...to Harbor Island to anchor, have lunch, and take a nap. What was supposed to be, and what started out as, a mostly sunny, warmish, light-wind day...turned out to be a mostly cloudy, chilly, very windy day. (Twenty-plus knots out in the channel.) But, however, all in all, good practice and good fun—if you like that sort of thing.

Only problem—with water so high Pax and I had trouble finding a place to go ashore. What used to be the patio and front yard of the old lodge is now a tangle of poison sumac and poison ivy, and anything resembling a beach is under water. We did see a loon, a pair of gold finches, nuthatches, crows, and a hawk, along with gulls, and terns. So, if nothing else, it's a good place to be a bird.

ALSO: Happy Canada Day, and happy sesquicentennial—all you canuck hosers.