82 Crossing the Sound

It was with anticipation that Sandy and I looked foreword to the holiday season after spending over three months in camp. Except for the boardwalk between the houses there was no place to walk, or anything to see while in camp. A boat of course would get you to the shore, but once there unless you liked crawling through the impenetrable salal that grew everywhere there was nothing to do.

There was plenty of exploring throughout the various inlets and waterways if you had your own boat, but I hated to take advantage of Louis’ kindness by using the camp boat more then necessary.

Finally the Christmas season arrived and we could hardly wait until a Beaver came flying round the corner and up the inlet to take us for a well-disserved two weeks holiday with my folks. It felt incredible to finally get way from camp life. A person can only take so much rain and I was well over the 24/7 rain limit.

Christmas was a lot of fun as my sister and her family was also down from Terrace so we had a chance to do a lot of visiting and catching up.

All to soon the fun was over and we were on the plane heading back to Port Hardy and George waiting patiently at the wharf to take us back to camp. George as it turned out was going to be in Port Hardy about the time that we were heading home so he had kindly agreed to take us the rest of the way thus saving us a few bucks.

That was a bad decision from Sandy’s point of view but an interesting one from mine, as we shall see in a minute

The last part of the trip however started out well enough until we cleared the last of the islands off the northern tip of Vancouver Island and headed into Queen Charlotte Sound. What started out as a slightly rough sea gradually increased in intensity until the boat was rocking quite violently. As far as storms go this was not much of a storm except for a queasy stomach and if that was the case you should have stayed home. The boat was tossing around enough however to make it just about impossible to stand or to see through the sheets of water that were crashing over the bow of the boat and the pilothouse windows. This kept George more then busy as he focused all his energy on steering the boat and keeping us on course.

In the meantime I was beginning to feel concern for Sandy who was starting to turn very pale and then suddenly green. In my hurry to get something for her to throw-up in I was only able to find a large tray, which she immediately filled. My job now was to stagger to the door at the rear of the ship’s cabin, so I could dispose of it overboard, without falling down or getting any of it on myself. This was quite a balancing act as the pitching of the boat made it just about impossible to stand. Once at the door the challenge really began. I had to open the door with one hand while balancing the tray full of steaming puke with the other, and then toss its contents over board, and not go in after it.

I not only had to do this once but several times as it was not until we had finally crossed the sound and entered the calmer water of Smith Inlet that Sandy’s stomach finally settled down.

It was with great relief when we finally got home and crawled into bed that night, and I am sure George felt the same way when the power generator went off and we finally went to sleep.