answered. There were a few boats on the dock, including "Astral Sky" who they had met before. There was some miscommunication about where exactly the harbor master was. Anyway, EG was able to pull in right behind Astral Sky. There was room on the other side of the dock for us, but then one of the boats that was already there was leaving, so once we waiting for them to leave, there was a ton of room.

Got tied up and asked for the WiFi password from the others. Got a *great* connection!!! We were able to download a ton of email messages without issue. Also, "Sparky" who had been in the nook with us in the Muirheads came in and we did some boat moving to make room for them. Then Greg and I sat on our computers answering support requests that had come in in the past 5 days. It was a mad dash to try and get them all answered. Although other people were saying that the network wasn't that good and went "in and out", it was completely solid for us and we were able to get a lot done. Finally joy.

After a couple of hours, it was time to lift our heads from the computer screens. We went for a small walk and took a look at the garden. The previous caretaker, Warren, is still around and has planted a bunch of vegetables all around the compound on land, and in every conceivable container on the dock. He apparently says for everyone to help themselves. There was a lot of lettuce and a lot of "wanna be" tomatoes, and lot's of spaghetti squash. Sue tells me that Warren said that you shouldn't plant spaghetti squash in your garden because it will cross pollinate with *everything*. I don't know what that means veggies will look like though!

At this point, EG said that they had 4 bars of Rogers on their boat. And we checked and we had nothing. So, Greg wants to know why. Is our cell amp broken or what? So after some tests and checks, he "borrows" EG's cell phone amp and brings it over to Spellbound. Now we have a cell signal too. So now we know at least that our antenna is fine, but that either the Amp itself is broken, or Greg thinks that it is just no longer for the right frequencies. Unfortunately, we need to use Telus as our internet connection for the rest of the trip, so it's not clear what the right solution is.

Richard, on Astral Star, informs us that he will be making dinner for the 6 of them on the dock that have been here all week. He says he would like to include us as well, but he checked and just not have enough supplies to include us. We say not a problem of course, we can bring our own dinner and just join them on the patio. He says they'll get together around 6:00 and have dinner between 6:30 and 7:00. So we bring some drinks and some chips and salsa to the patio for 6:00, but it's just EG, SB, and our new friends on Sparky. The rest end up going to eat on their own at 7:00 inside the office cabin. OK fine. So we have prawn pesto pasta on SB for dinner, and Sue bakes fresh chocolate chip cookies. Whatever they ate, couldn't have been as good as what we ate.