By Grace Davis, Faith Jayaram, Jeremy Davis, and Tony Yuan To
On a regular day, rain may be considered calming. On day two of our longboat trip, it was anything but. Awoken by a cold, downpour of rain, the people who stayed on shore overnight, found their sleeping bags drenched. While this had proven to be inconvenient, our “skip-and-dip” only made our situation soggier. This activity occurred at approximately 6:30 in the morning, when we all jumped into the ocean together. The feeling of the cold water was meant to prepare us for the possibility of falling overboard on our longboat. Personally, this allowed me to connect to the marine environment and the life surrounding Saddlebag Island.
While the rain continued to fall, attempts at getting dry after the skip-and-dip were forgotten. Our bright orange rain suits were quickly outfitted to protect us from becoming even more wet. Though our precipitation problems could have offset the mood of the day, we pushed through with surprising positivity. Hot drinks and a breakfast of yogurt with granola was happily eaten by both the Townshend and Bear boat crews.
Following breakfast, each crew went off to work on preparing to leave for the next island. The morale crew took down tents and helped with bilge diving– a term for putting items back onto the longboat. The cook crew cleaned up after breakfast and ensured that all items were in their proper dry bags. The boat crew, who had created the schedule for the day, watched as all jobs ran smoothly.
With everything ready for the day, an unfortunate twist of events occurred. One of our own, Zoey, became sick and was unable to continue on the trip. The original plan was to row to Lummi Island, roughly seven nautical miles from Saddlebag Island. Since Zoey needed to leave, we instead rowed to Vendovi Island where Caroline and Tom (Salish Sea Sciences Directors) could pick her up.
On the water, each boat rowed through the rain. Along the way, we spotted several seals pop their heads out to watch us. Additionally harbor porpoises were spotted off the starboard side of the longboats.
As we rowed towards Vendovi Island, the weather conditions improved, and the rain let up. Just a few hours after miserably rowing in the rain, we were able to sail, for the first time, the rest of the way to Vendovi Island.
Our new camp on Vendovi Island had much to offer us. We were greeted by the small Island’s caretakers, who graciously let us be the only overnight guests on the Island. Vendovi had many treasures, as it is a privately owned nature sanctuary. As the sun set, and we prepared for our stay on the island, we watched the island’s Pigeon Guillemots fly back to their nests, and settled in for the night as well, spirits high for our adventures on the island the next day.